Fearful Symmetry (The Robert Fenaday and Shasti Rainhell Chronicle Book 2)

by Edward McKeown

  “I have a request,” he said. “I want to see Rainhell.”

  They stared incredulously at the assassin. Mmok barked a laugh. “No,” said Telisan flatly, his hand falling to the butt of his weapon. Vaughn looked at him with faint amusement.

  “It is impossible,” Telisan continued, more politely. “She is out of danger but in a medical coma.”

  “I did not say I wanted to speak to her, merely to look on her,” Vaughn replied. “I have seen her only once, at night and from a distance.”

  “No,” Telisan repeated.

  Vaughn raised a hand. “Wait. I have something for your eyes only. Read it before you deny my request. Again, it is only for your eyes.” He extended a large hand holding a rolled paper. Telisan stepped forward and took it, then, looking briefly at the HCRs, walked off the deck, away from their optics. Back in an interior corridor, he unrolled the paper. Bold handwriting scrawled over it. Telisan, your technicians did a good job with our computers. With more time they might have covered their tracks. I know what you know and I can surmise what you plan. You will need information, more than you have: shipping, orbits, installations and recognition signals. You may regard this as treason, but Pard raised me as a realist. The Denshi forces in the alien systems are doomed. I must write them off. Nor do you wish me to share my suspicions with Dominici. I intend Rainhell no harm. I wish only to see her face. It has haunted me since our last encounter.

  Telisan stood stock-still in shock, his mind whirling. He could not understand the human’s motivation, unless it was... no, impossible. Still, here he was.

  Telisan walked into the bay to face a frankly curious Mmok. He looked at the huge Engineered. “Very well. I will allow this, but you will be searched. You go in with an HCR holding each of your arms. You will not approach within two meters of the bed. At the merest hint of any threat, the HCRs will tear you to pieces. These conditions are not negotiable.”

  “Agreed,” Vaughn said. “There will be no trouble.”

  Telisan turned to face an incredulous Mmok. “I want Cobalt and Indigo.” Mmok looked at him for a second, but the forbidding expression on Telisan’s face forestalled any question. Mmok glanced suspiciously at Vaughn, then nodded. The two machines moved forward smoothly. “Search him,” Mmok said.

  The two slender robots ran sensor-equipped hands over the big man, poking in some very sensitive areas.

  “What gender are these things?” Vaughn asked. “I want to know if I should be enjoying this.”

  McLoughlin snorted a laugh. Telisan looked at Mmok, confused.

  “I thought they engineered the humor out of you guys,” Mmok growled.

  “Follow me,” Telisan said, impatiently.

  They walked the short distance to the sickbay in a weird procession. The Denlenn led, followed by the Engineered, flanked by the slender HCRs and trailed by Mmok.

  Arpen greeted them at the doorway. Obviously Mmok had called ahead. She asked no questions.

  Telisan turned. “From here you go with the robots holding you and—”

  “At the first sign of danger, I die,” Vaughn interrupted. “I recall.”

  The black-clothed robots with their distinguishing sashes turned in unison and took Vaughn by the arms above and below the elbow. Arpen turned back to the sickbay; they followed her in.

  Rainhell lay silent in a diagnostic bed, covered with a thermal blanket. Her incredible Engineered body had worked as hard as the physicians. Despite a beating that would have killed or crippled almost any human, she showed little sign of how close she had been to death only three days before. She was thinner. Her body had converted its small store of fat, and Arpen was putting as much glucose in her as was possible. Even the long, glossy black hair that had fallen to the surgeon’s cutters was already inches long, growing almost visibly. There was no swelling to her face; the bruises were fading. She remained in a medical coma only to speed her recovery.

  Vaughn stopped the required two meters away, staring at Shasti’s face. Telisan and Arpen watched him as a mother Rottweiler might watch a stranger near her puppies. The big man said nothing, merely looked at her face, drinking in every detail.

  “She is beautiful,” he said finally. “I only saw her once, from a distance, at night.”

  “Well,” Mmok said, slightly amused, “she’s looked better.”

  Vaughn ignored him, gazing at Rainhell. They stood silently for a few minutes longer. Finally Telisan shifted impatiently, “I have much to do, Mr. Vaughn. Have you seen enough?”

  “Yes,” he said after a moment, “thank you.”

  In a weird pirouette, the HCRs, still holding Vaughn’s arms, turned him toward the door. They marched back to the shuttle bayhatch. Once there, Telisan stopped Vaughn. “I believe you owe me something.”

  Vaughn looked at him and sighed then called across to the woman outside the ship on the far side of the gantry. “Tanaka.”

  The woman walked across in lithe, muscular strides, drawing admiring glances from McLoughlin and, Arpen would have been pleased to know, Mmok. She noted their looks and returned a cool stare.

  Vaughn reached out a hand, into which she put two data crystals. Vaughn handed these to Telisan. “One of these, the blue, is for you. The other is for Rainhell. It is private, I would prefer it remain that way.”

  “Assassin,” Telisan said, “nothing passes from your hands to hers that I have not checked thoroughly.”

  To Telisan’s surprise, Vaughn smiled. “Good. I am pleased to see she has such friends.” Without a further word or backward glance, Vaughn strode off, followed by Tanaka.

  “What’s on the crystal?” Mmok asked after the Olympians left.

  “I will let you know when you need to know,” Telisan replied. “What of the robot repairs?” he demanded, changing the subject.

  Mmok looked at him narrowly before answering. “Twenty-five combat crabs, five HCRs, the airbot and one utility bot are available. You ought to be happy; only ten of all types made it through the fight intact. I have two crabs, two utilities and an HCR in storage. I’ll try to activate those tomorrow.”

  “Excellent,” Telisan said. He had not known of the spare machines. What else was Mmok hiding from him? “Why were they not used in combat?”

  Mmok shook his head, “Christ, you think this is easy? I’m the only controller to ever manage all three main types of robots. How many machines do you want run through my damn brain?”

  “Sorry,” Telisan said. “I know little of this.”

  Mmok relaxed a little, still watching Telisan.

  “Get your machines ready,” Telisan ordered, “I want one hundred percent security around the ship till we lift tomorrow. I leave this to you.”

  Mmok watched as the Denlenn walked off.

  “What the hell’s going on?” McLoughlin asked.

  “Don’t know,” Mmok said, as if to himself. “Aim to find out though.”

  *****

  Rask returned to Sidhe downcast and discouraged. He hoped that with the fall of Denshi, it might be easier to move around Marathon. The opposite had occurred; the city descended into chaos. Bremardi and Neos sought to pay off old scores with the Denshi, usually with little success. The Army tried to keep the parties apart despite occasional run-ins with the Navy.

  Only Li and an Olympian Special Forces Lieutenant— the same officer who had escorted Fenaday to Dominici on the space station mere days ago— accompanied him. They were running out of time. Telisan was in a fury of impatience to lift ship. Rask suspected the Denlenn had orders from Mandela, but Telisan refused to confirm or deny anything.

  The inbound Confed fleet included heavy warships, outnumbering and outgunning the Olympian Self-Defense Force by a significant margin. An OSDF destroyer that closed on the fleet ceased broadcasting its IFF. The task force ignored inquiries about it. The Confed ships had emerged from hyperspace far out in the system and, unlike Sidhe’s frantic dash at the planet, came in very slowly. The fleet would not make orbit for twenty
days. Mandela, if he was aboard, was playing his cards close, doubtless suspicious of his ally Dominici.

  Their aircar grounded on the approach to the docks where Sidhe lay. Telisan didn’t allow aircraft near the starship. Another two hundred meters and they would have been targeted.

  “Pull over,” Rask said.

  “Sir,” the Lieutenant pulled to the curb. His mouth drew into a grim line of disapproval.

  “We’ll walk it from here,” the Morok said. It had become a ritual of the last week. If Rigg still lived, he’d find a way to get down to the area around the ship. Rask did a walkthrough of the entire area. The Army didn’t like it. Rask didn’t give a shit.

  “Okay, Lieutenant,” Rask said, “see you tomorrow.”

  “I thought you guys leave tomorrow,” replied the Olympian.

  Rask’s red eyes looked impassively back at him. “We’ll see.”

  Rask and Li exited the vehicle and waited till it disappeared out of sight. Dockers and merchants milled about the area. A few stared at them curiously. They didn’t hold the Morok’s eyes when he looked back. Rask took his usual circuitous route back to where Army Security held the dockside. He stopped long enough to buy a gyro at a vendor before walking on. Li accompanied him, quiet as usual.

  “Too bad you can’t get liberty in this port,” the Morok said, between bites of the gyro. “By your admittedly low human standards, the locals are probably considered hot stuff.”

  “Hah,” Li looked around. “You couldn’t get a date on this world without a gene test. They probably want to run a track meet before sex.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll get lucky, someday,” Rask mused. “Get to my world and see some real women.”

  Li watched him savaging the gyro. “I don’t think so.”

  “Once you go blue,” Rask added, “you’ll always be true.”

  As they passed an alley, an urgent voice called out, “Rask!”

  The Morok and human whirled, hands on weapons. In the alley, standing against the wall, stood an emaciated Daniel Rigg. His solemn, too-thin face creased in a smile. Rask, moving amazingly fast for his squat frame, ran into the alley, followed a beat later by Li.

  “Dan, you son of a bitch,” Rask swore. “Where have you been? You’ve had me worried to death.”

  “Sorry,” Rigg said. “It’s been a bad trip.”

  The Morok gripped his friend’s arms, fighting to keep his tone level. “Good to see you, sir.”

  “You too and don’t sir me. Good to see you, Li.”

  “Are any of the rest of the team with you?” Rask demanded. “Why didn’t you just call us for help? We came out on top. The Army is on our side. Denshi’s under control.”

  “Good to hear,” Rigg said. “A lot isn’t clear from out here. We didn’t know if the Denshi were all tied up, or if we could really trust the Army. Anyway the city is very dangerous to move in. A lot of scores are getting settled out here.”

  He took a deep breath. “Nobody else from my team made it, except Rainhell. Last I saw of her, she was gunning for Pard.”

  “She and the skipper got him,” Li interrupted.

  Rigg grabbed Li’s arm. “Is she alive?”

  “She and Fenaday are both in sickbay,” Rask answered. “They were both real bad. Hell, they were dead. Mourner and Arpen brought them back.”

  Rigg sagged. “Thank God.”

  Instantly, Rask placed his shoulder under his friend’s arm. “We’ll talk back at the ship,” he said. “Sort it all out there.”

  “Wait,” Rigg said. “There is another reason I didn’t just call. Our Olympian contact is with me. We’ve got to get her out. I’m not leaving her behind in this insanity.” He turned, “Leda, come on.”

  From the back of the alley, an older Olympian woman, tall, handsome and frightened, came out from behind some crates.

  “OK,” Rask said, “you say she goes, then she goes.”

  “No argument from me,” Li said.

  “Can you walk to the ship?” Rask asked.

  Rigg grinned. “I can run to the bloody, lovely, wonderful ship.”

  “Lean on the nice lady as we go,” Rask gestured to Leda. “I want my gun hand free. Li get on the com. I want HCRs on their way to us. I want them now.”

  Li keyed his mike and spoke urgently into it.

  Rask handed Rigg the back-up pistol he always carried. “Let’s get your butt to sickbay.” Flanked by the Morok and Li, Rigg, leaning heavily on Jenner, moved into the street. People backed away from them as they came out. Up the street there was sudden consternation. Two slight female figures, both in black with differing blue sashes, flashed into view, moving almost too fast to be seen.

  “Mmok?” Rigg asked in a thin whisper.

  “Yep,” Rask replied. “He’s almost as hard to kill as you are.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Rigg said.

  *****

  Telisan’s ruse worked, aided by the fact that Davis wanted them out of his hair as soon as possible. Sidhe took off in the early morning hours. Dominici did not even come down to send them off.

  Olympia did not boast an accelerator. Military fuel sleds, essentially large expendable fuel tanks, accomplished the same task, if more clumsily. The star-frigate used a pair to boost up to maximum speed without burning any onboard fuel. Where they were going, they would find no friends. After launching, Sidhe maintained radio silence. With luck it would be some time before the fleet figured out what they were doing. Given their relative speeds, fuel status and distance, the Confed fleet could do nothing in any event. Sidhe could not be caught before she reached jump space. They would be days, perhaps weeks behind her.

  Telisan kept the crew busy preparing for her voyage out. Stores were piled in passageways. Machinery, especially from the ground force, needed repair. Mmok still seemed busy with the machines, including the new HCR, Scarlet. Marines requisitioned from the embassy had to be quartered and integrated. Everything proceeded according to plan. It was too good to be true.

  *****

  Lt. Graglia raced up to Telisan, out of breath. The Denlenn stood with Arpen and Sharla at the entrance to the sickbay. Telisan wanted to spend some time with his fiancées, weaving back the torn fabric of their engagement.

  “Why are you not on the bridge?” Telisan demanded.

  “Mmok came in, with the HCRs. He ordered us to cut thrust and get out. There was nothing we could do,” Graglia huffed.

  Telisan cursed in Denleni.

  “He says he wants to talk to you, sir,” Graglia added.

  “Shall I get the landing troops?” Sharla asked.

  Telisan shook his head. “In such close quarters, they would be useless against HCRs. No, I shall deal with Mr. Mmok.”

  “Not alone,” Sharla said.

  Unexpectedly, Arpen placed a hand on his arm. “Not alone,” she demanded. “I will go with you. I can reach him.”

  “Very well,” he said, “but you leave when I say.”

  “It has happened as you feared,” Arpen whispered. “I was wrong.”

  “It has happened,” he agreed, “but you were not wrong.”

  He started into a run, forestalling any questions from Sharla. Arpen was forced to run flat out to keep up with them.

  The bridge doors cycled open. Mmok waited for them, standing in front of the captain’s chair, accompanied by six slim deadly figures. The machines stared at them soullessly. Telisan moved to face Mmok across the spade-shaped bridge. Overhead lights glinted off the ceramic/metal of his skull piece.

  “What do you think you are doing, Mr. Mmok?” Telisan demanded.

  “The question is, what are you doing, Telisan? Where are we going so fast? Why are we rearmed and provisioned? Why the radio silence?”

  “I do not need to explain myself to you,” Telisan snapped. He loosened his right arm and shoulder; the long expressive fingers hovered near the hilt of his Martini laser.

  It wasn’t lost on Mmok. “Good as you are, you are not faster than
an HCR. I don’t want to kill you. Don’t make it necessary. So again, what do you think you are doing? You may have fooled the others by invoking Mandela’s name, but I know the old son of a bitch well. An honor-bound Denlenn is the last person he’d be giving orders to. He doesn’t trust you, Telisan. You don’t lie and that makes you a dangerous person in our world.”

  “You know what we are doing and why,” Telisan said. “Perhaps, you have always known. Mandela knew of or suspected Pard’s secret alliance with an unknown alien race. He knew the Olympians were trading intelligence, armaments and technology in a betrayal of the Confederacy. That is why the heavy-handed assassination, the desperate speed and our own part.

  “Did he also know that Lisa Fenaday and the crew of the Blackbird were captured by that race, held these last eight years as prisoners? Did he?”

  Mmok looked surprised, even shaken. “I don’t know what he knows,” he said finally. “Don’t mistake me for a confidant of his. I just work for the Confederacy.”

  “Then you will be pleased to know,” Telisan returned, “that the Confederate Private Warship Sidhe is bound for the new alien’s colony world on a rescue mission.”

  Mmok shook his head almost reluctantly. “That would sacrifice any advantage of surprise a Confed task force might have. If these new aliens are hostile, we might have to hit them fast and take them down. Better to wait for the fleet and go in with them. Even that would have to wait on Mandela’s OK. I can’t sanction you going in on your own.”

  “The fleet could take weeks, even months,” Arpen pled. “The aliens will come to suspect their tie to Olympia has been compromised. We believe they have taken the precaution of having a regular courier check in. If they come to suspect the Confederacy has discovered their secret, what will they do? What would you do, Kyle?”

  Mmok’s mouth became a grim line.

  “Answer her,” Telisan ordered.

  Finally, Mmok met Arpen’s eyes. “I’d get rid of the crew of the Blackbird, arrange a ‘regrettable accident.’ I’d figure that even if the Confeds knew we had the crew, they wouldn’t go to war over the dead. A dead body you can explain is better than a live one that will explain for itself.”