by Jamie Sawyer
Ving’s squad murmured agreement.
“So Lazarus—Colonel Harris—is a turncoat as well now?” someone yelled. I detected a hint of disappointment in that question. Harris had fought the Directorate, had been there during some of the key events that precipitated the Great Enemy’s downfall. To think that he might be working with them was almost too much for these operators to bear …
Phoenix Squad might well be asses, but I was very nearly drawn into a discussion with them. I felt driven to explain myself, to tell these bastards exactly what we were doing out here. Yet I knew that to do that, I would be risking the whole operation.
“Like I said, it’s complicated,” I answered. That would have to be enough.
Ving shook angrily, his jaw dancing.
“This conversation is over,” I said. “Do it, P.”
“Into the craft that sails stars,” Pariah ordered. The troopers shuffled aside to avoid being touched by the wet muzzles of the xeno’s weapons.
“They’re not used to a talking fish,” Lopez muttered.
“A while ago, neither were we. Get them into the pods.”
Ving turned to me. “You could just send us out on our ship, you know? The Firebird is still docked.”
“I’m not stupid, Ving. I send you off on a ship, you’ll be right back in our faces before we know it. The evac-pod is the best that I can offer.” To Feng, I said: “Have you deactivated the transmitters?”
“It’s done,” he said. “The evac-pods have short-range emergency beacons, but I’ve removed the comms modules. They’ll broadcast standard pickup codes, but they won’t be able to send any directed transmissions.”
Ving just shook his head. “I always knew that you were a bitch, Jenkins. I never liked you.”
“Feeling’s mutual.”
“Neither did Captain Heinrich.”
“So he’s still around, huh?”
“Of course he is. And General Draven, too. They’ll come after you,” Ving said, lowering his head as he clambered into the pod. “No one has ever hit a farm before. General Draven and Captain Heinrich won’t leave this.”
Heinrich and Draven: my two immediate superiors. Draven had, in the mists of time, served with my father when he was an active Army officer. Despite myself, I felt a pang of contrition deep inside. The emotion resonated through me. What would my folks think of me now, hijacking an Alliance station, going so far outside my orders that I was almost as bad as Riggs?
Stay focused, Jenk. This is the only way.
“You just sit tight and enjoy the flight,” Lopez suggested with a patronising grin. Trying to sound more confident than I knew she really felt.
“And we know who you are,” Ving said, pausing at the hatch of the evac-pod, nodding at Lopez. “Your father, the Senator, is a great man. What in Gaia’s name are you doing out here helping these people? He’d be disappointed in you, and he’ll send people as well.”
That hit a nerve with Lopez, too. She kept her weapon trained on the squad leader but exchanged an uncomfortable glance with me. What Ving lacked in intelligence, he certainly made up for with unpleasantness.
“Just get in the pod, Ving. You’ll be picked up in a few days, if you’re lucky.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Ving said, “and maybe you’ll even believe it. This far from the Core, from occupied territory, we could be drifting for years.”
“Then you better make those ration-packs last,” Feng recommended. To me, he added, “That’s the last of them. All crew and operators are loaded.”
I nodded. “Seal them in.”
“Solid copy.”
On my command, the hatches to every pod simultaneously hummed shut. Green lights showed above each craft’s hatch. Ready to go.
“Fire the pods.”
“Affirmative,” said Feng.
There was a series of thumps through the station’s deck as the pods launched, and it was done.
“Visual confirmation of successful launch,” Lopez said, glancing at the view-ports set into the corridor wall.
The pods initiated hard-thrust away from Darkwater, arcing out towards deep-space, where they would then begin to transmit emergency beacons in an attempt to attract passing ships. At least, that was the theory. They had food, water and heat in those things, but Ving was right. There was no telling how long it would be before they were rescued. Meanwhile, the baleful eye of Thane glared up at me, its sickly yellow surface crawling with storm-clouds.
There was another brief rumble through the deck.
“Paladin Rouge has successfully docked,” came Harris’ voice over the comms. “We’re tracking those evac-pods. They’ve broken Thane’s orbit.”
“Affirmative,” I muttered. “And yet I still don’t feel any better about myself, Harris.”
“I find that alcohol helps.”
“I mean it. This … this is some heavy shit.”
“Necessary shit.”
I couldn’t help shivering a little. “Stop trying to be glib. We’ve never done anything like this before.”
“No regrets, Jenkins. We’re doing what needs to be done. The Paladin’s crew is coming aboard, but I don’t want to stay on-station any longer than we need to. Double-time it, trooper, and get that place searched.” Harris was back to issuing orders like I was still under his command. “The Paladin is ready to receive when you are. Elena and I will secure simulator-tanks. Gustav will be ready for immediate dust-off, as soon as Captain Lestrade has checked out the Firebird.”
That was everyone accounted for. Now that we had control of the farm, and all hostiles were taken care of, the Paladin’s personnel could move about as they wished. I suspected that, in truth, some of the crew wanted to stretch legs, to get a couple of hours off the ship.
“Understood. Jenkins out.” I switched comms bands, to the Jackals-only squad channel. “Zero, do you copy?”
“I’m here,” she answered.
“Have you managed to crack the message decryption package yet?”
Zero sighed, and I could tell that she was frustrated. “No, ma’am. It’s not Alliance-standard.”
“All right. Keep trying.”
“It might help if I come aboard as well,” Zero said. “I’d like to check out their comms array, see if I can lift anything directly from the mainframe.”
“You do that.”
“We’ve found something else.”
“Go on.”
“The farm has a dark sector. Nadi can’t access part of the mainframe. One of the farm’s central modules is completely sealed off.”
“Do we need to explore it?”
I could hear Zero’s shrug. “I’d like to, if I can.”
“All right. Work on the mainframe access first, then you can think about cracking the dark sector. It’s not a priority.”
“Roger that. Nadi’s staying on the Paladin. I’ll upload whatever I find.”
“We’ll run a sweep on the base, and get loading. Jenkins out.” I turned to the Jackals, now assembled in the empty corridor. “Lopez, run an inventory on the Supply Deck. Feng, you take the armoury. I want armour, weapons, grenades. Whatever we can get.”
Feng grinned. “That, I can do.”
“And me?” Novak asked. “You want I should search this ‘dark place’ Zero is talking about?”
“No,” I said. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Novak in an unexplored area of the base, but rather that I’d feel better knowing where he was. “Check out Simulant Processing. Secure anything useful down there.”
The Russian grunted in approval.
Pariah chittered softly next to me. “We will go back to the craft that sails stars,” the xeno said.
“Sure,” I said. “Stay on the comms, people.”
“Where will you be?” Feng asked.
I smiled. “I’ve got a personal appointment.”
I descended the station’s levels in the elevator, and the temperature dropped as I went. I tried, and failed, to control the t
hrob of my pulse. The adrenaline of the firefight was wearing off, but it wasn’t just that. My data-ports were positively on fire with expectation. It was excitement, pure and simple.
SIMULANT STORAGE BAY A appeared on the elevator control panel, and the doors hummed open. Although this was ordinarily a highly restricted area, Nadi had already broken all of the security protocols. I unbuttoned my helmet, clipped it to my belt. I wanted to experience this firsthand, with every one of my senses. The waft of fresh cryogen hit me full-on and I got the strongest head rush in the universe. No matter what their line of service, no matter where they came from, this place was Mecca to any sim operator.
Glow-globes illuminated in response to my presence as I entered the chamber, but it was so big that the perimeter was still shrouded in shadow. It was a warehouse of flesh: bank upon bank of cryogenic storage capsules, piled so high that they reached the ceiling. The capsules were glass-fronted so that the bodies could be seen inside, with electronic read-outs indicating user names.
This is what we came here for, and this makes it all good.
And it was true. Whatever we had done to the crew, being in here it all felt justified. It felt right. I needed to be reunited with my sims, as though their genetic code called out to me across space. Machine-valves and life-support modules hummed and wheezed around me, maintaining the skins in a state of readiness. Nothing down here gave off a bio-sign, because every body was kept in a specialised state of cryogenic suspension: the sims were not independently alive, after all.
I passed through the vault with near-reverence. Very few simulant operators, rogue or otherwise, got to see an operational farm, and I’d never seen so many skins in one place. The simulants were grown in gestation-tanks, to specification on Science Division’s instructions. Every operator in the Sim Ops Programme was catalogued in the mainframe, and the farms then produced sims based on each operator’s genetic code. Harris had explained to me that Darkwater was the main production facility for the entire Eastern Sector, which meant that it housed simulants for military teams working out of Unity Base.
Although the whole facility was kept on ice, the cold meant nothing to me. I made my way to the centre of the cathedral-like space—more lights flickering on as the station tracked my progress—and with shaking hands I activated one of the enormous robotic loaders. The words SQUAD DESIGNATION? appeared in glowing text on the view-screen.
JENKINS’ JACKALS, I typed.
ORDER CONFIRMED. SECURITY OVERRIDE ACTIVE.
With a whine of hydraulics, the service bot rearranged the cryogenic capsules. Each capsule contained an inert simulant, dressed identically in deep blue neoprene undersuits, stamped with the badge of the Sim Ops Programme.
Faces and bodies passed in front of me as the capsules cycled, as the machine searched for the Jackals’ sims. The facility stored thousands of bodies, could be used to grow millions. I recognised some of those faces, knew of them from my assignment to Unity Base.
The machine finally stopped cycling. Hydraulics purred as a series of capsules settled in a row. Copies of the Jackals stared back.
I swallowed, shouldered my PDW. For some reason, I was suddenly very much aware that I was wearing Directorate armour. It felt wrong—disrespectful even—to be standing here, in the uniform of our enemy …
My hand rested on the outer casing of one of my sims. The body inside was unblemished. Then Lopez, much the same. Feng: this body without the brutal injuries caused by our incarceration on Jiog. Then Novak. No gang-tattoos, no prison markings. No nerve-studs in his forehead.
I paused at the last tank.
RIGGS, DANEB.
The traitor. The body inside looked completely at peace. Eyes shut. His muscular torso was relaxed. I’d laid my head there. I’d seen sweat gathering on his pecs after we’d done our thing. His hair was short, dancing softly to the current of the cryogenic fluid inside the capsule.
My communicator chimed, interrupting this private moment.
“Ma’am, you copy?” asked Novak.
“I’m here,” I said. I almost felt annoyed with him for the intrusion, but there was a hint of urgency to his voice that wasn’t normal. “What’s your situation?”
Novak sucked his teeth. “Have found something. Is very—”
The signal suddenly swarmed with static, and I winced at the noise. I retuned the communicator band, searching for a stable frequency.
“Novak, do you copy?”
No answer. I tried for another connection.
“Zero, you read me?”
“I read,” Zero said. She too sounded panicked. Of itself, that might not be unusual. But together with Novak’s reaction, I was starting to become concerned. “Where are you?”
“I’m in Simulant Storage. I have the sims, and I’m using the robot loader to send them to the docking bay.”
“Copy that. I’ve been trying to comm you, ma’am.”
“My suit didn’t register any incoming message,” I said. “Maybe Nadi isn’t as good as she thinks she is …”
Zero kept talking. “You need to get out of there. Now.”
“All right, calm down. I’m almost done.”
“Now!” Zero said. “Everyone needs to get off the farm. The message: it was—”
The comm-line went dead, and I thought about Zero’s words. She had sounded pretty insistent. Instead of trying to reach her again, I decided to activate the robot loader for the simulants.
DOCKING BAY ALPHA, I selected on the terminal.
ALL SUBJECTS?
LOAD SELECTION: JENKINS, NOVAK, LOPEZ, FENG.
INITIATE.
The machine hummed as it shuttled capsules into the loader. They would be swiftly dispatched to the docking bay, where the Paladin waited. Our simulants loaded rapidly, green lights flashing as the bodies were launched through the network of tubes that connected storage to the docks.
I paused in front of Riggs’ bodies.
“Fuck you, Riggs,” I said. I opened the terminal’s main menu.
INITIATE PURGE COMMAND.
His bodies would be gone for good. Deleted. Sure, he could grow some more, but that was hardly the point. This was as close to satisfaction, to revenge, as I was probably ever going to get.
“Sayonara, Riggs,” I said, staring at the simulant in the tank. “I’d say that it was nice knowing you, but that would be a lie.”
Riggs’ eyes sprang open.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DANGER TIME
You know that feeling just before the shit hits the fan? When you know that something bad—incredibly bad—is going to happen, but you just can’t accept it? I was there, in that place, suffering from a sudden and debilitating disconnect between brain and body. Because it was so improbable, one element couldn’t process and act on what the other element was experiencing. Hell, more than that: what I was experiencing was fundamentally impossible. Various possibilities raced through my mind.
It’s a reaction to the purge command.
I’ve accidentally activated something.
I’m imagining it, and the whole damned thing is in my head.
That last one seemed the most likely, because I had been hallucinating Riggs. I’d seen him on Jiog, even spoken to him.
Yes. That has to be it.
But Riggs—or his simulant, at least—yanked at the respirator plugging his lower face and shivered off droplets of cryogen.
PURGE COMMAND CANCELLED, the readout on the tank flashed.
The capsule lid engaged. The body inside stumbled out, all shiny and new. Light wisps of steam rose from the neoprene undersuit, in reaction to the change in temperature. The undersuit clung to Riggs’ body, perfectly illustrating his simulated, sculpted physique.
Adonis-like.
Hair just right. Messy, but not really untidy.
His skin a perfect tan, an advert for descendants of Tau Ceti V.
His eyes. Deep, inviting, a little bit naive.
Incredible that I could still thi
nk that, after all he had put us through. He looked, for all intents, more like a kid playing soldier than a proper operator. Maybe that had been part of his appeal, I reasoned, or maybe it was just a practised front. It had certainly got me to trust him.
A single bio-sign flickered into existence on my HUD. Riggs was very much alive.
Finally, my body starting working. I fell back, reaching for my PDW. It didn’t do me much good though; my legs collapsed beneath me, and I landed on my ass.
Riggs pulled at the cables connecting him to the capsule, and they came loose easily. He stared down at me, and his expression was surprised. I suspected that my face told just the same story.
But then he smiled. It was a perfect simulant grin, every tooth in his mouth a bright white. He held out a hand.
“What the hell are you doing here, Jenk?”
I shook my head. That would make it okay. That would make this all go away.
“You’re not real,” I said. “You’re not fucking real!”
“I can see why you’d say that,” Riggs muttered, “but I am real. I’m here.”
And then realisation hit me. The pieces snapped into place. Riggs was using a simulant-tank to link to this new skin. A simulator wasn’t easy technology to come by, but the Spiral had been raiding stations up and down the Drift. Given the sort of noise that Thane’s star was throwing out, the real Riggs had to be somewhere nearby. The neural-link would degrade, would become useless, at anything other than close range. That meant Riggs—the Black Spiral—had a ship, and must be close. They had probably been using the asteroid field as cover; the Paladin wouldn’t see them coming until it was too late. Zero’s warning, Novak’s last transmission: everything made sense. The Black Spiral had come to Darkwater.
I backed away from Riggs. My fingers found the bead in my ear, fumbled with the communicator. I had to warn the others.
“Zero!” I screamed. “The Spiral are here! Riggs is in Simulant Storage!”
Riggs watched with a look of near-amusement. “No, no,” he said. “Don’t do that.”
Then he sprang at me.
