by M. R. Forbes
“Ruby,” Mann said. “Is everything ready?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Good. I suggest you all get to know one another a little better. You can hate each other, but you need to be able to work together.” He turned to Abbey. “If you decide you want to tell me more about what happened, talk to Ruby.” Then he started toward the exit from the hangar.
“That’s it?” Bastion said. “No goodbye?”
“What are you, a baby?” Gant said.
“Shut it, freak-monkey,” Bastion replied.
“Didn’t I warn you about calling me that?”
“What are you going to do about it?”
Abbey watched as Captain Mann slipped from the hangar without looking back. At that moment she wished that she could go with him. This crew was supposed to retrieve two stolen starships from the depths of the Outworlds? He hadn’t even left yet, and they were already arguing.
She closed her eyes and took a few calming breaths. Then she moved forward, putting herself between Gant and Bastion. She knew she was going to regret it, but what other choice did she have?
“Queenie, don’t,” Gant said. “This one needs to be put in his place. He thinks now that he’s out of Hell he doesn’t need to be afraid of me anymore.”
Bastion laughed. “I was never afraid of you.”
Even Abbey knew that was bullshit. None of this was going to help.
“Gant, wait,” she said. “Do you want to be in charge, Bastion?”
“It’s not about want,” he replied. “It’s about who’s the most qualified.”
“Lieutenant Cage,” Airi said.
“Shut up,” Bastion replied.
Airi growled, rushing toward him. He smiled, turning toward her as she came in.
Abbey stopped her, catching her in the midriff and pushing back, throwing her to the floor. She couldn’t believe she was defending that asshole, but the worst thing they could do would be to get into a brawl. It might settle the chain of command, but at what cost? The chain would be so weak it would break at the first sign of trouble.
“Airi, don’t,” Abbey snapped, pinning her arms. She looked back at Gant. “You stay there, too.” She shifted her attention to Bastion. “You’re in charge, Bastion,” she said.
“We should at least vote,” Benhil said. “That’s the only fair way.”
“Frag fair,” Bastion said. “I’m not dying because you wanted a popularity contest. I don’t care if any of you like me. I’ll get the job done, and you’ll all be thanking me when I do.”
“You couldn’t lead a whore to a bed,” Gant said. “That’s why you were always Pok’s goon and not his competition.”
“Gant,” Abbey said. “Enough.”
Gant didn’t look happy to be told what to do, but he quieted.
“Any other dissent?” Bastion asked. He clapped his hands together when nobody responded. “In that case, it looks like I’m in command. The first order of business is-”
“Bastion,” Abbey said, releasing her grip on Airi. “I challenge your authority.”
“What?” Bastion said.
“You heard me. I don’t believe you’re fit to lead. How do you want to settle it?”
Bastion stared at her in silence for a moment. “But you just told me-”
“That you were in charge. You are. Do we all agree?” Abbey looked at the others, who affirmed the decision. Even Airi acquiesced, now that she understood what Abbey was up to. “If you’re in charge, then I’m challenging it. That’s how they handle this bullshit in the Outworlds, which I think is appropriate given our circumstances. Do any of you disagree?”
She looked at them all again. Even Pik shook his head. He couldn’t argue with her logic.
“She’s right,” Benhil said. “If we’re heading to the Outworlds, we should do as they do.”
“How do you want to settle?” Abbey asked. “ Do you want to fight or do you want to take your chances matching wits?”
Bastion’s face paled. He was a pilot, not a Breaker. He was trapped, and he knew it. “Maybe Benhil was right the first time. We should probably vote.”
“Fine. How do you vote?”
“I vote for myself.”
“Of course you do. Benhil?”
“I vote for myself, too. Not because I want to be in charge, but it’s more dramatic.”
“Pik?”
The Trover was hesitant for a moment. Then he shrugged. “I vote for Bastion.”
“Heh,” Bastion said.
“Airi?”
“I vote for you.”
“Gant?”
“I vote for you, too, Queenie.”
Abbey glanced over at Bastion. “It looks like I’m the tie-breaker.”
He lowered his eyes to the ground. “Okay. You win. You’re in charge.”
“Thank you,” Abbey said. She didn’t really want to be in command. She also wasn’t about to pin her future on someone else. “Does anyone want to challenge my command?”
Nobody jumped at the opportunity.
“In that case, let me give you the grand tour of the Faust. Once we’re settled, we can reconvene and talk about what we’re going to do next. I’ve got a daughter on Earth waiting for me to come home, and I don’t plan to keep her waiting long.”
The statement was followed by mumbled affirmations.
“We may not officially be Republic soldiers. That doesn’t mean you don’t make it clear when you’ve heard and understand an order, understood?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Pik and Benhil said.
“Yes, Commander,” Airi said.
“Yes,” Bastion repeated.
“Yes, Queenie,” Gant said.
Abbey shook her head. “We’ll need to work on that.”
She headed for the exit. Ruby was already waiting there, having observed the entire interaction.
“Well played, Lieutenant Cage,” she said.
“You need to drop the rank, too, Ruby,” Abbey replied. “It doesn’t work anymore.”
As much as she hated to give it up. It was part of her identity. Who she was. Past tense. Who was she now?
“As you request, Queenie,” Ruby said, smiling.
Abbey frowned at the use of the nickname Gant had given her. “Not you, too?”
“I like it. It is suitable and appropriate.”
What would she become?
At least she was still alive to find out.
36
The ship was small and black, as dark as the space that surrounded it, coated with a layer of dampening material that would make it invisible to all but the most sensitive of sensor arrays.
It came out of FTL further back than Gloritant Thraven probably would have liked, back behind the two Republic warships still in stationary orbit around the dark, burning planet below. The planet the Republic had named Hell.
The battleships didn’t respond to the appearance, unable to get a reading on the ship. They continued to hang above the nearly dead rock, where they had been awaiting new orders from their command for the last two days. Even when it maneuvered in close to them, crossing beneath the hull of one almost close enough to touch, it remained invisible. If anyone had been looking out that direction, they might have thought they saw something as the light behind it blacked out momentarily, but who paid that much attention to the near field of space when nothing was supposed to be there?
The Shrike continued past, accelerating toward the planet, slipping into the upper atmosphere, passing the thermosphere and continuing down, the size and shape and plating barely causing a disruption as it sank toward the earth. It flattened out close to the ground, duplicating the approach taken two days earlier by another ship seeking to do the unthinkable by breaking into a prison.
Trinity Gall allowed herself a small smile as she considered the Gloritant’s briefing. The Republic’s Director of Strategic Intelligence, Captain Olus Mann, had shown up on Hell at the worst
possible time and interrupted the latest round of transfers. The particular shipment was supposed to include a high-value target in the form of a disgraced Breaker named Abigail Cage, a target that had shown even more promise than expected after receiving the first half of the Gift, using it to kill both the Venerant who had been sent to bestow it and the Warden himself. All of which would have been acceptable, except the Warden who replaced him was a fragging imbecile, and not only clued the Captain in on Cage’s worth but also failed to secure the Breaker and prevent the once-great assassin from stealing her and a few of the other inmates away.
Stolen away for what?
It was a bold move on the part of the Captain. So bold in fact that it was the very reason she was there. Warden Lurin had put all of their work at risk with his stupidity. It was her job to put him back in line.
She guided the Shrike to the surface, to a deep canyon two kilometers from the prison’s proper entrance. As she opened the canopy of the craft, the onboard computer chirped at her that the atmosphere was unsuitable for long-term survival, suggesting that she should remain inside. She picked herself up and jumped out, using a finger to increase the cooling output of her specialized softsuit to maximum. She still wouldn’t last long without getting underground.
She sprinted from the position, the synthetic musculature of the suit allowing her to bounce across the surface, skipping from jagged stone to jagged stone, planting her feet and vectoring from one place to another. She covered a kilometer in less than a minute, coming to rest at the spot marked on her TCU’s map. A small grate rested on the ground, overhung by the stone that obscured its existence. She put her hand over it, feeling the air.
Of course, the prison had to be circulating it from somewhere, pulling it in from the hangar and out here. Captain Mann had probably known about it, too, but what good would it have done him? He had come to bring others out. This path was only accessible to someone like him, or her, or maybe Abigail Cage.
She put her hand on the grate, feeling the writhing tingle as the Gift moved within her, extending outward to the metal and gripping it with an invisible hand. She pulled only with her mind, and the grate groaned and then snapped, breaking away from its anchor. She set it aside and slid her feet into the shaft.
She wasn’t sure why, but at that moment she thought of Ursan. Where was he right now? What was he doing? Missing her, she was sure. He had always been that way. Strong enough to stand on his own, but so much stronger when she was at his side. It was an endearing quality most of the time. Frustrating at others, especially when she had other work that needed to be done. Ursan didn’t know the truth about Thraven. Not the whole truth. He believed he was fighting solely for the Outworlds. For his homeworld, which had been attacked by the Republic and left in ruin. Even though he had accepted the Gift, she knew he would never fight with them otherwise, and so she had gained his love and loyalty with lies. She had tried to undo that decision so many times, but she was selfish that way.
She wanted it all.
She looked down into the shaft. It was too dark to see to the bottom. She breathed in, smiled, and let herself fall.
How far? Fifty meters. One hundred. Two hundred. Four hundred.
She felt the Gift again, slowing her descent as she neared what was supposed to be the bottom. She could see the light beyond the grate at the bottom of the shaft now, coming up to meet her. She landed silently above it before crouching down and peering through.
She was on Level Two, looking into a storage closet tucked into the rear corner of the facility. There was nobody present. Why would there be? It was a closet. She put her hand on the grate, pushing against it with the Gift. It too snapped off its moorings, and she caught it with her hand before it tumbled to the ground, holding it as she dropped silently to the floor. Only then did she place it aside.
She padded to the door. She didn’t open it with the control pad. Instead, she dropped low, digging her fingers beneath the bottom and lifting, using the strength in the softsuit to force it to move slowly upward. She reached into a tightpack and removed a small tube from it, sticking it out of the opening. A small box appeared on her HUD, showing her a view of the hallway. It was empty.
She stuffed the tube back into the tightpack and stood up, pressing the control pad to open the door. She moved out into the corridor and away, letting it close behind her.
She had to be careful. While Lurin had created a mess, if she wasn’t cautious she could make an even bigger one. Captain Mann would have every reason to return to the facility or to send more of his people back to it. Her job was to make sure that when they did, they found no evidence of anything out of the ordinary. Warden Packard never existed. Warden Lurin never existed. Neither did Abigail Cage or any of the other prisoners who had been removed. Mann knew the game as well as anyone. He would know what had happened. He was hamstrung by the laws of the Republic. Without proof, he would have no choice but to accept the outcome and move on.
She heard footsteps ahead of her, and she pushed off the floor, turning over and reaching up, her fingers and toes extending into claws that enabled her to cling to the top of the corridor above. A medical bot walked past, trailed by a guard who was leading a prisoner to the ward. She knew they wouldn’t notice her. She dropped behind them and continued on.
She had to hide three more times before reaching Lurin’s private quarters. She was amused to find his door was secured, as though he was afraid Captain Mann was going to come back for him, or maybe he knew how the Gloritant was going to respond to his failure, like a locked door could stop her. She withdrew a small disc and placed it on the control pad, breaking through the security in seconds. The whole effort only proved that Lurin had no business as Warden. Then again, even he probably hadn’t expected Packard’s sudden demise.
The door slid open. Trin stepped in, closing it immediately behind her. Lurin was on his feet near the back of the room, a gun already in hand.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said.
She reached up and removed her helmet, shaking her head to allow her hair some freedom.
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied.
“Your Venerant was supposed to keep her under control. If she couldn’t do it, how the hell was I going to?”
“She only has half the Gift and no idea how to use it. Your guards should have contained her.”
“She killed two guards in lightsuits. She also managed to stop a convert.”
Trin paused. Thraven hadn’t told her about that. Interesting.
“It still doesn’t matter. Olus Mann is going to be suspicious of what we’ve been doing here. Not only do we have to shut the operation down temporarily, but we also need to remove the evidence. You’re part of the evidence.”
“No,” Lurin said. “I’m loyal. I did my best.”
“Best or not, you still failed.”
“An impossible task.”
Trin felt a twinge of empathy for the Warden. She couldn’t argue that he might be right in that. Not that it mattered.
She started raising her hand.
He fired his weapon.
The Gift stretched out to meet the slugs, pushing at them, stealing their energy and knocking them harmlessly to the floor.
“You’re going to damage the room,” she said, getting angry.
She pushed off, bouncing toward him. He dropped the gun, cowering as she came down. She pulled his arms aside and wrapped a hand around his delicate neck. A quick squeeze and he was dead.
She lowered him gently. It wasn’t enough to just kill him. She had to find all of the soldiers who had been witness to the escape. Fortunately, the Warden had already provided a list.
To think that all of this was necessary because that damnable Kett had come up with an as-of-yet unbreakable erasure schema, using it to wipe a server that the Gloritant was certain contained the coordinates of the General’s hidden base. They would never have needed to implicate the Breaker as one of Kett’s disciples, and they woul
d never have needed to try to bring her over to the cause to solve the algorithm.
She couldn’t change history. What was done was done, and her orders were clear. She would finish up here, and then she would find Abigail Cage and either complete her conversion or complete her erasure.
Which one it was depended on her.
37
“So the Outworlders stole a pair of invincible starships,” Bastion said, “and we’re supposed to get them back?”
“Yes,” Abbey replied.
“Two starships.”
“Yes.”
“You do realize; we only have one pilot?”
“I’m sure we can hire a temp or something,” Gant said. “Pilots are a dime a dozen.”
Bastion glared at Gant but didn’t speak.
“We’ll cross that black hole when we get to it,” Abbey said. “We have to find the ships first. Any ideas?”
Abbey glanced around the small table where they had organized after a brief interlude, during which she had shown them around their new home and given them some time to convert themselves from prisoners back to soldiers.
Not soldiers. Regular individuals. Well, not quite regular.
The others had all swapped their hellsuits for something a little more comfortable, choosing from the selection Olus had left. Casual clothes. Clothes they would have never been allowed to wear as members of the Republic Armed Services, or as prisoners on Hell. The dress down had done a small wonder for the overall tension of being stuffed into a small starship with relative strangers and sent out on a suicidal mission after being broken out of prison. It had allowed the crew to start seeing one another as individuals instead of rivals, as thinking, feeling beings instead of slaves. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something.
She had tried to do the same. She had taken a pair of loose knit pants, a shirt, boots, and underwear from the inventory. She had brought it back to the quarters she was sharing with Airi. She had taken off the hellsuit and put them on. She felt more naked in those clothes than she ever had in the suit.
She felt exposed and vulnerable. Was it that feeling of movement just below her skin? Was it her experience with Clyo and Packard? Was it a need to cling to a uniform of some kind? She wasn’t sure. Whatever the reason, she had abandoned the fresh clothing for the suit, putting it back on before returning to the second deck where they had gathered. Nobody had questioned her on it yet, though she had noticed their surprise. She imagined Gant would quiz her later.
