by Rachel Aukes
Bone-deep exhaustion ebbed through his stiff joints. It was a fatigue he’d carried with him for two long decades, as though every life lost under his command was another lead weight he had to carry as penance.
When the rendezvous place came into view, Sixx frowned. “That’s definitely not what I had in mind when I was talking about someplace private.”
Reyne let old memories pour through his mind as he looked at the sign, which read:
LAST DROP CAFÉ
Critch and he had drunk far too many drinks to count at that bar. It had been their regular haunt during the Uprising, the place they’d go to toast victories won and commiserate lives lost. Unfortunately, there’d been too many of the latter.
From the look of the exterior, the place hadn’t changed in the last twenty years, an assumption Reyne was banking on. He nodded to the bar. “It has a basement they use for storage. It should be safe from peering ears and eyes.”
“But we still have to walk through the bar where there’s going to be just the sort of Terran who may recognize you,” Sixx said.
Reyne tugged his hat lower to hide as much of his face as possible. “If there’s any place around Rebus Station that offers a level playing field, this is it.”
“There are worse places to die than in a bar,” Birk murmured.
Reyne and Sixx both stopped and looked at the pirate.
“We’re not going to die today,” Sixx said.
“You say that because you’re an optimist,” Birk said. “I’m a realist. And I think we need more guns.”
“Come on,” Reyne said. “Let’s get this over with.”
They crossed the street and Sixx strode into the bar first, followed by Reyne, then Birk. About a dozen stony men sat around the bar. Each looked like he came there every day, sat in the same chair every day, and drank out of the same glass every day.
All eyes turned toward them.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Sixx said as he strode in with his usual calmness.
Reyne watched the floor, making sure the brim of his hat covered much of his face as he followed his friend to the bar and took a seat. He gave Sixx a quick nod, and the man leaned on the bar and motioned the bartender.
Sixx spoke quietly but clearly. “I hear you have a room downstairs that could be used by customers who prefer to have a more discreet conversation.”
The bartender remained stoic. “I don’t have any such room.”
Sixx slid several credits across the counter.
“Oh, that room. It’s already booked full.”
Sixx slid across several more credits.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t use it for the next hour or so.”
Sixx handed him another few credits. “I’ll take three of your house whiskeys. Make mine a double.”
“Coming right up.”
As the bartender poured their drinks, Reyne felt like he was being watched. He glanced around to find a craggy old man with wiry hair at the far end of the bar staring intently at him. The man’s gray gaze narrowed. “I know you.”
Reyne looked away, pretending to ignore him.
“The traitor of Terra has returned!”
Every occupant in the bar turned.
“Well, damn.” Sixx pulled out his pistol.
Reyne sighed. “Here we go again.”
“Still think we’re not dying today?” Birk asked as he took a stance between Reyne and the Terrans as he also unholstered his pistol.
“Well, I’m not dying today,” Sixx said. “I’m not so sure about our intrepid captain.”
Chairs creaked against the wood floors as men pushed off from their chairs and moved in on the trio.
“Now would be a good time to explain that Doc was the traitor,” Sixx said.
“You really think they’d believe me?” Reyne asked.
“No.”
“No,” Birk echoed.
“You’ve got some nerve coming back here, traitor,” the old man said. “I lost a lot of good friends because of you.”
Birk tutted and aimed his pistol at the nearest man. “That’s close enough.”
“Traitor!”
A man spat. Reyne grimaced when he felt the spittle hit his jacket.
“Traitor!” another chanted.
“Kill him!”
“Yeah!”
"Hands off. He's with me,” a booming voice called out from the doorway.
The crowd immediately parted for the newcomer.
“That’s the traitor of Terra,” a man complained.
The newcomer ignored the comment and approached Reyne and his protectors. The man’s demeanor and aura exuded as much authority as his voice, and no one else raised an objection.
“You’ve always had impeccable timing,” Reyne said.
Seda glanced around the room before turning back to Reyne. “I see your reputation precedes you.”
Reyne glanced over Seda’s shoulder. “What, no guards?”
“Oh, they’re nearby if I need them. I don’t need them, do I?”
“I’m just here to talk.” Reyne came to his feet and motioned to the door behind the bar. He took the lead, and Seda followed him. Sixx and Birk remained at the top of the stairs, standing guard.
Reyne took the stone steps down to the small basement, and memories of torrent planning meetings held in that place brought raw emotions to the surface. In the dark, he walked to the center of the room and pulled the string to click on the room’s single light. Everything was exactly as he remembered.
“At first I thought it was odd you chose a bar for our meeting,” Seda said. “Now your choice makes perfect sense.” He looked around. “I suppose this is one of the locations where the torrent marshals met. I’ve always wondered where around Rebus Station your secret meeting rooms were.”
“It’s not something we shared with those on the wrong side of the fight, like you.”
Seda took a seat on a barrel of whiskey. “I was serving as a conscript at the far end of the Collective during much of the Uprising. As I’m sure you remember, it’s not exactly easy for a conscript to escape from a CUF warship’s deck in the middle of space.”
Reyne grabbed another barrel and sat. “I’m not interested in ancient history. I’m much more interested in things that have happened over the past couple of days.”
“You’re here for Critch.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Of course. I turned him and his man over to the CUF. He’s at the Citadel.”
Reyne’s blood ran cold. “You’re lying. If the CUF had him, his capture would be playing nonstop on all the news channels.”
“They don’t know they have Critch. Both he and Chutt are there under fake identifications. I assure you that they were processed correctly. The dromadiers who brought Critch and Chutt to the Citadel are on my payroll.” He pulled out a tablet and showed a video of two men, both in restraints, being escorted into the Citadel. Their faces looked different—they were likely wearing cloned skin—but the way each man moved was unmistakable.
“How much did they pay you to sell out your own brethren?”
Seda held up a hand. “It’s not like that. Not at all.” He looked around and grabbed a bottle off the shelf. He dusted it off, popped the cork, and took a drink before he spoke again. “You know they won’t even acknowledge that you’re trying to restart the Uprising. They’re calling it an unrest.” He chuckled, though the sound was devoid of humor. “An unrest.” He shook his head.
He handed the bottle to Reyne, who drank from it before handing it back. “What’s that have to do with turning Critch over to the CUF?”
“Everything.” Seda took another drink. “Do you know why they built the Citadel here, not far from Rebus Station?”
“Yes. Because here is where so much of the Uprising took place.”
Seda nodded. “The Citadel was built to house torrents, not criminals. It was a prisoner-of-war camp before it they rebranded it as a prison. However, none
of the early prisoners were ever released. Political prisoners continue to be brought in, but no one leaves and very few escape.”
“And now Critch is stuck in there.”
“You don’t understand. He volunteered.”
Reyne guffawed. “That would never happen.”
“It would and it did. I made a proposal to him and he accepted. When he learned of a mutual friend who was imprisoned in the Citadel—”
“What’s the prisoner’s name?”
“Ice Port’s stationmaster. Vym Patel. I believe you know her quite well.”
Reyne leaned forward. “Vym’s alive?”
Seda nodded. “According to my sources, Ausyar took his time interrogating her before sending her to the Citadel to rot. Now you can see why Critch volunteered to go inside the walls.”
“And if Ausyar learns that Critch is in there, what do you think he’ll do? He’ll make Vym’s interrogation look like a dinner date.”
“That’s why I’ll make sure we get Critch out of there before anyone suspects his real identity.”
Reyne’s gaze narrowed. “Vym and Critch are friends, but I’m not buying it. You’re telling me Critch just up and volunteered to help break Vym out of there?”
“No,” Seda said with a partial smile. “He volunteered to help me break everyone out. We’re taking the Citadel down once and for all.”
He belted out a laugh. “You’ve been drinking too much Terran whiskey if you think taking down the Citadel is possible.”
“It’s more possible than you may think.”
Reyne watched him for a moment as he sobered. “You’re serious.”
“I’m deadly serious. There are over twenty thousand Terrans imprisoned within the Citadel, with only walls and drones keeping them in there.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“I wish it were. Researching the Citadel has been a pet project of mine for years. Breaking into the Citadel is easy. If I knew the location of Vym’s cell, I could have her free by morning. The challenge lies in trying to free all the prisoners. Cutting a hole into every cell isn’t practical, as the CUF would send in reinforcements by the time we cleared only five or ten cells. I need a way to open up the entire Citadel without risking the lives of the people inside, and have them all safely out of there before the CUF is any the wiser.”
Reyne stared at the other man as he considered Seda’s words. Was it possible? Could they take down the Citadel? Reyne had long fantasized about freeing all those inside, but his thoughts on it had always been just that—a fantasy.
“Have you thought about taking control of the Citadel?” Reyne asked finally.
“Yes, but the systems would be difficult to hack. The Citadel is fully automated. The only way to take control of the prison is to turn off the power. The problem with doing that is it’s a self-enclosed system. I can’t hit it with an EMP because the Citadel is essentially a giant Faraday cage, which protects all its systems from any form of outside electronic attack. Trust me, I’ve tried. Even if I set off an EMP inside the prison, I’d fry the systems, but the Citadel’s backup generators would restore power within seconds. And those generators are within another Faraday cage. Essentially, I would need to release two EMPs within seconds of each other—one near the generators and one inside the prison. It’s proved to be a challenge I’ve struggled to overcome.”
Reyne frowned. “It doesn’t sound so complicated if you use a two-pronged attack. One team to fry the generators, one team to set off an EMP inside the walls.”
“I wish it were that simple. The Citadel covers five square kilometers. I’ve come across very basic schematics, but they don’t reveal the location of the generators. I’ve interviewed the only two still-living escapees, and neither could provide information about the generators. I’ve attempted to acquire inside sources, but the only staff are roughly a dozen desk jockeys to keep the systems running smoothly, and they live within the walls. I ran out of options and needed someone inside with the skills to locate the Citadel’s power generators and identify any other potential problems. We both know Critch is the best when it comes to precisely this type of job.”
Reyne grabbed the bottle from Seda and took another drink. “Even so, Critch would never have gone in there without a plan to get out of there on his own.”
“He has two plans. I embedded two pieces of tech in Critch’s forearm under his wrist comm. A tracker so I can come to him, and a micro-EMP that he can use to help open his escape route should there be a problem.”
“All comms are removed, so any scan run after they were removed would pick up hardware he was carrying.”
“Since they require tools to remove, the most thorough body scans are done at time of arrest, before the comms are removed. Any cursory follow-up scans aren’t as thorough and wouldn’t pick up this hardware. It’s too high-tech.”
“You seem confident.”
“It’s very expensive hardware.”
Reyne sighed as he ran through scenarios in his head, hitting walls on every scenario. Finally, he spoke. “What were the next steps?”
“I wait until I get the signal from Critch…or Chutt, who is wearing the same implants.”
“What’s the signal?”
“If they press the tracker on their arms, it emits a flashing beacon at their location. It’s their signal to let me know to come for them, and I hope that they’ve acquired the information I need.”
Reyne held up a finger. “You need to provide me access to their trackers along with all information you have on the Citadel. I need everything you’ve got.”
He pulled out a computer card. “I already anticipated you’d ask for that.”
Reyne pocketed the card. “You sell a good story. But how do I know that you didn’t sell this same story to Critch just be able to turn him over to the CUF without him putting up a fight? Those two pirates would be worth several hundred thousand credits, if not more.”
“As I told you, the CUF has no idea they have Critch AKA Drake Fender or Chutt AKA Chutney Rios locked in their prison. According to their systems, their latest additions are two drunks who assaulted a citizen in the middle of Rebus Station.”
“How did you fool the biometrics scans?”
“That was easy. The harder part was convincing Critch and Chutt.”
Reyne watched him for a lengthy pause. “Why are you doing this? You have the best job a colonist can have. You make money by ensuring Terra stays under the heel of the Collective. What’s in it for you to go against the Collective?”
Seda shot him a hard look. “I’m taking action because the Collective is broken. When I was younger, I believed the Collective would settle into a sustainable balance across all six worlds, but I no longer believe that is possible. There have been too many things done to ensure power remains on the two citizen worlds.”
“Balance, huh?” Reyne eyed Seda while he took a long swig. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ve met a man last year who talked about balance. In fact, he seemed obsessed with the concept.” He nodded toward Seda. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“One of who?”
“The Founders.”
Seda’s brows rose. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Hm.” When Reyne handed the bottle back to Seda, he pulled out his pistol and pressed it against the man’s chest. Seda, seemingly unbothered by the assault, held out his hands in surrender, and Reyne began patting the man’s pockets.
“What are you looking for?” Seda asked, almost sounding bored.
Reyne continued patting him down until he came to a pocket on Seda’s calf. He pulled out a gray tablet and held it up for the stationmaster to see before dropping it on his lap.
“Not a Founder, my ass.”
Seda reached down and grabbed the tablet. “It’s dangerous for you to speak of such things.” He then moved in a blur, knocking the gun out of Reyne’s hands. The next instant, Reyne found himself on the f
loor.
Seda stood over Reyne, his lips pursed. After a pause, he reached down to help Reyne to his feet.
Reyne rubbed his now-sore neck. “You could’ve knocked my gun away at any time. Why did you let me search you?”
“I wanted to see how much you knew. Now I understand why Mason hates you so much. You could make life much harder for the Founders if you so choose. Not that Mason isn’t doing a fine job of that on his own.” He reclaimed his seat and slid the tablet back into his pocket. “Oh, and you’re wrong on one point. Mason talks about balance, but it’s power he’s obsessed with, not balance.”
“They’re probably one and the same in his mind,” Reyne said.
“I’m curious,” Seda began. “Was it Gabriela Heid who shared our secrets? She’s the first Founder believed to have betrayed the cause in over a century.”
“I thought your cause was about equality across the Collective. As a torrent, that’s exactly what she’s fighting for.”
Seda lifted his chin. “Equality was the goal.” He cocked his head. “So it was Gabriela Heid who told you about the Founders.”
“No. I tracked her down using another Founder’s tablet.”
“I find that difficult to believe, as these tablets are coded to each specific Founder’s DNA. This individual would’ve had to code their tablet to you. Who was it?”
“I’ll tell you another time.” Reyne paused. “So, what name do you go by? Cook? Shoemaker? Candlestick Maker?”
The corners of his lips curled upward. “I’ll tell you another time.”
Reyne eyed him. “Fair enough.” He walked over and picked up the bottle of whiskey that had fallen to the floor and handed it to Seda. “Tell me more about your plan for how to get our army out of the Citadel.”
“Our army?”
Reyne gave a nod. “If I’m not mistaken, we have over twenty thousand torrents stuck within those walls who are more than ready for a little payback.”
Chapter Eight
Setting up the Chessboard
“I think taking down the Citadel has to be our next action,” Reyne finished sharing his thoughts on the Terra situation.
