by Natalie Grey
Talon hadn’t stood around waiting for an answer; he knew he’d get one when Tersi could give it. He was still calling commands to the team, picking off enemies with bursts of his weapon, when Tersi called,
“She’s leaving soon.”
“What?” Talon called back.
“Ghost!” It was John Hugo who picked up the conversation. He was huddled in the shallow cover of a doorway, looking immensely displeased to be useless. “Tersi means that if she’s attacking us here, she’s clearly not worried about making enemies of the Tian Syndicate. She’s leaving Eternas sooner rather than later.”
Talon didn’t respond right away, and Tersi had his hands full with another pair of soldiers who had decided to sneak around the corner to act as snipers. He lobbed a grenade at them and knelt smoothly, his chest forming a shield for Hugo as he called a warning to the team. The Dragons hit the floor with alacrity and one or two of the enemy soldiers screamed.
“How much sooner?” Talon called back, after a moment. His question held the answer he suspected, and he looked over his shoulder to meet Tersi’s eyes for a moment.
Then his eyes grew distant, and he jabbed at his wrist comm unit, murmuring something that Tersi could not hear, between the helmets and the gunfire. Whatever it was, Talon didn’t seem inclined to share it.
A second later, Tersi’s eyes widened. “You think she’s here?”
“Don’t think it’s out of the question,” Talon called back. He’d given Tersi a quick, searching look, but his voice was mild.
Tersi wondered what that was about, but he didn’t exactly have time to question it. The corridor around him was complete chaos.
“Aegis!” Talon’s yell broke through the sounds of battle.
“Yes?” Aegis was wreaking havoc at the front of the team, his hand-to-hand combat punctuated by his yells of effort and his enemies’ yells of pain.
“Check that negotiation room, would you? And do a push. I wonder where dear Aunt Gee is.”
Tersi frowned. “She’s not going to be here,” he called over his shoulder. He’d taken up position with his rifle at the ready, and he was scanning the corridor behind the main group.
“She might be.” John Hugo sounded quite calm, all things considered. He saw Tersi’s quick glance and shrugged. “Whether I survive this or not is entirely out of my hands. There’s no point in worrying about it. …That said, do tell me if I should be doing anything in particular.”
Tersi grinned as he looked back at the corridor. A soldier peered around the corner and disappeared when Tersi fired a burst of shots in their direction.
“You’re doing well—and I appreciate the lack of panic. What did you mean about Regina?” He could talk, absent-mindedly, as he kept his sights up. It even helped, in a strange way. Giving part of his attention to something else kept him more reactive when it came to shooting. He was better able to look everywhere at once, rather than letting his mind convince him that he knew where the next threat would come from.
“I mean,” Hugo said, “that Dess got more out of Regina than Ghost intended. I do believe that, by the way. I considered whether it might have been a ploy, but I think Dess is right. Regina isn’t skilled in this sort of negotiation. Ghost may have realized that this was over Regina’s pay grade.”
“And?”
“And if so, she might not have looped Regina in on any change of plans. Like this, for instance.”
Tersi gave a thoughtful nod.
And then there was a yell—a child’s yell. A little girl’s yell. “Dada!”
She was here. After everything, Rhea was actually here.
And then Tersi knew what Talon had murmured into his comm. He’d guessed, and when Tersi asked about Ghost, using only the word “she,” Talon had wondered whether Tersi guessed the truth about Rhea, as well. He hadn’t, and he shook his head a little that he’d missed it.
That was all the reflection he had time for, because he only just managed to grab John Hugo as the man surged out of cover. He could tell there was no conscious thought behind the man’s movement. This was nothing more than instinct.
Talon yelled a single command and three of the Dragons went streaking away, making a bee-line directly through the soldiers they were fighting. Ghost’s soldiers went staggering sideways and were prevented from following by another contingent of Team 9.
In Tersi’s hold, Hugo was struggling. “Let me go! I have to go to her.”
“That is the last thing you should do.” Tersi kept his voice even. “Look at me. Mr. Hugo, sir—-look at me.” When Hugo gave a concerted effort to escape, Tersi raised his voice. He didn’t give commands often, but he could when the situation called for it. “Look at me.” His voice was like a whiplash.
Hugo’s head jerked around.
“She is safer if our team goes for her instead of you,” Tersi said. “If you go there, you give us two objectives to protect, and there’s a good chance Rhea grows up with a father.” He lowered his voice slightly and played the only card he could. “She’s already lost her mother, sir.” Hugo’s wife had died of an aggressive disease not long after Rhea’s birth. That much was known, but Hugo never spoke of it. Tersi wouldn’t mention it lightly—but if ever there was a time, it was now. “Don’t let them take you, too,” he said seriously.
Hugo slumped in his arms and Tersi could feel the rage running through the man. He was helpless, and he hated it.
“Stay here,” Tersi told him. “Stay here with me, and—”
He broke off. Ahead of him, the teammates who had remained behind were wrapping up, but there was one man still skulking at the edges of the battlefield, ready to deploy whatever it was he kept fiddling with. He didn’t throw it, which led Tersi to believe that the man needed to be holding it, in order to use it.
Tersi could deal with that problem easily. He let John Hugo go, giving a quick look at Stabby and Esu—they nodded, ready to grab Hugo if he took off—and Tersi took aim. He kept his finger close to the trigger. Then, as the Dragons of Team 9 finished off the last of the melee, Tersi saw the man stand, take one step forward—
And go backwards with a boom. The Dragons’ heads whipped around as Tersi stood, putting the safety on and slinging his rifle over his back.
“Didn’t think there’d be any call for your sniping in this battle,” Talon said. “Though if anyone was going to pull an unexpected maneuver, it’s Ghost, I suppose. What are you looking at?”
“He was holding something.” Tersi picked his way over the battlefield and peered down at their opponent. “Now, that’s interesting. What do you think it is?”
“Don’t worry—”
“I wasn’t worried.”
Talon ignored that. “I know just what to do with it.” He fished a little bot out of an external pouch on his armor and dropped it onto the floor, where it crawled up to the strange device and chirped. A light on its top blinked green. “Excellent,” Talon said. He scooped up both the bot and the device.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Give it to Tera.”
“You know, I hear flowers are popular.”
Talon gave him a look. “Because she’s developed a lot of weaponry in her day, not to score points.” He considered. “All right, a little to score points. She’s hard to find gifts for. What do you get for a woman who has more money than God and likes to spend her time working?”
“I see the problem.” Tersi tilted his head to the side.
“Wondering what Dess likes for gifts?” Talon’s voice was sly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tersi said loftily. He turned back to the rest of the group with great dignity as Talon snickered at him.
Along the corridor, there was a shout. “Got her!” someone called.
Esu grabbed John Hugo as the man made another break for it.
“All clear?” Talon called back.
“Yep.”
Talon nodded, and Esu let John Hugo go, though he and Stabby
kept up with the man as he ran towards the sound of the shout—and Rhea’s inquisitive call for her father.
“All right,” Talon said, still chuckling. “Anyone hurt? No? Good. I think we’ve tested Tian Station’s security chief enough. Let’s head back and let them deal with cleanup.” He looked over at Aegis. “Unless we should do a sweep. We should probably do a sweep. Goddammit. Okay, let’s get Hugo and Rhea into a room. Aegis, you take Stabby, Tersi, Jester—”
“Boss, we have a problem.” Jim’s voice.
Everyone went still.
“Yes?” Talon asked, his voice level.
“She’s on the ship.”
For a moment, no one could process that statement—and then everyone did, and burst into motion.
“Stop!” Talon had, over the years, developed a voice that was filled with enough conviction to make you react before you had a chance to think about it. He rarely used it—his team listened to him out of respect, not because of tricks—but he used it now, and even Tersi skidded to a halt. “She knew we’d be back in pretty short order,” Talon said to all of them, but his eyes were fixed on Tersi’s. “She isn’t afraid of however many of us get back there. Bet you anything she’s going to have Dess at gunpoint when we get there … and it is not going to be easy to talk her down. So we’d better have a plan before we go in.”
Tersi felt himself go cold. If he allowed himself to feel anything more, he was not going to get through this. He had to focus on facts, and nothing more. “There’s no getting Dess out of this, is there?”
No one else on the team said anything, all of them were holding their breath.
Talon, however, was willing to meet his eyes. “We know that ship better than anyone,” he said. “Fuck if someone’s going to sneak onto my ship and kill one of my team.”
So she’s one of your team now? Tersi wanted to find a smile for that, but if he allowed himself to do that, the dam was going to break.
“Jim,” Talon said softly. “Tell me where they are. Tell me exactly.”
Jim told them, and it was Tersi whose head jerked up.
“I have an idea,” he said.
Dess watched as Harry was shoved into the airlock and reached out to let her fingers brush against the screen. Her mouth was trembling. She’d never expected to see him again, but here he was, still alive.
Your brother is about to die. Would you like to watch?
She clung to the fact that Ghost had no idea what Dragons were capable of. Dess was too young to be part of Ghost’s inner circle, but she knew from various whispers that Ghost had already lost once against Nyx—and that she had underestimated the Dragons again after that.
The problem with Ghost, after all, was that so much of the secrecy of the family had been due to the fact that it would never occur to anyone to look for a secret planet. No one would look for evidence of an entire second government, just like no one would expect that a senator had been in charge of a smuggling ring.
Once a secret like that was out, however—once someone stumbled upon it—the rest of everything came tumbling down.
She watched as Harry began to work on the panel, and saw was vaguely aware of Ghost’s annoyed little mutter. Come on, Harry. You can do it.
His movements slowed so imperceptibly that she did not realize what was happening until he stumbled—and until Ghost said, “Did you really think you could go into my systems and I wouldn’t know? I am the systems, Harry.”
It took Dess a moment to realize that the woman was not only speaking out loud, but also sending her voice into the systems of the station.
Dess looked over at her aunt, then. She really looked, and she saw what her father had been running from. When they had learned of Ghost’s “death” in the media, only to realize that she was actually alive and well, that was when her father had finally gotten the courage to run.
It hadn’t been sloppiness that left Harry behind, Dess saw now. Her father had known that might be the cost, and he had made the decision anyway: better to run then, before there was a chance of Ghost becoming even more powerful than she’d been before. Better to take the chance of sacrificing one, if it meant that the rest of the family survived.
His complete self-destruction came into focus for her now, with a sense of guilt so keen it took her breath away. He had known Harry might not survive this, and he’d done it anyway—and now he could never forgive himself. No wonder he spent his days lost in a fog of drunkenness. No wonder he had shut himself away from their mother, whose grief was less complicated and less shaded with guilt.
No wonder he looked at Dess with fierce love … and utter hatred. He’d thrown his son away to save his daughter. How could he ever forgive her?
All this and more flashed through her head in a split-second, and then Ghost looked up at Dess. Those eyes were a deep brown, the same as they had always been. They were even the same pattern, so that she might pass all of her bio checks. But it was all different.
Dess hardly realized what she was doing when she reached out. Her fingers trailed over the skin of the new face. It was curiosity. It was a quest for understanding.
“You are the systems,” she said softly, repeating her aunt’s words. It all seemed so far away, like they were beyond time. She couldn’t reach Harry, and part of her knew she was going to die as well. Strangely, she felt calm for the first time in months.
Ghost did not say a word, nor did she move. She watched Dess with a hunger Dess could not name.
“You’ve been in the systems for years,” Dess said quietly. Tiny occurrences were popping into her memory, little fragments of memory—family members accusing one another of betrayal, things going right or wrong, the stations Ghost was on working strangely. “Even when it was a human body, when it looked like a human body, it wasn’t, was it? You were already more.”
Ghost smiled then, and it was not all hatred. There was satisfaction there, even pride.
“Little Dess,” she said, almost fondly. “So observant. You always were a good negotiator. You’d have been a true threat to me if you had more resolve.”
“I’ve never—” And then Dess realized what she meant. “As head of the family?” Her voice was incredulous.
“Yes,” Ghost said simply. “I learned to watch for the ones who might try to take my place. You could have been one of those, you know.”
Dess laughed. “I never wanted it.”
“I know.” Ghost was not at all surprised. “I saw that. Like I said, you lacked resolve.” When she saw Dess’s confusion, she gave a look that was almost bitter. “You think I wanted the power? That was never why I was there. I took control of the family because only I could lead them through what was coming. Only I had the resolve to do what needed to be done—to become what we needed from a leader.”
“This?” Dess looked at her body. “You achieved something humanity has dreamed of for centuries … simply for the family?”
Ghost gave a small smile.
“It was for you as well,” Dess guessed.
“Perhaps.” It was not prevarication; Ghost seemed uncertain of the answer—and as though she did not much care either way. “But it did give me something very important, didn’t it? It gave me immortality.” Casually, she yanked Dess sideways, and the muzzle of a gun pressed against the side of her head. “Something you don’t have,” Ghost said pleasantly.
In the doorway, Talon froze. His helmet was in his hand; he’d returned earlier than the rest, alone, and Dess had the crushing sense of guilt that he had come to find her—so she could speak to Gianni Brown’s superiors. There was no way she could have known how that offer would turn out, but she still wanted to go back and undo it.
“Leave,” she croaked out. “Just go.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own. She was desperate to get him out of here. “You can’t hurt her like you’d hurt a normal person. She’s—”
“Shut up, Dess.” Ghost gave her a little shake, and the gun creaked in her hands—the faint, metallic sound of
the trigger beginning to press.
Dess pressed her lips shut and focused on not screaming. Then a thought came to her. “So you’ve got Harry dying in the airlock, and me like this,” she said, her eyes meeting Talon’s desperately, hoping he’d understand why she’d mentioned her brother. Get Harry out. “Just finish it.”
She wished she could take the challenge back when alarm flared in Talon’s eyes. But Ghost only laughed.
“Ah, but you’re a hostage of significant value, aren’t you? Talon Rift isn’t going to let you die. That’s what he’s telling himself right now, isn’t it? He’s trying to find a way to get you out of my grasp and away, to safety. His human brain—” the words dripped with condescension “—is smoothing over every rational thought that tells him it won’t work, there’s no way for it to work. He’s going to try, Dess. For you.”
“Don’t,” Dess croaked out.
Because she knew this situation. She knew that there was no bargaining with Ghost. There was no negotiation now. What Ghost wanted, Talon could never give—and Ghost would face neither censure nor sadness from killing Dess.
There was no way this ended with Dess alive.
But Talon tried anyway. God help him, he tried. He bent to set his helmet down and he held his hands up, a gesture of surrender.
“They know about Eternas,” he said. “If you want to get your people out, you have to go now.” He gave a small smile. “After all of this effort to silence the Taspers … Hugo found it on his own.”
“Let him,” Ghost said calmly. “If he ever wants to see his daughter again, he’ll—”
“He’s already seen her,” Talon said. He looked almost confused.
Ghost froze. “…What?”
“Wasn’t that the point of the negotiation?” His brow furrowed. “You know, why you had John Hugo brought here in the first place? For him to negotiate for his daughter’s release? He said you drove a hard bargain—well, your deputy—Regina?”
