Deus: The Eurynome Code, Book Six

by Gorman, K.

  Her shoulders relaxed down, each muscle group precise in its movement, and she felt a breath slide out of her.

  Selective psychopathy. She couldn’t feel some of the things she’d felt before, but she could certainly recognize their absence.

  And it was eating at her like a hole.

  But, slowly, that hole was filling in.

  She still felt rage, after all. And bloodlust. And she was still capable of happiness.

  Fuck me. That is not the combination I want.

  A low reverberation caught her attention in the air. She lifted her head to the sky, recognizing the sound of a ship’s engine just as the Nemina’s new contact alert buzzed on her netlink―the Avius, a short-speed cruiser with part of the UN delegation on it. Even from a distance, she could see the difference in technology levels. Whereas the Alliance and Fallon vessels tended to float and flutter in the air, the Earth ship seemed more battered by the wind.

  Odd, she thought. Earth wasn’t that behind on technology. They just didn’t have as much…success as the other systems.

  The ship slowed as it approached, putting a shadow on the parking lot. She squinted against the rush of wind that buffeted the terminal, feeling the sweat dry on her skin. It landed just beyond the next vehicle, its exhaust leaving ripples in the air. Within seconds of landing, its engines were winding down, and there came the clunks of magnetic locks releasing on the ship’s doors.

  “The Earth delegation?” Takahashi’s brows furrowed as he analyzed his guess, no doubt having read the ship’s identification number on the side panel: UN-1094-AVI. “I thought they were already here. Was I mistaken?”

  “Most of them were here. We were waiting on representation from one of the northern spheres.”

  “Ah. I had heard that they still used a multi-partisan system. How is that possible? It seems so…” His mouth worked, and she recognized that he was both thinking of the problem while trying to find the correct wording for it. “Extraneous,” he finished. “Less decisive.”

  “It’s historical, I expect,” she said. “Back when Earth was just warring factions. You can’t just change that after millennia.”

  “We all came from Earth. We evolved and adapted. Did they not unite to form countries?”

  She shook her head. “It’s…complicated. You need to look at the history. It’s not as cut and dry as it is in the Sirius system.”

  “Sirius isn’t so cut and dry, either. We just overcame. We evolved.”

  “Yes. And I hear that the Independents are very happy about that.”

  The Independents, Sirius System’s technical third government, lived on the peripheries of the two system’s main governors. Where Fallon and Alliance failed to patrol, or failed to keep under control―or, likely, failed in many ways―the Indies stepped in. They lived largely in the Belt beyond Clemens, where the system’s two suns were merely stars, though there were pockets of Independent governance throughout the system. Small, ragtag communities that fell between the two empires’ cracks and had declared autonomy for themselves.

  Mostly, Fallon and Alliance ignored them.

  But they’d been gaining strength. And if you went at all into the Belt, they were the only ones who would help you.

  Their main business, however, was piracy.

  She shook her head, brushing the topic aside. “You’ll have to read up on it yourself, I expect. I’ve been a little too brainwashed to explain it properly. And have it make sense. Thank you, Doctor.”

  He gave her a nod. “You’re welcome, Karin.”

  She didn’t often thank him, but their conversation had felt a touch more intimate today. And he did do a lot of work for her. She pushed off, striding out from under the armpit of the Nemina’s wing where they’d stacked the excess cargo. Fallon had transported the Nemina from where they’d left it in Macedonia, then taken the Shadow Nemina―the ship she’d brought over from the Shadow World and used to escape the Centauri and fly to Brazil―into their custody.

  It was currently under a series of tents and tarps, surrounded by scientific instruments, and being slowly picked apart.

  The Avius’ engine still whined, audibly ticking as the components cooled, and she took a moment to listen to it, losing herself in the sound and the brightness of the sun on her face. She took a deep breath, shoulders slipping down. Voices came from the other side, as well as a few rumbles and bangs―people offloading something. The engine continued to cool, the noise slightly too high a pitch compared to the rest of the ships around them.

  An old carbide engine block, she suspected. Soo-jin would know for sure, or perhaps Marc. Even if she hadn’t noticed the odd whine, the ship’s plating would have given it away. No one used rivets anymore, unless in deliberately vintage decoration, and though the bulbous, curvy design had come back into fashion, as was visible on the Alliance’s landed ships, the Avius’ profile was just too vintage to blend in.

  Ah, Earth. Always lagging behind on the spaceflight tech.

  Then again, most of its battles and wars had been terrestrial. It hadn’t needed the addition of a military space fleet for defense. Not even in the last war, when major nuclear damage had been dealt, did they extend into space. Mars wanted nothing to do with them, for one, and the only thing Sirius or Centauri were sending back through the gates were trade envoys and tourists.

  She blew out a breath and gave herself a small shake.

  Gods, she was tired. But she felt too restless to sleep. And she didn’t feel like going back to the Nemina right now.

  Marc was in there. She didn’t want to see him just now. Her psychopathy was a giant bull of an elephant squeezed between them, and she had little intention to hash it out.

  Either they would work, or they wouldn’t. And she didn’t care which way it went, which was a problem.

  As if on cue, her netlink beeped. FSS Courant, notifying her of a mission briefing in the war room.

  Her eyebrows dipped down into a frown, and she stopped walking, staring at it.

  Another mission? She’d just come back from one.

  Then again, they had been doing a near-constant stream of missions, lately. With her new modifications, she had something closer to Nomiki’s stamina with these things, and using her dimensional powers put a lot fewer soldiers in the line of fire.

  Given that the Shadow attacks had kneecapped the Sirius systems’ military and civilian responses, and the fact that they were currently dealing with another Centauri nation in orbit―Finlai Center Core, who had not surrendered like the ones on Earth had―keeping the normal, non-magical troops out of the line of fire was a good idea.

  But…

  We need to find Sasha.

  She let out a breath and closed her eyes, feeling the weight behind them.

  “Fuck.”

  She stayed like that for a moment, bringing a hand up to rub along the bridge of her nose.

  Gods, she was tired. And another headache was starting to inch its way in.

  She switched directions and headed for the long, elegant lines of the FSS Courant that was parked in a slant at the front end of the parking lot, dwarfing the trees and building beside it.

  She had a job to do.

  Chapter Three

  She popped a quick-acting painkiller down her throat, snapped up a coffee pack from the Courant’s break room, and headed up the hall toward the war room, waving her fingers at a few soldiers and techs she recognized in the corridors.

  She’d come to know the regulars fairly well over the past few days. Though the crew members rotated out more than she did―normal humans, as it happened, did not function well on little sleep and back-to-back missions―many of the faces had grown familiar.

  The Courant was the main ship they’d used for missions.

  She was just sipping her coffee and waiting for the doors of the lift to close when a shuffle of running footsteps came from outside. Eric Kalinsky, the UN representative from the United States, darted through the closing doors, giving h
er a smile as he positioned himself next to her.

  At around six feet, he was a conventionally attractive man in his late forties with a thick ruffle of wavy blond hair, blue eyes, and a smile that was deliberately disarming. But, like most of the higher-level military politicians she was getting to know, the face masked a boatload of hidden goals and motivations.

  She lifted an eyebrow as his late entrance made the doors beep a warning and shuffle back on their track again.

  “Sorry,” he said, leaning forward to press the ‘door close’ button on the interface. “Thought I was a bit quicker than that, but by the time I started running, it was too late to save face and I was committed.”

  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a lie, Tia thought dryly.

  Karin focused on him with a tired eye, not buying the excuse. He’d wanted to get her alone for a reason, and she doubted it had anything to do with the wait for the next elevator.

  I haven’t had nearly enough coffee for whatever crap he’s about to serve.

  Sure enough, when he turned back to her, his expression had gone from apologetic and joking to apologetic and serious.

  “Ms. Makos―I was wondering if I could have a word.”

  She gestured to the floor monitor at the top of the door. “You have about three levels. Go for it.”

  He grunted. Then, to her surprise, he glanced over and pressed the emergency stop on the elevator panel.

  The car halted abruptly between floors, and a small warning chimed from the panel.

  ‘Emergency stop detected. Maintenance notified. Please wait.’

  Huh. Maybe this would be a more exciting conversation than she’d thought.

  She lifted an eyebrow at the closed door. “Skating pretty close to the edge, aren’t you? You know they can hear us on the feed?”

  “Yes, I’m aware.” This time, the smile had dropped some of its charm. He’d likely realized it was a wasted effort on her. Instead, a grimness set in, along with a slight frown. “They’re always watching you.”

  She took a sip of her coffee. “I uploaded an unknown personality into my head and became a psychopathic killing machine a week ago. I’d be watching me, too.”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “So long as we find a way to get to Sasha and they let me deal with it, I don’t give a shit.” She sighed. “I have to admit―I do think it’s a waste of resources.”

  “Do you trust Fallon?” he asked. “The Alliance?”

  “The Alliance? No. They burned that bridge when they kidnapped me. Fallon, yes.” She shrugged. “Every government has their secrets, and I expect Fallon is just trying to cover its ass with this surveillance thing.”

  “And the Centauri?” he asked.

  “What about them?”

  “Do you trust them?”

  That earned him a skeptical eyebrow. “The Centauri are not my problem. As far as I know, they’ve surrendered.”

  “Half of them did,” he corrected. “The Menassi Tri-Quad Alliance, whose leader you defeated last week. The other nation, Finlai Center Core, reached a tentative ceasefire and is still active in orbit.”

  “Good for them,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  He was giving her an odd look, as if trying to gauge her reaction. She met his eyes and, very deliberately, took another sip of her coffee.

  “The Centauri have been watching you, too,” he said. “Just yesterday, Fallon shot down a Finlai spy drone over camp.”

  “I’m a very popular person,” she said.

  What was his point?

  “I tried to speak to the Tri-Quad’s Commander Tillerman,” he said. “She referred me to you.”

  “She should have referred you to General Crane. He’s the one in charge of all things Centauri.”

  And he should definitely know that. He was a UN delegate, someone whose job it was to know who was who and what was what.

  So, what was his point?

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked quietly.

  Her mouth dropped open, and she gave him a suspicious look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Maybe you should ask Commander Tillerman.” He leaned back toward the panel and pressed the emergency stop button again. With a rumble and a beep, the elevator began to move. “I hear she’s been trying to talk to you.”

  A few seconds later, they arrived at their floor, and he exited the elevator, leaving her staring after him in confusion.

  Just what in the ten hells was that about? she asked Tia.

  Tia shrugged. How should I know? You know more about contemporary politics than I do.

  I was right. I haven’t had nearly enough coffee for this.

  Shaking her head, she walked out of the elevator and followed Kalinsky at a loose distance.

  About mid-way up, Sergeant Tian Adan Reeve looked up from his conversation with a service tech, spotted her, said a few parting words to the tech, and peeled himself off the wall to join her as she passed.

  “Have some trouble with the elevator?” he asked.

  My, my, they’re quick, Tia commented.

  “Kalinsky had trouble finding which button to push,” she said flatly. “I think he’s still having trouble.”

  Reeve arched his eyebrows and glanced at the back of the retreating UN delegate. “Did he say something to you?”

  “Somewhat. I think he’s confused as to how much I don’t give a shit about politics.”

  “Ah,” Reeve said, understanding. “Yes, I can see how that is confusing to someone such as him.”

  Although a sergeant on official paper, Reeve worked as more of a free agent in the Fallon ranks―a not-so-hidden secret. So far, she’d only seen him report to generals for orders and directions, and he’d been Nomiki’s handler for the past few months, which suggested a certain amount of black ops combat experience, though she hadn’t seen any of his skill in person.

  He was smart, though, and friendly, and they’d gotten to know each other over the past few months.

  Of course, if Kalinsky’s little implications were correct, that would put her and Reeve in direct opposition.

  “So, new mission?” she asked, deftly changing the subject. “Seems kind of sudden.”

  “UN dropped it on us earlier,” he said. “We’re lucking out in weather for it, apparently.”

  “Uh huh.”

  As if weather affected missions. Unless a typhoon brewed over the affected area, or a surprisingly specific hit of solar storm wind happened, there was little a Fallon ship like the Courant couldn’t fly through.

  She flashed her ID at a door and squinted as she turned into the ship’s war room. The space had a dim atmosphere to make it easier to see the holos. At a glance, there had to be about thirty of them in the oval-shaped room, and a dozen techs and officers monitoring them, recording weather, comms logs, telemetry, and engineering stats. An older officer in the corner was speaking to someone in a bright red jumpsuit, likely one of the Courant’s chief engineers. In the corner, General Crane had turned his back on the room and was talking quietly into a comms unit that had been hardwired to the wall.

  That was one of the main distinguishing features of Fallon fleet design―they all used hardwired lines for innership comms, and they had a full complement of secondary comms that could be hooked into in case of interference or interception. Though it was odd seeing them. In all her training on Alliance ships, she’d only ever seen hardwired comms in an aeronautics museum.

  It was easy to take transmission as guaranteed…until you were alone in the Black and at war.

  Gods, she didn’t even want to think of an inter-system war. Fallon and the Alliance may have had their disagreements in the past, but even the Border Wars hadn’t been as bad as they could have been.

  Nomiki was already there, leaning against a piece of curved wall to the right with her arms crossed over her chest. Jon stood next to her, typing something on the glowing screen of his netlink. Karin spotted a third member of their usua
l party on the other side of the room―Colonel Lorraine Ganis, who had the misfortune of sharing a given name with both the Centauri captain who had attacked the FSS Manila after their gate transverse as well as a woman who had helped the Alliance attack Karin on Enlil, back when she was still a wanted fugitive.

  She and Ganis got along, though.

  Kalinsky was there, too, of course, speaking in low tones to the Martian ambassador, Alice Lang. Karin pretended not to see the gesture he made in her direction, instead finding a quiet spot off to the left, watching as Reeve broke off to join the two reps.

  She got a few minutes of quiet before Ganis drifted over to her side and parked herself against the wall.

  “You look like shit,” the Marine said.

  Karin grunted. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime. You got a bead on any more of those feeds? I ran out of Moon Sailor.”

  Karin let out a sigh. They had all run out of Moon Sailor. “Yeah, we have a hard drive full of downloaded content on the ship. Hit me up after. It’s even legal.”

  Given the way the relay systems worked, most dramas and netfiction handed out subscriber keys. That way, anyone who wasn’t always connected to a live net feed could download their content by proxy. They were much cheaper, and usually the only way of getting legal content outside of the main planets and stations.

  “Bonus.”

  She stifled a yawn as the door opened again. Commander Baik walked in, decked out in his Alliance High Command whites. He gave her a small nod as he passed, heading straight for the center holotable. Across the room, General Crane saw him arrive, said a few last words into the comms piece, hung it back in its cradle, and strode over to the table.

  Karin and Ganis took the cue and detached themselves from the wall to join the mission briefing.

  General Crane was an older man, mid-sized Caucasian, with a balding patch of stubbly gray hair under his fleet hat. He still wore his customary uniform, the Fallon navy blue with its trim stripes in red and blue to represent the Courant. She wondered if he’d changed in the past day, or if this was the same uniform she’d seen him in the previous cycle. He’d been lead on the last mission, too.