by M. R. Forbes
“You know Thraven caused that incident,” Gant said. “Mann is trying to help us. He sent you information.”
“How do you know about that?”
“He sent her a message, which she was passing to you. Did you even let her give it to you before you decided to wipe her? Or is the idea that she could provide actionable intel a little too scary for you?”
Kett was still approaching. Gant didn’t give any ground. He wasn’t afraid of the General, especially in his current state.
“You little monkey,” Kett said. “Who the frag do you think you are, talking to me like that?”
“Answer the question, General,” Gant said. “Is it a coincidence that as soon as she comes to you with valuable intel on a location to hit Thraven, you decide she needs to be reset? You didn’t have a problem with her military upgrades before, even when you were making her gel you up in the cleanser.”
He realized he should probably be a little more tactful, but threatening Ruby had gotten his blood flowing. Gants only took one alpha that they were loyal to beyond all reason, but that didn’t mean they didn’t care about their other friends.
Kett knelt down in front of him, getting to eye level. “I don’t have to answer to you for anything,” he growled. “She’s a synth. I can use her for whatever the hell I want. She doesn’t have a say. She doesn’t have rights. Look it up sometime.”
“I’m aware of the laws regarding synths,” Gant said. “Don’t turn the subject sideways. She came to you with valuable information about Tridium’s involvement with the Nephilim. They’re building an Elysium Gate, and we know where. That’s a lead we can use. We don’t have to disappear on this planet we’re orbiting. We can hit Thraven where it hurts.”
“We have no idea what kind of force we’ll find near Avalon,” Kett said.
“Blackstar mercenaries,” Gant replied. “You’ve got the Brimstone and the Focus, and you’re afraid of a few mercs?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Kett said. “But we can’t risk our forces on unvalidated intel from a fragging terrorist. That’s not how you win a war.”
“And sitting on your ass is?” Gant barked. “Send a scout to validate it, then. I’ll be happy to go. I’m sure Bastion would, too. We can take the Faust in, verify the intel, and come back.”
Kett stood back up, laughing as he retreated to his desk. “I’m sure you’d love that, wouldn’t you, Ensign? Take off to Avalon and never come back. Or maybe take a detour to Azure to look for Lieutenant Cage?” He sat down heavily, leaning back and folding his hands on his chest. “Let me ask you a question. You were down in engineering. Ruby was up here. How did you know about the message from Captain Mann?”
“Comm links,” Gant said, tapping the device on his collar.
“Hmm,” Kett said. He leaned forward and ran his hands over his terminal. Gant’s voice came out of it a moment later.
“Affirmative, Ruby. What do you, or rather, what does the General need?”
“Sound familiar?” Kett asked.
Gant had figured Kett was listening in on public channels or at least scanning them for certain keywords. Had the General been listening in on him real-time?
“Yeah. So?” Gant said.
“She never answered you. Or rather, she never answered you on our network. Yet you seem to know a lot about what she had to say.”
Gant stared at Kett, realizing that he had screwed up. His emotions had gotten the best of him, and he had given too much away.
“Colonel Brink,” Kett said.
“Yes, General?” the Colonel replied a moment later, over the comm.
“Send a squad to my office please.” He paused, looking at Gant. “Make that two.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re going to arrest me, then?” Gant said.
“I’ve known since I took over for Cage that you don’t agree with my methods. I know how much you’ve wanted to break away and look for your so-called Demon Queen. No matter how many times I say it, you won’t believe me. She’s dead, Gant. If Charmeine couldn’t survive, there’s no way Cage did. Thraven was there. He killed her. If you want revenge, you should stick with me. You should earn my trust.”
Gant clenched his teeth, a long, low growl sliding out of his throat unbidden. “You aren’t doing anything.”
“Wars aren’t won in a day. Especially when we’re so greatly outnumbered. We need to pick our spots carefully.”
“Mann’s intel is the best spot you’re going to get, and you know it. You’re a coward, General.”
“I don’t expect you to understand how these things work. You’re an engineer, not a warrior. You let me decide which battles to fight, and you can go back to fixing the toilets.”
The first of the squads arrived, entering the office behind them. Gant glanced back, noticing Dak was still there, watching the proceedings. Jequn had vanished. Was she as shitty at confrontation as her father?
“I want the names of everyone who has access to your private channel,” Kett said.
“I’m not giving you anything,” Gant replied.
Kett stood up again, leaning over his desk. “Listen, Ensign. I’m willing to give you a second chance. Regardless of anything, your skills are incredibly valuable to me. That doesn’t mean I won’t lock you up somewhere if you force my hand. You and anyone I decide is a threat. Right now, that includes all of Cage’s personnel.”
“I’m not giving you anything,” Gant repeated.
“Then you’ve made your decision,” Kett said. He glanced at the guards. “Take him down to storage. Lock him in, keep a unit there to watch over him. I’m sure an unguarded door won’t keep him secured for long. Colonel Brink.”
“Yes, General?” Brink replied.
“Contact the commanders of the other ships. I want Erlan, Pik, Phlenel, Bastion, and Benhil taken into custody and put on lockdown.”
“Yes, sir,” Brink said.
“You too, Dak,” Kett said, looking back at the Trover.
“What? I didn’t do anything, sir,” Dak said.
“I can’t take any chances. Not without specific names.” He looked at Gant.
“I’m not giving you anything,” Gant said again.
“You are giving me your communicator. Both of you.”
Gant sighed, pulling the device from his uniform. He tossed it onto Kett’s desk. Dak handed his over to the guards.
“You’re making a mistake if you wipe her, General,” Gant said. “A huge mistake. But then, you like to do the wrong thing, don’t you? You’re pretty fragging excellent at it. Your wife would be so disappointed in you.”
Kett’s face flushed instantly, his arms flexing on the desk, as though he was about to vault over it. “Consider yourself lucky I don’t kill you for that comment.” He glanced at the guards. “Get them out of my sight.”
One of the soldiers reached down and put his hand on Gant’s shoulder. Gant considered resisting but decided against it. He had other ways of turning a bad situation into a benefit, and Kett seemed to be assuming Jequn was more loyal to him than to the cause.
After her disappearance, Gant could only hope that wasn’t true.
18
The soldiers led Dak and Gant away from Kett’s quarters. Gant looked back before the hatch closed, stealing one last glimpse of Ruby. Kett was back at the terminal, moving forward with the reset process.
Asshole.
“I don’t know how you follow that man,” Gant said to the guards. “He’s not trying to stop the Nephilim. He’s trying to hide from them.”
“What do you know?” one of the guards replied. “You’re just a weird little space rodent.”
“Space rodent?” Gant said, stopping and turning toward the soldier. “Did you just call me a damned space rodent?”
Dak put his hand around Gant. “Relax, Boss. Time and place.”
The soldier laughed, sticking his rifle in Gant’s face. Gant kept walking, shaking it off. There would be time later.
/>
They were brought down a few levels, further back in the ship near the hangar. There were storage compartments located there. Quite a few of them. They shoved Gant in one on the left side of the corridor and Dak on the right. These doors didn’t lock, but he knew they would be standing guard outside and nearby.
He retreated to the corner of the room, finding a dark spot to sit and think. Obviously, Kett wasn’t going to follow Mann’s advice and check out Avalon. He was going to continue his occupation of the early-stage terraform. He was going to sit back and wait while Thraven tore the galaxy apart. And why? Because he had lost, and he was too damn afraid of losing more.
Kett had no idea what loss was.
He was still fighting. He was still trying. He had even taken another alpha. That he had forced himself to survive and the General couldn’t do the same was making him crazy. That Kett was at the very moment dismantling Ruby and intentionally destroying their link to Mann was making him even crazier. Mann was a traitor, but Kett wasn’t? It was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard.
He settled in, removing a few bits of scrap materials from his utilities and putting them on the ground in the corner. Kett thought a hatch and a few guards could contain him? He would be there as long as it suited him, and not one second longer. It was easy to underestimate him because of his size and general appearance. It was also a mistake. Mann knew what he was getting when he came to Hell.
Murderous Republic Navy Engineer was only one of the job titles on his record. He had another one that was a lot rarer than that, and also a lot more heavily classified. He was surprised Mann had known about that. Then again, it wasn’t that difficult to string two and two together and start drawing conclusions. As long as Olus knew about the program in the first place, Gant’s involvement was fairly obvious.
He sat back and thought about Eliza. Not the last time he had seen her. The time before. She had always been so kind to him. She had never judged him the way other Terrans did. She hadn’t just been his physician. She had been a real friend. His last alpha.
His eyes fixated on the center of the empty storage room. He could still remember the day the program had been shut down. The soldiers. They had come to take him away. They were going to dispose of him. Those were the Colonel’s words. Dispose. He was too dangerous to allow to live. She had tried to intervene. He could still see the bullets striking her, passing into and through her flesh in slow motion. They had to dispose of all of them. Every last member of the team. It would be an accident. A horrible accident. It would be easy to cover up. The planet the lab was on had no other inhabitants. No other installations. No one to hear them scream.
They should have killed him first. That was their mistake. A fatal one. They killed his alpha right in front of him, not even beginning to realize what they were doing. He had lost himself then, thrown into a berserk rage of anger and hatred. He had used what they had given him, and he had killed them all. Sixty-three soldiers in total, including the pilot of the dropship they had arrived on. He could have escaped. He could have taken the ship and fled. He didn’t. He sat on the floor of the dropship and cried. He was still there when the reinforcements arrived, launching a dozen tranquilizers into him from a hundred meters away.
He had woken up in Hell. No trial. No witnesses. Every record of the facility and the research being done there had been erased. Or so he had thought, but Captain Mann had to have known about it. Why else would he have been selected to join the Rejects? There was nothing special or overtly useful about a standard Navy Engineer, and that’s all he had been before the project.
He was so much more than that now.
He shook off the memories, staring down at the bits of material he had retrieved from his clothes. It was so easy for him to lose himself. Almost an hour had passed.
He started sorting the scraps, creating a puzzle on the floor. He swung around and sat in front of the scraps when the door to the compartment slid open. A moment later, Erlan was shoved into the room. He landed on his hands and knees, facing Gant. The door slid closed.
“Nerd,” Gant said calmly. “What are you doing here?”
Erlan rocked back onto his feet, staying low and quiet. “Apparently, it was a waste of resources to have the guards on the Hellion watching one prisoner, so they transported me here to sit with you. What are we doing locked up, anyway?”
“It was my stupid fault. I pretty much told Kett we had a private network link set up, and we were using it to circumvent his spying.”
“Really? I didn’t think you were capable of doing anything stupid.”
“Everybody is capable of being stupid. It’s just that some of us, like Imp, for example, are more capable than others.”
“I bet you have a plan to get out of this, though. Right?”
“Why would you assume that?”
“Because you’re Gant. The fragging Gant. You captured the Brimstone almost single-handedly. Your quick thinking gave us a winning tactic on Kell, and you have the biggest, cutest eyes this side of Feru.”
“Are you coming on to me?”
“What?” Erlan said, his face turning red. “I. Uh. No. NO. I’m just saying, that’s all.”
“Because if you are, I’m going to have to kill you.”
“I said I’m not,” Erlan complained. “I swear.”
“Fine. Just don’t swear anymore. It only makes you sound like more of a bumpkin.”
“Bumpkin?”
“I get the distinct impression that I have a larger Terran Standard vocabulary than you do.”
“I’m twenty-three years old, and I grew up on one of the smallest planets in the Republic. What do you want from me?”
“An education?”
“I had an education, smart-monkey.”
“What did you say?”
“You know, instead of smart-ass? Smart-monkey.” Erlan laughed softly.
“That isn’t funny.”
Erlan stopped laughing. “Sorry.”
Gant maintained the uncomfortable silence for a few seconds before shifting so Erlan could see his stash.
“Of course, I have a plan. I always figured Kett would wind up locking me up at some point, whether it was for cause or not. It isn’t often I dislike someone as much as I dislike that asshole, and the feeling is mutual. I think I’d rather deal with Thraven.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Kett didn’t lock up Cherub.”
“Why would he? She’s his daughter. She isn’t going to turn on him.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. He took my comm. I’m sure he took yours too.”
“He did. But I have another one right here.” He pointed at the scraps.
“You’re going to turn that pile of shit into a communicator?”
“Every time you curse it makes my ears hurt. Yes, I’m going to turn this assortment of valuable raw materials into a comm. Then -”
Gant was interrupted when warning klaxons began to sound, and a red light started flashing inside the compartment.
“What the fr- heck?” Erlan said.
“Perfect,” Gant said, reaching down and picking up two of the items on the ground. “This will make things a little easier.”
“What will?”
“We’re being attacked.”
19
Captain Kevin Davlyn sat stiffly in the command chair on the bridge of the battleship High Noon. He had been positioning himself that way ever since the attack on Feru, when the two experimental starships, the Fire and the Brimstone, had destroyed an entire fleet within minutes and fled to the Outworlds.
He had been put even more on edge when the Brimstone turned up in the Fringe and had assaulted a Republic patrol like his. Captain Issiasi had been a good leader. A good Rudin. They had been in the same class during Officer’s Training.
“Sir, we’ve picked up a faint disterium trail,” Ensign Card said from his station at the front of the bridge.
/> “Age?”
“Dispersion suggests less than two, sir.”
“Run a trace, see if you can estimate likely direction and destination. Sync up with the positioning database and see if any of ours are in the area.”
“Aye, sir.”
Captain Davlyn felt his muscles tense. He had been in a state of near-constant fear since the first wave of attacks. The High Noon and her escort were the second largest patrol fleet in the Fringe, and as far as he was concerned that made them the second juiciest target. He didn’t consider himself a coward, and he wasn’t afraid of going into most battles. But against one of those ships?
He could sense the same tension across his bridge crew. They all carried the same trepidation, even if none of them would say it.
He had heard whispers the ships had been involved in an attack on an Outworld planet. That they had gone through the defenses, including the Shrikes, as though they were nothing. It was only a rumor right now, and it contradicted the loss of another patrol in that region of space. The data recovered from the patrol was limited, but it suggested the Fire had been responsible for that attack. It was more likely the ships had gone to Anvil to refuel than to assault.
“Sir, we’re being hailed by Commander Tarn,” Ensign Sil said.
“Put her on,” Davlyn replied.
The Atmo’s projection appeared a moment later. “Sir, we’ve completed trajectory calculations.” A second projection appeared between them, showing a map of nearby space. “We believe the ships that created this disterium field are headed here.” One of the planets grew a blue circle around it. “TF-901.”
“A stage four terraform? Are they bringing supplies to the outpost?”
“Readings suggest a fleet of over a dozen starships, Captain.”
“Not ours?”
“No, sir.”
Davlyn considered. “Outworlders then.”
“TF-901 is being terraformed for the Republic, sir. They would be trespassing if that were the case.”
“I know. Thank you, Commander. I’ll contact Command and request a recommendation on how to proceed.”
