Defending the Galaxy: The Sentinels of the Galaxy

by Maria V. Snyder

  We test if they can hear me on the other side of the door so I know just how loud to yell if Jarren attacks.

  “Can I borrow your portable?” I ask Radcliff when the two officers leave to fetch Jarren from detention.

  “Why?” he asks.

  I wonder if he doesn’t trust me, or it’s just his habit to question everything. Probably the latter. “Don’t worry, I won’t be worming. It’s a prop.”

  He goes to retrieve it. When he returns and hands it to me, he asks, “What’s your plan?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “But…” He sweeps an arm out. “You’ve been very insistent about this set up.”

  “That’s because if it was me being questioned, this is how I’d want it. More relaxed. No one recording every twitch and vocal inflection.”

  “You know anything he tells you can’t be used in a court of law. It’s his word against yours.”

  “Do you want answers or evidence?”

  “Both.” His frustration is clear. “But I’ll take answers.” A pause. “You know what information we need?”

  “I do.”

  “Good. Officers Rance and Bendix will be right outside the door and will enter with weapons drawn if you need them.” Radcliff leaves before Jarren can spot him. No need to put Jarren on guard. Well, he’ll be wary, but hopefully not too much.

  I hop up on the table and sit cross-legged. Focusing on the portable, I try to distract my frantic heart with cool logic. Nothing is going to happen. Jarren can’t do anything. Even if he were to find my weapon, he can’t use it on me. Despite this, my heart tries to escape my body via my stomach.

  Then I try to plan out my questions, but it’s impossible to know what he would be willing to tell me even without a camera recording him. A strange thought invades my mind. Could Q record him through me? Using my eyes and ears?

  YES.

  A shudder rolls through me. Super creepy is putting it mildly. I’d never… Or would I? Jarren is a murdering looter, I don’t have to be honest. Do it, please, I say to Q. I brace for weirdness in my head, but nothing changes. At all. Even scarier.

  The door opens, distracting me—thank the universe—from my freak out. Bendix and Rance escort Jarren into the room. His wrists are secured behind his back, but a wide grin spreads on his face when he spots me on the table. Fear climbs my throat, leaving a dry bitter taste in my mouth.

  “Officer Tight Pants must be desperate to try this.” Jarren chortles with glee.

  Bendix removes the handcuffs, and says, “We’ll be right outside.”

  Yes, they will. And I trust my team with my life. I channel my inner guardian lion and settle my nerves. I hop off the table and hand Bendix the portable. “Thanks, guys.”

  Jarren smirks at me once we’re alone. His beard is ungroomed and bushy, and his shoulder-length hair is straggly and greasy. He’s wearing a neon green detention jumpsuit. The bright color is guaranteed to be seen from orbit. He’s twenty-one A-years older than me and has been very busy murdering and looting during those years.

  I sweep my hand out, gesturing to the room. “There are no cameras or microphones in here. The Q-net terminal is disconnected and there’s no portable.” I pull back my hair and expose my ears. “No tangs. Whatever you say in here can’t be used against you.” Tipping my head to the chair in front of the table, I say, “Have a seat.”

  He sits then shakes his head. “You know this won’t work. There’s no way I can trust you. You tricked me. Twice.”

  I plop in the seat behind the table. “You deserved it. You tried to kill me. Twice.”

  Leaning back, he laughs. Eventually, his humor fades as he stares at me and he looks rather puzzled. “Stars, you’re so young.” He wipes a hand over his face. “I knew you were smart and a fast learner, but where in hell did you learn how to worm like that?”

  His question gives me an idea. “How about a deal? I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

  “Quid pro quo? Is that your grand plan?”

  “I don’t have a plan. I shouldn’t even be here with you, but, you were right. DES is desperate.”

  “I reserve the right not to incriminate myself.”

  “All right. To answer your question, I learned how to worm like that from Chief Hoshi, the chief navigator of the Interstellar Class space ship that brought me to Planet Yulin. I did an internship while on board and she taught me how to navigate the star roads.”

  “You did an internship?” Jarren doesn’t sound convinced.

  “That is your second question. And, yes, I did.” I huff, but then grudgingly admit, “It was to keep me occupied and out of the brig.”

  “Ah, that makes more sense.” Then he pauses. “Still doesn’t really explain the level you achieved in such a short time.”

  “As you said, I’m smart and a fast learner. Plus I was motivated. Now it’s my turn. Why did you target certain Warriors?”

  He tsks. “You know why. Ask me something harder.”

  “Why would I know?” He shouldn’t know that I suspect the reason for the Warriors. No one has sent my theories to DES.

  Now he sighs. “Because you managed to put together enough information from Lan’s research files, which you shouldn’t have done since I sent you bits and pieces of crap.” He peers at me, giving me the I-know-there’s-something-you’re-not-telling-me squint.

  So he was monitoring us since the beginning. “I only have a theory.”

  “Well, there’s your answer.” He shakes his head. “I bet no one believes you.” Now he laughs. “It is rather unbelievable and hearing it from a kid…” Another chuckle.

  I bite down on my I’m-not-a-kid retort as it lacks the proper snappiness. I change tactics instead. “Did you figure out how the Warriors worked before Lan, or did she share her results with you?”

  “When I contacted her after my lengthy stay in detention on Planet Suzhou and she shattered my heart, she felt bad.” He gave a sardonic pout. “So she shared her research with me—as a we-can-still-be-friends move. At the time she hadn’t made any big discoveries and I actually helped her with a few connections. Until I figured out the true purpose of the artifacts and uncovered the factory.” He taps his chest right above his heart. “Then she was on her own. Took her years to catch up to me and I may have…” He spreads his hands. “Sent her a few false leads along the way.”

  Except for the false leads, his explanation is as we suspected. “But you weren’t alone. You had help from Ursy Bear, Osen Vee, Fordel Peke, and Warrick Nolt. Right?”

  “Yes. They are the real criminals. I was duped and forced to be a part of their team.”

  There’s a gleam in Jarren’s eyes. No doubt he’s lying. And laughing at me. I’m missing something. It’s important. I mull over what I know of Jarren. Then it hits me.

  “They don’t exist,” I say. “They’re all pseudonyms. They’re all you!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” But it’s weak and unconvincing. He gives me a hard stare.

  “How did you change your style? Some of those programs are amazingly complex. No way only one person could construct them.” Or rather, one person without the help of the Q-net.

  He’s pleased by the flattery, which is more evidence I’m right, but he says, “I believe it’s my turn to ask questions. Did you find the factory before or after those looters broke into the pits?”

  “Before.” And because I can’t resist, I add, “I was sitting on the hatch when you first arrived. I’d covered it before you finished drilling through the walls.”

  “Not me.” Although his gaze sears my skin with its intensity. “I wasn’t there, but it sounds like the person in charge should have killed you then and saved themself a lot of trouble.”

  “He wasn’t very bright,” I goad. “How did you get so good at worming in the Q-net when DES was keeping an eye on you?”

  He pauses as if weighing how much to tell me. I wonder if his ego is warring with his tendency to brag. Young Jar
ren would brag.

  “You had your Chief Hoshi. I had mine. And once you really put your heart into getting better, it’s just a matter of time. Years, actually, doing nothing else. Which is why your new skills are so suspicious. Perhaps Officer Tight Pants should be investigating you.”

  I choke on a laugh. “I was on probation, remember?” But I consider his comments about the hearts. Could it be that touching a Warrior heart makes you better with the Q-net? That’s something we can test.

  “My turn. How did you defeat Lan’s demons?” he asks.

  It takes me a moment to connect Lan’s demons to the shadow-blobs. I can’t think of a reason not to tell him. We won’t be able to trick his people with a fake shadow-blob ambush again. So I tell him how we figured it out and built the emitters. “It was a team effort.”

  He grunts, clearly unhappy that we saved everyone on the base. At least we saved them, for now. It’s a good reminder that he’s a murdering looter. He has lots of blood on his hands, including Lan’s.

  “Did you know you would be allowing Lan’s demons into our dimension when you started destroying Warriors?” I ask.

  “I didn’t destroy Warriors, but I can speculate on the reasons why someone might. Warriors are heavy and hard to transport without breaking. The looters only needed certain ones for their plans. In order to reach those, they had to clear a section through and around other ones before grabbing the vital ones. It didn’t seem dangerous at the time. There are a number of collapsed pits on the twenty-two Warrior planets and no signs of demons in any of them.”

  Jarren picks a stray piece of lint off his pants. “When the looters started their plans, they targeted the closed Warrior planets where no one would know what was going on. Also there wasn’t a need to destroy any Warriors on those planets. They didn’t have to be fast. There was no one there to stop them. Those satellites are a joke. Easy to worm into, as you know.”

  I sense where this is going. “But then you focused on the ten active Warrior planets.”

  “Yes. The plan for the active planets was to steal only the important Warriors from a few pits for the network—they could get the others later. They started with Xinji, but realized, with Lan in the base, she’d figure out why only certain Warriors were taken, so they destroyed all of them.”

  Oh. So he didn’t purposely release the shadow-blobs on Xinji. Good to know.

  He rubs his face again as if wiping away the memories. “The looters didn’t realize what was happening until Xinji started sending alarming reports about a serial killer. The looters returned and spotted Lan’s demons, but there was nothing they could do to stop them.”

  “Except maybe warn the scientists. Help them evacuate!” I can’t keep the outrage from my voice.

  The door opens and Bendix sticks his head in. “Fifteen-minute check. Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” I say even though I’m not okay. How could he do that to Lan? Bendix closes the door. “You wanted them all to die?” I ask in a calmer voice.

  “I wasn’t there, but I would guess there was a meeting among the looters and their backers about what to do. They decided that it would be easier to access the Warriors if the research bases were empty.”

  “Easier? Easier for you to kill all those people!”

  Jarren frowns. “Not us. Lan’s demons—the aliens.”

  That was his first slip-up, saying us and not them. “So you used the demons to do your dirty work and attacked Yulin next. Then Taishan, Wu’an, and Ulanqab.”

  He looks at me in surprise.

  “What’s next? Ruijin? Qingyang? Pingliang? Nanxiong? All four? That’s fourteen hundred more people and children for you to kill.”

  Rising from his seat with his hands in fists, he stares at me. I keep my hands on my lap. If he so much as twitches in my direction, I’m going to grab my weapon. But after a few seconds, he settles back in the chair.

  “What about Suzhou? Did you…” But then I remembered he’d been on Suzhou when he discovered the Warrior hearts and true function of the Warriors. Did he steal a heart, or have to sneak around to wake the Warriors? That would have been hard. So he recruited co-conspirators—only the techs and archeologists work in the pits. I snap my fingers. “That was your first base of ops. Are we to assume everyone there is working for you?”

  “It’s my turn to ask questions.” His voice is flat and hard.

  Pleased about guessing right, I lean back.

  “After the satellite over Yulin was destroyed, how did you know the looters were coming to the research base? They were on the other side of the planet, which I’m sure Officer Tight Pants figured out from the missile’s trajectory, but they flew in so they wouldn’t be spotted by the field teams until too late.”

  Oh no. A question that is difficult if not impossible to answer. I can’t tell the full truth, but I can’t lie, so I improvise. “We had someone watching your base.”

  “Who?”

  Q. “I don’t know. Officer Radcliff’s in charge of security. He warned us there were ‘incoming shuttles,’ and we put his plan into action.” And it was a thing of beauty, too. Until I was caught, but that had nothing to do with Radcliff’s genius strategy. Before Jarren can ask another question, I say, “You must have quite the network set up. Lots of people and benefactors footing the bill. How did you manage to keep all your activities under wraps for so long?”

  “There are three words that keep everyone quiet because they know once we have the network set up, we’ll own the Galaxy.”

  Another slip. His megalomania is showing. It doesn’t take me long to figure out those three words. “No time dilation.”

  He frowns. “And it would have stayed quiet if you had kept your promise the first time and come with me. With your worming skills, you would have been highly prized in our organization. You stood to earn millions of credits.” Anger flares in his brown eyes. “Instead, you escaped and told Officer Tight Pants about me. According to DES, I’m supposed to be on Suzhou—forty-two E-years away.” He grins but there’s no humor in it. “Unless you think I look really great for an eighty year-old? No?” He sighs. “One mistake. One fucking mistake, but we still kept it from DES until—how in the hell did you break through my blockade?”

  “I followed you.”

  He fists his hands again. “No way you could have. Even a navigator couldn’t get through without years of experience.”

  “I had help.”

  “Who? That idiot Dorey? He’s like a fat caterpillar trying to squeeze through a screen door.”

  “He is my partner and a damn fine wormer,” I say hotly.

  “Yeah? Well good luck trying to reach DES now.” He’s smug.

  “It doesn’t matter. The damage is done. DES knows about you and what you’ve been doing.”

  He doesn’t reply. If anything he appears even smugger. Is that a word?

  “Oooh,” I draw out. “Did you think your colleagues stopped that information from spreading beyond our initial contacts in DES?”

  His smug expression fades as uncertainty creeps in.

  I tap a finger on my chin as if thinking. “Hmmm….it’s possible they did. Which means it’s a good thing we reestablished communications with DES.”

  Jarren’s on his feet. “Nasty trick, but I’m not falling for it, Lyra.”

  “My name is Ara. You killed Lyra, remember? And I’m not lying. But your confidence that we couldn’t breach your blockade a second time tells me that you have a couple navigators on your payroll.” I’m guessing, but only they would have the skills.

  Jarren lunges for me with his hands outstretched. Without thought, I yank my pulse gun from the holder underneath the table and aim it at him.

  He jerks to a stop thirty centimeters from me. “You lied to me. Again.”

  “I didn’t lie. I said no cameras, microphones, connected terminal, portables, or tangs, but I never said no weapons.”

  Jarren straightens and crosses his arms. “This interview is over.”


  But I have one last question. “You told me before that you don’t want DES to win. That you’d do anything so they don’t. Because of you, hundreds of people have died, and you’ve endangered the entire Galaxy. Did you ever consider that it isn’t DES that would win, but the entire human race? That you could have been a hero? That everyone would have respected and adored you for being a part of the discovery of the century?”

  He refuses to answer.

  “Now Lan will be that hero and you’ll be a murdering looter rotting away in detention for the rest of your life.”

  “And you?”

  “I won’t be grounded anymore.” I hope.

  He laughs. “How humble. You paint a nice picture, Ara. But you haven’t won. The looters might be experiencing a setback, but it’s too late for DES to do anything. My incarceration is temporary. You should enjoy your time with your parents while you can.”

  Logically, I know he’s just trying to scare me. Emotionally, he’s doing a good job of it. I swallow down my fear. “Do you really think your looters will rescue you? You lost sixteen people after your first attack, and fifty-one after your second—both of which were utter failures. Why would they risk more of their own people? Are you even valuable to them anymore? They know how to use the Warriors.”

  “You’ve no idea how valuable I am.”

  Spoken like a true megalomaniac. “Because of the super worming thing? You don’t think your navigators can do it, even though they taught you?”

  No response.

  I snap my fingers. “Oh, I get it now. You’re valuable because only you know how to worm through the Warrior portals.” Another guess.

  His reaction is instant. Diving over the table, he tackles me. I shout as we hit the floor. My pulse gun is wedged between us and I can’t press the trigger. Jarren’s hands are wrapped around my neck. His expression promises murder as my air cuts off.