“Woodam was one of those people, and thus, so were you. That seems a little hypocritical.”
A smile crept onto her lips as she sat on the edge of the table and looked up at Narmer, “But then I saw the Light. With a little help. I found a passion for love and life that I had never had. My life became clear, and I gained a dedication to the Light.”
“Woodam had to be removed from the Light. But I knew of his machinations to get aboard Prominence. That was ironic don’t you think?”
“Ironic?” he asked.
“The prominences are the brightest light of Ria, and you have someone like Woodam, who embodies the darkest parts of our nature, using his skills and influence to soil Prominence with his presence. Originally, he was going to make it to Departure, but then fall victim to an unfortunate accident soon after.”
“And then he surprised you with Pagoy,” Narmer interjected.
“Exactly. That was going to ruin everything that I had wanted to accomplish.”
“So, you had him killed?”
“That’s a funny, little ironic, story…I mentioned it to Bebk-“
“Bebk?”
“My longtime lover, and soon to be spal. He’s the one that brought me into the Light. He showed me how to have meaning in life. He was the one leaving when you arrived.”
“This is bombshell intel, keep her talking.”
“Bebk mentioned to me that we could move up the unfortunate accident to before Departure, thus assuring that I’d get a Crescent. He was already the Altern of the Logistics Section. But he had brought his spal and her family, and they have been on Prominence already for a cycle. There was no room for me.”
“Travel and communication were one-way to Prominence, how were they communicating?”
“If he was on Prominence, how was he communicating with you? As I was told, travel and communication were no longer possible once one boarded Prominence or Vanguard.”
“That would be true. There was no real chance for contact between people on Nunet who were loading Heeta as most of it was handled by the transport mechs. Cargo and people handlers never met between the two, and nothing was allowed off Heeta onto Nunet. Except for certain command staff. Bebk, being an Altern, was one of those people.”
“He could transfer recorded vids and messages to Keepers that were command staff of the various shuttles that he had contact with on Nunet. We communicated for the past cycle like this. I was counting the rias until Departure; I couldn’t wait to reunite with Bebk. Then Woodam tried to destroy everything I had planned for.”
“And you told Bebk that you wanted him killed? It seems that he was a little too far away to be much help,” Narmer pointed out.
“There are Keepers everywhere. He put me in touch with one that could be of service. After meeting him a few chons ago, to work on other activities, I had gotten to know him and what he was capable of. When Woodam came home to tell me he was leaving, the first thing I did was contact this Keeper to help me get a Crescent. He suggested that we meet. And we did.”
“He planned to kill Woodam on ria six, one ria prior to the Last Selection. This would be to prevent a lengthy investigation and to force things to happen before anyone could object. But it had to look like someone else did it. Someone that had a close motive, so that I wouldn’t have any suspicion.”
“Ah, that’s where I come in. You joked that first rise that you’d get me Selected if I killed your soon to be ex-spal. Obviously, you weren’t joking,” Narmer lamented.
She smiled again, “Narmer, you are definitely brighter than I had first thought. Yes. I picked you out of the line that set. You were cute, and young, and looked like fun in bed. You also didn’t appear to be that bright, so just for fun, I grabbed you. Easy enough.”
“Uh, thanks?”
“Don’t take it so hard; now you are here. And that funny little story with added irony that I alluded to earlier…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“My Keeper friend planned to provide a botched robbery by a Disaffected, you, that ended up with both you and Woodam dead. During his planning of this, he found out that Pagoy had similar plans of killing Woodam. Apparently, Woodam was not interested in bringing her half-brother along. Seems that Pagoy and he were lovers. Pagoy was using Woodam to get aboard Prominence and to take her lover/brother along. Desperate people in desperate times.”
“Using this information, the Keeper modified Pagoy’s plan without her knowledge. She was slowly poisoning Woodam so that he would be weakened and could be finished off when she wished him to be. Probably just after they joined, and before launching for Nunet. Pagoy needed time to get her half-brother Selected. Kind of like I did with you. Unfortunately for Pagoy, my Keeper friend increased the dosage so that he would die on the set after I met you. I didn’t know this at the time; I was still working the original plan.”
“Ah, he calls you that next rise, then you call me to tell me the Guard was coming to visit me. You knew this because…?”
“Because you were the wild card. Pagoy and her brother were caught on vid poisoning Woodam. I was at my place, and Woodam had your name in his p-tab as being a guest of mine at his Farewell. Everybody wanted to know what your involvement was as you came out of nowhere. Jegit was intrigued, that got Investigator Aut-Loren interested. But since you weren’t truly involved, my instructions were not to say anything. And you did that quite well!”
“To make this all work, I had to play the spurned spal, then the grieving spal, then the new spal, all in a few rias. Although you initially caused suspicion because you were such an outlier, that then became your alibi, and thus mine too.”
“But you said that Jegit wanted us to join to protect me.”
“Well that was when there was still a chance for you. We agreed that I should appear to be helpful and accommodating so that we could Jegit off of our trail,” she said with some sadness.
“We?”
Narmer noticed that she was looking past him now. He turned and saw a man standing at the door.
“We. As in her and me,” the man said.
Growly!
“Narmer, I tried to get you to leave. And now it’s too late. I had convinced them that you didn’t know anything because you didn’t. But now you know too much.”
Backing away from Growly, “All these rias, I didn’t know anything, and was trying to get people to fill me in. And now? I know too much? The irony continues,” he pouted.
“You were never supposed to know. You were to be used to help us escape suspicion. Then, you’d be cut loose to enjoy the rest of your life. I told you that I would decide if, and when, to end the joining. That time has come. Unfortunately, it would seem that your Last Rise has come as well.”
“Narmer, people, are on the way, keep them talking until we get there!”
“OK, I understand what you said about my part in this. I think that it was a little over the top, but it might have worked. And you were acting your part of the spal, or spals, through all of this. I get that. But why the Nunet?”
“The Nunet?” she asked, “we had nothing to do with that. We thought that it might be some crew members upset about leaving loved ones behind.”
“Hmmm, well I overheard Growly here and your Bebk talking about how Vanguard could not be allowed to Depart. This was just after Nunet exploded and before the transport mechs went wild.”
Deides looking at Growly asked, “Is this true?”
Growly moved towards Narmer, “Time to end the storytelling,” he said as he grabbed Narmer.
Narmer put up his hands in a feeble attempt to fend off Growly, but Growly’s right fist to his left temple and Narmer saw the lights dim and go out.
“You stay here and fill Altern Fees-San in on what transpired. I’m taking our friend for a walk. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
With that, he hefted Narmer on his shoulder and left the room.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Narmer awoke with a pounding headache and a
roaring in his ears. Opening his eyes, he could see in the dim lighting that he was in some type of small cargo hold. He tried to use his right hand to push himself up, but it wouldn’t move. He felt like it was connected to the floor. Looking down he saw that it was indeed connected to the floor with a graphene strap that was used to fasten cargo containers to the deck. It required a special tool that connected the strap at an atomic level. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Then he noticed that the rest of his body was stretched out and pressed up against the back wall of the hold, above what would be the deck. And the roaring was intense. It took a few twentynauks for him to figure out what was going on. Heeta was decelerating in preparation for docking with Prominence. He knew that this deceleration phase lasted a half-chirp. What he didn’t know was how long ago it started. He closed his eyes to try to keep the room from lurching. His head was killing him.
At what felt a lot longer than a half-chirp, the roaring ended, and Narmer started to come off the wall, but his hand was still fast to the decking.
With his head pounding and sense of direction non-existent in zero gravities, his stomach started making moves like it wanted to escape through his mouth. A training vid that he had seen on the shuttle from Kepteyn had stressed that the last thing that you wanted to do was vomit in zero gravities. The mess and ripple effect were as bad as it got. So, he spent a lot of time talking his stomach back into his belly, while keeping his eyes closed.
That’s why he didn’t notice Growly entering the cargo hold.
Growly grabbed his way over in front of Narmer and hooked a foot in the decking. Narmer was almost completely upside down relative to Growly
“Let’s see if you are still in a talkative mood Narmer,” he growled.
Narmer couldn’t help himself, “What shall we talk about?”
“For starters, let’s talk about how if I don’t like the conversation, it will end with you going for a walk in the void.”
Again, not being to help himself, “I’m a little tied down at the moment…”
Growly got closer to Narmer’s face, “This will not end well, I can tell.”
“With what I know about the Nunet, there is no other ending in store for me, so let’s stop pretending.”
With a little smile starting to curl on his lips, “Fair enough. But, I have to ask, how much does Jegit know?”
“All of it.”
“All of it, how?”
“My comms were open when talking with Deides.”
“Tikt! Won’t help you now, your p-tab is back in the meeting room.”
Growly continued, “That woman has been trouble from the start. Altern Fees-San hasn’t had a clear thought since they met. He got so wrapped up in how much Deides believed in the mission of the Keepers, that he felt like he had to be that much more devout. Nunet was his idea. It wasn’t really necessary, didn’t have much of an impact on Vanguard. And put a target on us for the future.”
“Future, what future is there anyway? You are all going to be on Prominence. What is left to do now?”
“Purity is a never-ending quest. The people are constantly changing through the cycles; we must keep us on the correct path.”
“And you do this by killing and destroying those that you feel are not ‘pure’?”
“The diseased tissue must be removed, or the body dies.”
“Who decides what is ‘diseased’?”
“It is obvious to the Keepers. That is our charge, our solemn mission.”
“You realize that the more that is known of you, the more people will try to rid Prominence of you. This is not sustainable. People will live in fear for only so long before they strike back.”
“We’ve survived in the shadows before, only to burst forth with the Light. We know this way.”
Making his mind up, Growly said, “The time has come, we will be docking shortly with Prominence. I will only have a small slice of time before Heeta docks and is locked down for Departure. I will need to have you on your way before that time is up.”
“On my way? My walk in the void?”
“Of course.”
Growly reached down with the thin wand of the cargo strap tool and parted the strap and released Narmer. Grabbing him, he pinned Narmer’s hands behind him and cuffed his hands with a self-tightening strap.
Growly grabbed a handhold in the deck with his left hand and grabbed the back of Narmer’s collar and proceeded out of the small cargo hold using his one hand to grab and feet to push forward. He made it look easy working across the main deck of the cargo hold. Their destination was an emergency airlock in the back end of the cargo hold which would still be open to the void even after the Heeta has slipped her entire length into her berth on Prominence, hand in glove.
As they were almost at the airlock, both Growly and Narmer drifted down and were pinned to the deck.
“Now you can walk,” Growly said, “we are within the gravity well of Chon-su now. We’ll be docking very shortly.”
Growly bent down and grabbed Narmer, helping him to his feet. Chon-su gravity was one-ninth of Kepteyn, so it was enough to walk, but you could cause yourself to take unwanted soaring leaps.
“Well, that’s a little more dignified I guess,” Narmer said, trying to get his balance.
“C’mon, we have a schedule to keep.”
Narmer turned his head from side to side, he kept hearing a clicking noise, and he was trying to find where it was coming from. Then he realized that it was his comm system earbuds. There was a slight click, the two. A slight click, then two more. He realized that someone was trying to get his attention. He wanted to respond, but both hands were tied behind him. What could he do? Then it came to him; he clacked his teeth together, lightly twice. He got two clicks back. Now what? Obviously, time was what he was running out of.
“I do have a question, what’s your name?” Narmer asked.
Growly laughed, “We didn’t have time for introductions, and it seems pointless at this time. But since I am the last person you’ll see, I guess I could do that much. I am SubAltern Ock Toos-Vet. You’ve obviously known about me for some time, doesn’t Jegit know my name?”
“He probably does, but he didn’t share that with me. I just called you ‘Growly’”
With a chuckle, “Growly? How’s that?”
“I only knew you by your distinctive voice.”
“I think I’ll use it myself.”
“I was going to ask you, what’s your plan? You are now known for your actions, they will find you soon. There is nowhere to go.”
“That is true. It appears that my time as a Keeper nears its end. However, my duty requires me to do all that I can with the time that I have. There are some loose ends that need to be dealt with. Our unit will be sacrificed to save the rest.”
“I’m a loose end?”
“Yes. And here we are. I’m going to open this side of the airlock, and you’ll enter. If you resist, I’ll just thump your head again, and you’ll never know what happens, you’ll die not knowing. Unless that is your preference. I’m feeling a little merciful today.”
Click, click. Narmer heard it again. Then a long series of clicks. Someone was trying to get his attention. He was thinking of what he could do to delay just a bit longer.
“I guess I want to go out not knowing. I’ll take you up on your ‘merciful’ ending.”
With a snarl, “Hold still, this will hurt a bit,” Ock said as he cocked his fist. Suddenly his eyes went wide, he made a gurgling sound, and he slowly started floating towards Narmer. Narmer stepped aside and watched Ock float into the airlock. As he passed, he could see the fist-sized holes that were opened in his back.
“Narmer, you can step away now,” Jegit said over the comm.
Narmer was looking around, and then he saw Jegit and some other armed personnel slowly coasting down from the ‘ceiling’ of the cargo hold. They landed near him, flexing their knees as they touched down to prevent them from bouncing back up.
&
nbsp; “Congratulations Narmer, you’ve been able to crack this ‘Keepers’ cult wide open. And now we are rolling up the known members. We still have Bebk on the loose, but we are working on it.”
“Uh, thanks. I need a hygiene station quickly!” he said urgently.
Reaching behind Narmer, Jegit cut his hands loose.
“They are that way,” Jegit said pointing them out to Narmer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“We had your location and audio the whole time. We were never too far from you,” Jegit was explaining as they sat around a table in the Security Section.
“I guess I have to believe you. You did show up just in time. I would have preferred that you did that sooner before it got that close.”
“We were getting intel right up until I shot him. From our end, it really couldn’t have gone any better.”
“Well, I’m done with that. I have somethings to figure out now. Deides in particular.”
“Funny that you should mention that…we still don’t haven’t been able to detain Bebk. He’s gone missing. We can’t find his p-tab signal; he’s not been seen on security cameras or near his quarters since you saw him leave the meeting room. We need you for bait once again.”
“I’m retired from the bait business. Permanently.”
“I wish I could let you, but he’s still out there, and he will be looking for you to tie up ‘loose ends,’ in any case. Just as Ock was.”
Feeling that knot in his stomach, “I didn’t consider that. I’m either rem bait or rem food at this point.”
Narmer was toying with his p-tab while thinking. He noticed it was almost midrise. And his counter said ‘1’.
“Ugh, will Departure never come!”
“No one outside of my operational team knows about Bebk, or that Ock is no longer breathing. We will notify the command staff that you have escaped Ock and are currently in a specified location. The Keepers hidden amongst them will pass your location to Bebk, and he’ll come looking for you. You’ll have Deides meeting you there as well. The cover story that we’ll pass to the command staff is that you are meeting to blackmail her and Ock. Everyone looks compromised, so it doesn’t appear that we are targeting the Keepers.
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