“I need you, Gal. I came to your ship for a reason. Don’t you understand?”
He did understand. And it terrified him to his very bones.
“What do you need from us, Master Poet?”
The Poet’s gaze turned back to Rayne.
“Rayne, no!”
But it happened anyhow. Gal watched Rayne’s ever-reverent face set with determination. He watched the Poet’s eyes narrow with shrewd understanding.
“We need to leave the planet.”
“Our crew!” shouted Gal. “We’re here to run freight.”
Rayne stepped in front of him. “We’re here to serve the Gods. However we can.”
“Rayne,” he gasped. Dear, sweet Rayne who had never questioned the Gods or the Speakers once in her life.
She turned on him.
Gal clenched his fists, shouting, “I serve my Gods by running freight. That’s all I want.”
“I know who you are, Galiant,” said the Poet.
“I’m a freight captain.”
“Hardly. This is a mission you can’t afford to pass on.”
“You’re going to get us all killed —.”
Rayne slapped him, actually hit him. “This is the Poet Laureate of the United Earth Central Army,” she hissed. “His words are Truth, he speaks for the Speakers of the Gods.”
Wide eyed, he tried to plead with her.
“Don’t be a fool,” she whispered back at him. “This is your chance. Whatever failures of the past, the Gods have given you an opportunity to make it right.”
“This isn’t —.”
Sparks flew from the light fixtures overhead — circuit overload. The pinging on the hull escalated, dozens of separate law-guns firing repeatedly. Gal recoiled, reaching for the flask in his pocket, gasping when his hand found nothing but emptiness.
Ghosts of memory whipped by him, but twisted, terrible. A firing squad and certain death outside. Certain death inside. And Rayne, standing there beside him.
“Hey, what’s goin’ on?” Kieran Wood leaned over the railing of the upper level, shouting down at them. “There’s laz-bolts tearin’ up my hull.”
Gal groaned, clutching his straining chest. Why? Why was the engineer here? Why was any of this happening? For a minute, he thought he would be better off in the wasteland with Minerva. He would probably live longer, at least.
Rayne sprinted towards the stairs, shouting orders: “Prep the engines. Raise the shields. Prepare to break atmo.”
“No!” screamed Gal. He fell to his knees. The girl — the thing — was gone. The Poet stood over him. And screams of long-dead demons sliced across him like physical blows.
Rayne stopped, turned. “This is what the Poet meant, Gal. Whatever demons have possessed you…. I serve the Gods, fully and wholeheartedly. Here is my chance to prove it.”
He reached his hand out to her meekly. “Rayne, he’s —.”
“If you take this away from me….”
Gal pressed his lips together. “This is a bad idea.”
“You’re stuck, Gal. You can’t even see a life beyond this freightship. But you deserve more. You are more.”
Another shower of sparks rained down, the lights in the cargo bay flickering.
“We have to go, now,” the Poet said — he turned to Rayne, addressing her directly. “That’s an order, Commander.”
Kieran still hung over the railing, watching.
“Lieutenant, the Poet Laureate’s given us an order!” Rayne shouted.
Kieran stayed for a moment, staring down, and Gal felt a twinge of hope, mixed with dangerous curiosity as he felt the engineer study him. Then Kieran cracked his jaw, and pushed away. “Yes, ma’am.”
And Gal sat alone in the cargo bay, trying to comprehend what had just happened. The lights flickered a final few times and finally gave out, casting him into darkness.
* * *
The half-finished diagnostic screamed in protest as Kieran ripped the sensor wires from the engine. “Sorry, no time for that,” he said to the machine. He checked the data chip in the main console, and set it to record — now, there might finally be something worth sending home.
His fingers flew over the complex start-up sequence. Ion injectors hissed and the rotors clunked to life. In the background, laz-bolts hit the hull, pinging off the reflective metal.
“Engines on,” he shouted into the comm screen. “Take ‘er —.”
The ship lurched off the ground, casting forward.
He slammed his fist into the comm. “Take ‘er easy. Engines are cold.”
In the wide open and entirely empty engineering bay, the row of work screens set into the walls flashed in unison: engine warning. “Great,” he muttered.
He turned to the central console — a large round bench, and turned on the 3D display. A hologram of the ship flickered to life. Pinprick red dots highlighted the damage — superficial only.
He turned on the comm again. “Who’s flying this thing?”
“It’s auto,” Rayne’s voice filtered down.
“Autopilot?”
“We don’t have a pilot.”
“Oh.”
Autopilot explained why the floor kept pitching back and forth. It took feel to move a ship the size of a warehouse through a gravity field with dense atmosphere.
“We’ll need the FTL,” came a smooth voice — the Poet.
“Can’t,” said Kieran. “Regulations say I can’t spool the plasma until we leave the planetary boundaries.” Most regulations he didn’t agree with, but that one seemed smart.
The pings of laz-bolts moved lower on the hull, shifting around the ship. At least this time they’ve gone away from the fragile gravity drive. He glanced at the 3D display and the little flashes of red, trying to figure out what they were aiming for, but they still hadn’t caused any serious damage.
The ship jerked out from under him, and his head slammed into the console. “Jesus,” he gasped. Damn autopilot.
Bright red lit up the fore-starboard thruster.
“What happened?”
“We’ve been hit.” He manipulated the controls on the bench in front of him, zooming in on the area. “A few of the thrusters have been taken out.”
“Fix it!”
The floor tilted wildly, and the 3D display showed the ship spinning over the starboard side, no longer held up by the weakened thruster bank. The ship’s artificial gravity failed to compensate for the spin in the planet’s competing field, and Kieran fell, his feet slamming into the wall.
Drawers spilled open and tools crashed across the bay. Stupid autopilot.
He bent down, his feet on the wall beside a work screen, tapping rapidly through the controls. The steering algorithms needed to be adjusted, or they’d slam into the ground in exactly the same place they’d started, only upside down. Of all the things not to leave home without, pilot sat top of the list.
“Come on, come on,” he shouted at the computer. A slow progress bar creeped across the screen as it checked his calculations. They were right, he’d been doing them for years without any kind of computer, he should’ve just bypassed the checks. Instead, he scratched at his arm and pounded on the wall.
On the other side of the bay, something dropped. The girl from the cargo bay crouched on the wall the same as he did, squinted at the screen. As if the day couldn’t get any weirder.
Ding — the computer finished. His finger flew so fast at the ‘Implement’ icon that it hurt.
The swirling gravity evened out and the ship righted itself. On the 3D view, the ship breached the atmosphere and the planet receded.
He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, scanning across his ruined engineering bay. The girl had disappeared. “Hey,” he called out.
The comm buzzed again, “Kieran, the FTL.”
“Yeah, yeah. One thing at a time.” He kicked through the debris on the floor and went to the engine room.
The girl in his engine room surprised him, her
hands flitting around the internal portion of the massive gravity drive.
“Hey,” he snapped. “That’s my engine.”
Her eyes flicked up, fixing him with a steady stare. Her hand darted out and touched the control pad.
“Don’t!” He rushed in and grabbed her shoulder.
She grabbed his hand with alarming ferocity and twisted it off.
Kieran gasped and stared down at his hand to be sure it wasn’t broken.
Silently, she pointed to the screen, opening and closing her mouth, her eyebrows knitting together.
The plasma had started to heat up and spin, she had turned on the FTL gravity drive. “You’re supposed to wait until we leave planetary space.”
“Where’s our FTL?”
He punched the nearest workscreen to return the comm. “Plasma’s spooling. Another two minutes maybe.”
The girl tapped at the engine, features drawn into a scowl.
“What?” He shouted at her. The computer buzzed at him from the other room. “Not now!”
The 3D display flashed in the other room, and the work screens showed another alert. He peered into the main room and gulped, hitting the console in the engine room. “Rayne, have you seen the warship behind us?”
The girl had disappeared from sight. Jesus.
“Plot a jump!” shouted the Poet.
He checked. “Three minutes left for the plasma to spool.”
“Three? I thought it was two.”
“It’s an old ship. I shut down the drive for maintenance on Selousa. The plasma’s cold.”
“I don’t think they’ve seen us.”
“Why is the Comrade all the way out here?” he asked. They were supposed to be doing training maneuvers.
A clank sounded in the gravity drive. The girl’s bare feet were hanging out of the access port.
Jesus. He passed his hand rapidly over his head, navel, and both shoulders. “Get outta there! Plasma stream’s live.”
Another clank.
She slipped out, moving so fast he didn’t see her slither by. The data screen blinked as she tapped rapidly through the screens.
“What are you —.”
The FTL bypassed it’s checks. For a second, everything paused, and then they were pulled and compressed, squeezing through an artificial gravity well powerful enough to fold the fabric of space. Instantly, they arrived at their new destination halfway across the galaxy.
Wherever that was.
FOUR
“AMELIA, MY HUNTER.” GUITTERIEZ SMILED, brushing his hand over her arm. “You’re upset aren’t you?”
Commandant Amelia Mallor bit down on the inside of her cheek, suppressing the illogical shudder that coursed through her from his touch.
The bridge of the UECAS Comrade hummed around them, the quiet murmurs of a dozen elite soldiers in crisp uniforms as they worked at gleaming white consoles. They were watching, she knew, as they always did, waiting for her next move.
Her warship hovered in geosynchronous orbit above Selousa.
Her head ached. “Far be it from me to doubt you, Doctor, but I find the plan difficult to understand.”
He tilted his head. “How so?”
“You call me your hunter, and yet” — she growled involuntarily — “you have ordered me to stay while my prey escapes.”
“Anger does not become you, Amelia.” The doctor closed the last of the space between them, gripping both her shoulders and pressing his thumbs into the joint until she squirmed in pain. He relaxed the hold. “Is this not your task, Commandant, to help me in my work?”
Warmth flooded through her, anger forgotten. “I am sorry, Doctor. It’s just, usually you ask me to detain them, not set them free.”
“Not free,” he said, shaking his head. “The laboratory has just gotten a little bigger.”
“Should we not go after her?”
“Not yet.” He grinned wickedly, scar curling across his cheek.
The wickedness in her leaped in anticipation. This hunt would be special, she was sure of it. Together, she and the Doctor were an unstoppable team: cunning, deadly, ruthless.
“You have confirmed our agents are in play?” Guitteriez asked.
“Yes. The message has been spread in the circle of influence on Contyna. An hour ago, I received word from our agent that the code had been uploaded into the freightship.”
He nodded. “Good.”
“What of the freightship? How will we find it and the girl again?”
“You think the thief on Contyna will hear these rumours?”
“It is certain.”
“When he comes, he will bring her.”
Amelia grinned. “And I will capture her for you.”
“No.”
“What?” She struggled to soften the sharpness that came into her voice, lest the doctor feel the need for another correction. “I fail to understand.”
“It is a rouse.” Guitteriez stepped close to her again, but did not reach his arms out. “There is a signal chip embedded in her skull that we need to activate. Then we will be able to monitor her every move.”
“She will be free. Dangerous.”
His hand came up to her shoulder, resting gently: a warning. “You will have your hunt, my dear. We will catch up to them when the virus takes hold and the freightship is floating in the dead of space.”
The commandant’s eyes flew open. “The plan is foolish. She has skill with engineering. What if she is able to escape? We should destroy her now.”
Guitteriez’s thumb pressed into her shoulder. “Relax, Amelia. Do not me regret my decision to involve you in the mission.”
The warm sensation warred with her agitated heart.
“The technicians assure me there is no fix for the computer program. Every move has been plotted, checked, and pre-determined. She will not escape.”
He pulled her against his chest, wrapped his arms across her back, and slowly her racing heart started to calm.
“I love you,” he said.
She nodded against his embrace. “One more thing. Why the farce of drawing them to the warship? Why not activate the implant while on Selousa?”
“She would have seen you coming.”
“Me?”
“This one is smart, wary. Everything must seem as though it has happened without interference for our experiment to be successful.”
* * *
The pain radiating from Sarrin’s upper thigh rated minor concern at most, even though the laz-bolt had torn through the skin and into the superficial muscle. Rarely did she allow herself to be hit, but she had calculated its effects on her to be significantly less than if the bolt had continued on its path and hit Halud.
She chewed a leaf of Yunnan she had found in the galley, turning it into a thick paste. She waited for her brother to look away before pressing the salve into the charred hole — he had always hated the sight of blood.
Every few steps, Halud would look back, checking to see that she followed him through the ship’s corridors. His furtive smiles made her uncomfortable.
Instead, she focussed on analyzing her surroundings. Ship: Sycia Class, a freightship ten years out of manufacture. It had the inefficient layout of an early model, and that, combined with the stale musty odour and grimy brown staining on the walls, told her it was at least thirty years old. Standard crew size of twenty. Maximum jump distance 6,270 parsecs.
Halud stopped and pressed his thumb against a biometric door mechanism. The door opened and he stepped aside. “You’ll stay here with me.”
Her finely tuned reflexes vibrated as she scanned the room. Bed: one. Table: one. Weapons — no! She sat stiffly in the single chair Halud offered.
Cautiously, he sat on the bed, rubbing his palms across his grey trousers, robe spilling out around him. His body hummed with energy, his smile shining with exuberance. “Sarrin,” he breathed.
He rushed across the room, arms around her, hugging her, before she could scream out and tell him to stop.
She felt him shaking, felt the tears falling onto her worn jumpsuit. It burned like fire in the torn patches where skin met skin.
No way for him to know the danger he was in.
Her body tensed, became like a stone in his arms, but he continued, “I thought I’d never see you again. I’ve been searching for you all this time, and I couldn’t believe when I found out you were alive… and now you’re here, with me. Thank the Gods for being so good.” He pulled back. “Sarrin?”
The grey-on-grey pattern on the carpet repeated twelve times across the room, and ten along its length. Thirteen escape routes and thirty-five objects that could be used as deadly weapons, not considering the latrine or wardrobe.
“Sarrin? Look at me.” His hand reached out.
She forced herself to look up, look into the blue orbs spilling with moisture. She appreciated the difficulty Halud had overcome to find her and extract her. Certainly, he had gone to great lengths to be together again — but the last time she saw those eyes they peered out from his hiding place high in the apple tree as the soldiers captured her and beat her and took her away.
His eyes tightened with concern, and he studied her now at arms length. “Can you speak?”
Truthfully, she didn’t know. Earlier had been the first she had tried in three years.
What would she say, even if she could?
Halud’s face drew tighter. “What did they do to you?”
She flinched as he reached to touch her leg.
“Oh, Sarrin” He stared into her eyes, searching as though the answer could be gleaned from a simple retinal scan. “Do you — do you want something to eat?” he asked finally, “Or, or maybe a shower?”
Her condition must be abhorrent. Hygiene had scarcely ever had time to be a priority, but she had been educated on the general basics. She pulled at her sleeves, covering the burns and the tattoos running down each arm, and nodded.
“You must be hungry,” he resolved, turning away. “I can find some food and proper clothes, while you clean up.”
He was almost to the door. Her brother, the one who had taught her to climb trees and played for hours in the forests. Who had run away and taken care of her after their parents fell sick and died. She had to say something.
Augment Page 7
