Awakening of a Predator (Gravity Book 2)

by Jeremy Kester

  Some, like Adrianna, felt that there was always something lacking in what those machines made. With little else to try, they sufficed.

  “I am fine, thank you,” she said as she shook her head still trying to wrap her mind around the possibility of Haden being dead yet again. Food had no place there at the moment.

  “Suit yourself,” he said as he continued to pour over the menu options. After a moment he yelled “Gods to be damned!” complaining over the machine. The operative was one of a growing contingent of individuals reverting back to a belief in multiple gods. Religion had fallen out of standard for quite a number of years, but had been again on the rise as the advance in technology slowed. Paganism was one of the more popular among them. “I don’t have to pay for a damn thing in Alliance space. These prices and not a damn thing on the menu!” Alliance stocks were much more varied.

  And they were free to operatives.

  Adrianna wondered why he complained after being on Rhea for so long. Undoubtedly he knew of those conditions already. Deciding to ignore the operative, Adrianna scanned the room trying to place where she was. Her body still felt as though it were dragging behind despite not having moved much.

  The apartment that they occupied was rather small. A bed sat in the corner to one side. It was perfectly made with nary a wrinkle in the sheets from what she could tell. To the right of the bed was a small sink, and next to the sink was a small closet. The closet was a bathing stall and had holographic controls between the two depending on which one chose to operate. There was no towel hung anywhere as moisture was flashed off without the need of a cloth.

  In the center where Adrianna sat was the common area of the apartment. It had small pieces of furniture surrounding a holovision.

  On the opposite side to the bed and bathing area was the food area, a small counter next to the replicator. It wasn’t large. No one truly needed much larger than that.

  Moments later, the operative was sitting in front of her. “Are you planning on getting out of there?” the operative jibed pointing at the box. In his hand was a small piece of food stock, nothing fancy. Adrianna thought it looked unappetizing. She didn’t notice when he had chosen it.

  Taking stock of the operative’s words suddenly, she shook herself again trying to get rid of the vertigo. Cautiously, she pulled herself out of the live box and slowly stepped over to a chair set across from where the operative was sitting. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  Chewing a bite of the stock, the operative answered, “Kyle Weathers. That’s what I go by.” Small bits of chewed food spilled out of his mouth as he chewed. She thought of the regimented sets of manners that service people had to endure including on how one ate in the presence of others.

  Kyle was relaxed, half disinterested in his surroundings while also appearing to have a strong bearing on all in his proximity. Conversely, Adrianna shivered as her body still adjusted to the drugs. Nervousness had something to do with it as well. It was a nervousness she couldn’t break from given her state.

  “What are your orders?” she inquired further, fascinated by the amount of food being left on the floor so contrasting the tidy appearance. Somewhere in there she hoped to hear something still of Haden. His face jumped in and out of her mind.

  Kyle chuckled as he chewed sloppily. “You really believe I’d tell you that?”

  Adrianna clarified, “in regards to what you’re doing with me. It’s not like I won’t find out.”

  Kyle wiped his mouth with his bare arm. “I have to escort you to a debriefing center. That’s as detailed as I’ll get as that’s as detailed as the instructions were.”

  “Sounds exciting,” Adrianna tried to banter.

  “I’ll try not to fall asleep,” Kyle joked. “So you did some nice work in the bridge. It got some attention.”

  Adrianna was not sure that she liked the sound of that. Obviously they had pieced together footage of all that had occurred. That meant that they had seen her kill her superior. But if that were the situation, it wouldn’t explain why she hadn’t been killed and swept under the rug as well. “Why haven’t you killed me then?”

  “Instructions. I do as I am instructed.”

  “What’s stopping me from just running then?” she asked again, remaining firmly planted on the seat.

  Kyle looked at her amused. “You wouldn’t get far. You’ve never been to Rhea from what I read in your history. Without help, it’d be easy to get you back… especially if they send Q after you.”

  “Who’s Q?” Her eyes narrowed believing it had something to do with what might have gotten Haden.

  Kyle was referring to 356Q, but he wanted no part in explaining any more. “Just a tracking protocol, that’s all,” he responded dismissively.

  Adrianna knew that what he said was true, but she had a strong desire to escape and find anything on Haden. Was he even still alive? The question plagued her. The only way she could find out for sure was to go along with the debriefing. Maybe she would learn what happened. She just hoped that she wasn’t making the mistake of leaving Rhea without him.

  Converging on DASS Yorktown

  ISS Regalia

  “Trace fakers,” Haden said confidently. “I am sure of it.” He was looking down at the sensory displays. Trike looked discerningly at them as well. “It’s set up to make sure they clean up whatever is left-over from the initial incident. People have a tendency to return to the scene of a crime to recover whatever they might not have gotten before. Though the Alliance would have moved the evidence, they wanted it to appear as though nothing had been disturbed. There’ve been a couple of times I’ve used the same technique with a high level of success. Usually it was after I destroyed a ship, but there seems to be more than the usual effort placed in this salvage.”

  “How can you know? It's too far for a clean visual.”

  “I’ll go myself to be sure.”

  Trike looked at Haden. He was a bit confused. “How? Won’t you just set them off if they are what you believe?”

  “A single object the size of a person should not raise any suspicion. They’re normally looking for spacecraft. A single person should be able to drift in and get a visual.” Haden didn’t know if what he thought was true, but he needed to be sure of what he was seeing. Moving forward with tracking Adrianna hinged on the whereabouts of the Yorktown, or so he believed. It was the only chance he had at the moment.

  “I am not volunteering,” Trike bemused.

  Haden turned and began to walk out of the bridge. “Just keep close enough to have an eye on me. I won’t be able to talk to you if I don’t want to tip anyone off. Just meet me on the other side!”

  Undisclosed Alliance Facility – 30 August 2274

  Adrianna stood before the debriefing tribunal. Three superior officers chosen by some department that she had never even heard of were presiding. It was at a location that she also was not aware of, somewhere off Earth she believed. But maybe it was not even in Alliance space to start with. It had been nearly two days since she had awoke from whatever she had been drugged with. She still had no recollection of what happened before waking up in Kyle Weather’s company.

  From that moment she had not been permitted anywhere near where she could access navigation or general communication. Isolation frustrated her, although she tried desperately to not show it. There admittedly was a small sense of relief that she was at least back with the Alliance, but she could not shake the resulting despair in feeling that Haden could be alive or dead and that she had no sure way of knowing.

  “Commander Adrianna Feyet,” one of the officers on the tribunal spoke. She was older than Adrianna. Looking at the insignias she could tell that they actually shared rank. It was worth the effort to Adrianna to feel on par with those questioning her. The other two on the tribunal were a Lieutenant Colonel and an Admiral. “This evidence is stark. It points to your having killed your superior officer, Vice Admiral Ramirez, during a standoff with privateers, and then with little re
sistance, you led them to classified documents regarding the vessel and top secret Alliance plans.”

  Hearing those words made Adrianna nervous.

  Having a debriefing such as this was not entirely uncommon. It was a way of wiping all of the incidental evidence from a mission that the Alliance didn’t want out. She could be something the Alliance didn’t want out.

  Questions were pelted at her as she tried to clearly recall all of the events. Most of them involved trying to determine her methodology of thought, why she had chosen to take the course she took.

  With Adrianna’s release of information, the tribunal became very specific in regards to what they were asking about. She told them plainly of the need to gain the trust of the privateers long enough to be able to execute them.

  Rigid with both fear and discipline, she stood there silent, listening.

  If it hadn’t been that there were no survivors listed from the scavenger ship, Adrianna was sure that she would have been easily found guilty of divulging military secrets. The evidence that she had taken measures to kill her captors, but then was overtaken and then sold with the information to an Alliance operative were her saving graces.

  “Now we are at an impasse, Commander,” the older woman continued. “You showed remarkable skills on multiple levels. To start, you successfully alerted ARDME specialists to the situation regarding the DASS Yorktown and the Vice Admiral without alerting anyone on board. Secondly, you demonstrated considerable skill to initially overtake your captors.”

  Adrianna became confused by the sudden direction of the debriefing. By her accounts, she was to be detained and discharged at the very least. There were very likely still chances that she would be ejected out of an airlock and listed as KIA with the rest of her crew.

  The woman continued: “you were capable of directing the crew of the Yorktown to make near-impossible repairs on top-secret experimental technologies, a feat that they were not able to accomplish in dry dock with full Alliance resources-”

  “Commander,” the Admiral on the panel cut in. “We were initially set to try you for treason, but certain parties within the Alliance Council took special notice to your actions. Your ability to navigate situations without regard to anything less than the objective aligned by the Alliance has earned you this notice. Because of this, you are to be stripped of your rank.” Adrianna swallowed hard. At that moment she thought herself dead. “You are scheduled to be listed as KIA and are being offered selection into the classified ARDME Special Operations Corps for immediate assignment. Do you accept?”

  ***

  Adrianna sat quietly alone. Upon affirming her new assignment, she was abandoned by the tribunal with instructions to await her new directives.

  The station was small, comprising of a single living quarters with a separate, larger room for debriefings. Two docks opposed each other on either side of the small station each visible from the other via a long corridor. Off to the side of the docks were the station maintenance areas with all of the necessary equipment for environmental controls including breathing air, water generation, gravity, etc.

  As she sat, she checked her pockets suddenly realizing that she had lost the photograph of Haden. Why she hadn’t thought of it until then failed to occur to her. She found herself feeling lost without it. The photograph had been the only reminder of him other than memory, if not only slightly more tangible.

  She reminisced those days. She loved photography. Her favorite camera to use was an antique twin reflex camera, the same that she used to take that old photograph with. So much of what she enjoyed in the craft had been inspired by her love for him. He was her muse. Once he vanished from her life, the love she felt for that hobby died along with it.

  Now the equipment, including the camera, sat in storage back on Earth. Adrianna never expected she would ever see any of it again. She expected never to see Haden again.

  As a preoccupation of searching over and over for the photograph subsided, Adrianna looked around and began laughing at her circumstance. It was an odd place that she was in: a small station with little more than room for a small family to live comfortably. How many similar places littered the solar system hidden inside asteroids, moons, and other debris Adrianna wondered. It would be very difficult just to stumble upon one of these little stations and to think much of them.

  She landed here without knowing how exactly she got from the salvage ship, to Rhea, and then to this hidden station where she was chosen to serve as an operative presumed on record to be dead. All of the while she continued hoping that she could figure out what happened to her lover after they were separated. Perhaps he was still alive, and in being so, she could look for clues to his whereabouts. Knowing him, she could track him. She used to know his habits, even if he thought he had none.

  She shook herself. “How are you going to get yourself through this?” she asked herself aloud.

  There was no answering that question then. She had no idea what could be expected. Concentrating on it was even more difficult as Haden continued to be welcomed into her thoughts.

  She thought of how he re-entered her life. “How was it even possible?” she laughed at the absurdity of crashing into him. Of all the singular points in the solar system, the billions of people scattered across it, and it was him that they encountered.

  The sound of her question echoed quietly across the ends of the small station. It reminded her of her solitude out in space somewhere, separated from the rest of her species, of her separation from him.

  She didn’t spend too long before allowing herself to be thankful that he had been alive. And as angry as she was that he abandoned her so long ago, she was also grateful he had. The Alliance would’ve found another way to tear them apart.

  She lost track of time. The station was quiet. All she was left with was directives as to her training: await an operative to begin the initiation.

  “Commander Feyet?” the words took Adrianna by surprise. She turned to see a tall man donning combat armor holding a pistol aimed at her. “Time for your initiation to begin.”

  Alliance Capital

  Geneva, Earth

  “Are you sure that you’ve got a handle on this, Dimmings?”

  “I’ve asked you to trust me on this, Mr. President,” General Dimmings replied, clearly annoyed by the question.

  President Alexander glared coldly at the general. “Trust isn’t even in the realm of how I would describe my feelings about what you are doing, Israel.” His voice was calm and easy. “I would like the support that you are offering to garner in enveloping the independents into the Alliance, but I am weary that your methodologies counter my goals of maintaining peace.”

  General Dimmings disliked President Alexander. The President was one of those peaceful politicians who preferred things to be non-violent at whatever the cost. When Alexander entered the political sphere, he spearheaded the call for the departure of the Alliance from the outland colonies that ended the initial conflict. Riding that momentum, he rose swiftly to become the President of the Alliance. Dimmings was early in his career during the initial pull out, and he certainly disagreed with doing so.

  Though the President supported the plans to reabsorb the outlands and their potential wealth into Alliance controlled colonies, he disregarded any plan involving open bloodshed. The general and the remainder of the council felt that his policies hindered their plans for outright control.

  The president was soft; the president was foolish.

  “You’re fooling yourself if you believe that this will ever be a peaceful venture, Mr. President,” Dimmings said bluntly.

  “Minor conflicts are not a concern, Israel. I am sure that no matter how we approach this there will be resistance. We cannot garner enough support from the Alliance population to push for a full military occupation as I am sure you and your warlords want. Remember: we abandoned them originally thinking that doing so would work in breaking them, and it didn’t. The colonies are more resilient than we
could have imagined. And now that we are looking at the magnitude of resources that are being found in the outer worlds, that we have failed in all accounts to gain control over the trade of such resources, we can no longer ignore our need for them. That being said, your plan to build grassroots support for the Alliance to push back is promising, but I fear it will bring more bloodshed than I am willing to accept.”

  “Getting the support of the people is only part of the plan, Mr. President. With enough support, you won’t have to worry about much resistance; the public will be clamoring to put the outer worlds into Alliance control. It might appear dubious, but the Yorktown was a brilliant opportunity that my subordinate uncovered. Utilizing it would help us gain that support. More stories like that go out to the public and we’ll look like heroes for reining the outlands in. You’ll look like a hero.”

  James Alexander sat back for a moment a sipped from a small cup of tea. He contemplated the plan again while examining the general sitting angrily before him. James held an equal disdain for Dimmings, but he recognized the sheer military talent before him. “What about this subordinate of yours, this general Fortner?” the president decided to shift the subject slightly. He was looking for a little of what was driving Dimmings. “I have further concerns that you are promoting this kid to too high a position for your own personal gains.”

  “Gabriel Fortner is a highly astute officer with an impeccable record,” Dimmings immediately defended. He shifted forward as spoke glaring at his commander.

  “He is a child,” James cut in as he stood up.

  “There was no one more qualified to run ARDME than him,” Dimmings argued defensively. He scratched an itch on the back of his hand.