by Elin Wyn
I couldn't look away, couldn't keep my feet from bringing me closer, slow step by step towards her. “Rhea. I really have a sister.”
Later we sat side-by-side on the small cot that had been set up for Doc.
“I wanted nothing to do with our father's rebellion. He'd abandoned our mother, only later when he began to dream of the Empire did he think about the uses of a daughter. A reward to bestow, a rallying point.”
Her voice was thick with disdain. “I already hated him for leaving our mother to die, poor and sick in a port town slum. He was determined before, but when they came back after the accident on the Star, I think he was mad.”
Geir interrupted. “What happened on the Star? What interrupted his plan?”
“When the General’s rebellion started, during the attack, they lost pressure.
He nodded. “Meteorite storm. Looked like it caused serious damage to parts of the ship.”
“He truly believes it is his destiny to conquer the Empire, bring it back to a path of righteousness. But just after the uprising, in what should have been his moment of triumph, they were hit. As he took the new symbol of the unified Empire for his own use, it nearly killed him. I don’t think he handled the irony well.”
Void. I’d never known what had happened to our father. He’d always been in the medchamber. It was just how he was. The rattles and squishing noises had terrified me when I was little.
“He's tried experimental procedures for years, both to build stronger soldiers and attempt to rebuild his own body. All along, he had fixed on the idea of having his daughter at his side. And refused to give up.”
“He’s sick.” Doc shook her head. “I'm sure there's fancier, medical terms we could come up with. But he's sick.”
“I don't care,” I insisted, clutching Rhea’s hand. “He's a monster. We have to stop him.”
Geir leaned back against a console, eyes fixed over my head, calculating. “That may take more people than we have. Believe it or not, this was supposed to be a simple scouting mission. Not that I'm arguing with how things are turning out.” He flashed a grin at me.
“But the smart thing to do would be to get the codes for the dome and get out Then the Pack together could handle him.”
“But we don't have the codes anymore,” I argued. “Even if we still had Tianna's tablet, they know she was helping us. They would be idiots not to change every code in the place.”
He slammed his hand into the workbench. “Void take it. You're right. Doc, Rhea, do either of you have access to the systems?”
“Geir, it's not just the Pack against the world. Other people have been hurt, and they can help.”
“How do you think you're going to find them here? Doc isn't exactly known for her friendly personality. I don’t think she’s made a lot of friends since she arrived.”
“I can see that.”
He pressed on. “And the Companion, sorry, Rhea, hasn’t had a chance to make alliances, I'm guessing for a long time.”
Rhea tilted her head to the side. “That is true.”
I refused to give up. “Abril said not everyone turned away when she was taken. There's a small city’s worth of people out there, and a lot of them are tired of being intimidated. They’d fight if we told them how.”
“How do you expect to figure out who's who? You're the one who told me that people are afraid to talk, afraid that whoever they confide in will turn out to be a member of the General’s cadre.”
“We’ll ask Abril. She has as much to lose as anyone.” I thought of Tianna, trapped in the cage. “Maybe more than most. She'll remember who was there when she was taken. What their faces revealed.”
Rhea rose to her feet, reached for the helmet. “I need to get back to the child soon. She'll be waking in a few hours, asking for her morning stories.”
My voice broke. “What do you call her?”
“He calls her Valrea, of course. Recently I have allowed myself hope and decided to name her from the age of the fairytales.”
A triumphant smile transformed her ravaged face, made her beautiful.
“I call her Vicki.”
She settled the dome on her shoulders and resealed it.
“Victoria.”
Geir rose with her. “We can't stay here. If they don’t know we’ve escaped our cell yet, it won’t be much longer.
“Since I'm assuming you haven't tidied away the bodies yet, shortly they'll know I've been discovered as well, said Doc.
Geir looked at me, nodded, and I knew I’d won. “If we're going to figure out a plan, we need a new base of operations.”
“I may be able to assist with that,” Rhea said. “Doc, is there anything you wish to take from this place?”
“Never was much of one for mementos,” the old woman answered. “Lead on.”
As we followed Rhea through the lower levels of the Hall, Geir asked Doc, “What are you doing here anyway? What did he want with you?”
“The old goats been trying to get me here for years,” she muttered. “Realized that the gene shapers he had on staff weren't up to the job. It was fine taking his money, but I didn't feel the need to work any closer to him.”
“Connor said you told him you were building an army.” Geir voice sounded strained.
“Fools make it too easy,” she scoffed. “Not my fault he wanted to believe in the impossible.”
His response sounded private, so I tried not to listen.
“Rhea,” I whispered. “Where are we going?”
“Long ago, before I wore this mask, one of the original engineers courted me. His name was Thrace. I doubt if anyone else remembers that.” She pressed her lips together. “Father had him killed, of course. He wasn't a useful enough of a tool to win me as a prize.”
She turned into what looked like a dead-end hall, but when she removed her glove and slid it into one of the tiles I realized it was simply a very good hologram concealing a palm lock.
“Of course, it will trigger for you as well.” The wall opened, and we stepped into Rhea’s memories.
Two chairs turned towards each other, as if the occupants had just gotten up mid-conversation. A desk stood against one wall, covered with journals.
I didn't have to look to know that I would recognize the handwriting.
“He wanted me to run away with him. But the first child was already growing in the tanks. I couldn't leave her. It was a most effective tether.” She rested her hand on the back of the chair. “This chamber was in the original plans for the Compound, but father had no use for it. Thrace repurposed it as a hideaway for us.”
Racks of shelves holding boxes stretched away into the depth of the chamber. Doc wandered off to explore.
“Does Stanton know?”
Rhea shook her head. “He’s a newcomer. Father recruits and collects disaffected imperial agents like toys. Only Father and I know all the secrets here, and he chooses to lose himself in dreams of future glory.”
She replaced her glove, and clad in black wore the disguise of the Companion once more.
“At the end of the tunnel, you'll find yourself outside of the dome. In one of the boxes, I haven't looked for decades, there are scatter cloaks. I have not kept up with the technology enough to know if they are still effective against father’s satellites. But this is the best I can do.”
“It's wonderful.” I hugged her. She stiffened and then relaxed in my arms. “You stayed. You could've escaped anytime.”
She cupped my cheek with her hand. “I would never have left you.”
Doc returned as Rhea sealed the door behind her. “There's a bed back there. Hasn’t been touched in years from the look of it, but it’s clean. You youngsters should rest up.”
My face heated. “Oh, that's quite all right. That cot in the lab back there certainly didn't look comfortable. Shouldn’t you get some sleep?”
She snorted. “I'm old. No time to sleep. I better run inventory, see what we have to work with here.”
Doc turned away to the boxes stacked against the wall. “Don't worry dear, she called over her shoulder. I didn't upgrade my own hearing.”
Geir’s face was stony.
“What did she mean by that?”
“Never mind. Come on.”
The room went on past where I could see, divided into sections by rows and rows of shelves. We turned a corner and I gasped.
“They’re real,” I breathed. “Actual books, not just files.”
“Well, I know what to get you when you’re mad at me,” Geir joked, watching me stroke the covers.
When I tore myself away from the books, we went further back until we found the nook that had been turned into a bedroom. I stared at the bed. Not a brocaded dais, draped with curtains and piled with lush pillows, from the fantasy world of the stories. Plain, with a carved wooden headboard, deep burgundy cover, faded with time. Solid. Real.
“Do you think she loved him? The engineer?” I whispered.
“From the way she said his name,” Geir’s reply was just as quiet. “Yeah. I think she probably did.”
I leaned against him, still unwilling to trespass into what had been their haven.
“How can one man destroy so much?”
“I don't know. But I do know that you need rest.” He lifted me. “And that your sister would agree with me.”
“We need to plan,” I protested. “Tianna’s time is running out, and we still don’t have the new codes, and…”
I realized how exhausted I was. It had only been hours since we had stumbled into Stanton's trap, but it felt like days.
Geir lay down beside me on top of the sheets. “And making plans while we’re tired is a good way to screw up.”
Rolling to face him, I pillowed my head on his arm. “When I wake, we’ll find a way to make him pay, right?”
“I promise.”
Geir
I watched Valrea sleep, fighting the image of Rhea’s face that covered it in my imagination. The scars and wounds I could see so easily overlaid upon Valrea’s body.
It wouldn't happen. I wouldn't let it.
“I know you can hear me, Geir.” Doc’s soft voice reached my ears from the front of the warehouse. “Let your princess sleep, help me with these boxes.”
I didn't move.
The shock of Doc’s resurrection had been subsumed into the more immediate revelation of the Companion’s identity.
I still hadn't processed it.
"I know you've got questions." She laughed. "Of all my boys, you always did."
That was true. No matter what else, we were her boys. I brushed my lips over Valrea’s cheek and wiggled to free my arm from her.
Remembering how the withdrawal from the drug had racked and twisted her body, it was no surprise she slept so deeply now.
Silently I padded to the front of the cavern.
Doc had dragged out one of the lower crates, piled the contents to the side.
“Either her engineer thought far in advance, or Rhea has been stocking up a little at a time all these years.” She waved at the shelves behind her. “She had food, sealed water tanks, even an entire section of pieces that look like they would assemble to cots.”
I wandered down the racks, looked over the assorted contents. “Maybe this was originally meant to be a refuge, a shelter.”
“The followers of the General were preparing for a war. Maybe the original blueprints included a place for all the residents of the compound to hide during an attack.” Doc nodded. “That would make sense.”
She pulled over another crate. “What else do we have in here?”
My patience finally snapped. “You know you didn't ask me here to help with the boxes. For once, play it straight.”
“I've never lied to you.”
“You've never told us the entire truth, either.”
“Perhaps.” Doc’s shoulders slumped and she headed to the pair of chairs by the entrance.
“How bad is it?”
She'd never been one for letting puff soften intel. I squared my shoulders, prepared to report as I had so often back on the Daedalus.
“As far as I know, there ten are of us left.”
“Oh.” She stumbled on the way to the chair.
I dashed to her, caught her before she fell. As I sat her down and knelt by her side I realized, maybe for the first time, just how old Doc was.
How hard the last few weeks must have been on her, too, dragged from her ship, made a prisoner. Threatened, bullied.
The anger subsided, at least a little.
“What happened?” she whispered, her eyes blindly searching as if the answers lay in the depths of the room. “What happened to them all?”
I shook my head, lightly rubbed her hands.
“I don't know about everyone.” I thought the horrors we've seen on the Star, the pit Ronan had told us about. “They fought well, even to the end.” For now, that was all she needed to know.
“Only ten. Oh, my beautiful, brilliant boys.”
“When we get back to Orem, we'll talk about them more.” I promised. And the rest of us would have more questions for her, I was sure.
But now we were still in danger. And while I could pity the grieving old woman, I needed to get the cunning, wily scientist back.
Soon.
“You should rest, eat something.”
“I will. Plenty of time I'm sure while you and your princess go to collect the troops.”
“I'm not sure how she'd feel about you calling her that.” Actually, I was sure. She’d hate it.
Her eyebrow cocked. She might be wobbly, but Doc was on the way back.
“That's what she is, isn't it? What her father in all his madness wanted. What Rhea in all her wisdom gave her the tools to be. A rallying point.”
She stood up, then fell back into the chair.
“Actually, maybe I am tired now.” She pointed. “I found the pieces for the cots over there. Mind setting one up for me?
While Doc slept I continued browsing through the inventory.
No doubt, this had originally been meant as a refuge for the compound.
Then how did no one know it was here? Was it on the original plans, and the general decided that his people simply wouldn't need such a thing and wouldn't use it?
I had a tickle in my head from one of our old strategy vids, something about an old explorer burning the ships so that there was no way back to wherever they had come from.
Maybe this was the same idea. If people didn't think they had a any choice other than to fight, maybe that's all they knew to do?
The scatter cloaks Rhea mentioned were still neatly folded in their original case.
I gently unfolded one across one of the work tables. Almost an antique, but still, the battery should still have enough charge to...
There.
I switched it on and the section of the table it covered flickered and disappeared from sight.
Light that hit the cloak scattered, effectively turning whatever it covered invisible.
We could use this. Even if Melchior's satellites picked up the slight discrepancies as we moved across the terrain, it would take a while for them to process, understand what was going on.
He'd relied on compliance of his people, their fear and their faith for too long.
What else was in here that we could turn against him?
By the time I heard Valrea stirring I had inventoried only half of the crates, but had found enough to make a reasonable attempt at a meal, along with a few other interesting items. She made her way forward, barefoot and blurry eyed as I dumped the contents of the mealpaks into bowls.
I ran my hands over her sides and she melted into me. A cough behind us interrupted any other thoughts I might have had.
“Worked out your plan yet?” Doc asked as she rattled the utensils loudly.
Valrea’s face flamed adorably while I scrambled for an answer.
“The scatter cloaks are in good condition, at least. That’
ll help.”
“I wouldn't rely on them for too long, just in case the batteries run out.”
“I do remember my basic lessons,” I grumbled.
“Just saying. Never hurts to be careful.” She pulled over a chair and patted Valrea’s shoulder. “Just wait till all this nonsense is over. I have some stories about when he was little that I can't wait to tell you about.”
“Doc,” I warned.
“No, no, you come up with your plan while Val and I have a little chat.” She turned back to Valrea who had failed to smother her grin. “Once there was this time that-”
“Doc, did I mention that Ronan has a mate as well?”
Her head swiveled to me. “Really?”
If I couldn't escape the coming revelation of secrets, the best I could do was diffuse her focus. I’d deal with Ronan’s wrath later.
“Oh yes. She's a doctor, too. She knows your work, thinks quite highly of you.” Please let that be enough to prick her curiosity in another direction.
“Who would've thought there would come a day my boys would find women who could put up with them?” Doc gave a huge stage sniff then tucked into her breakfast.
“We need more people,” Valrea repeated and pushed away her finished bowl.Her jaw tightened, ready to resume our argument.
“I agree.’ I did, but it would have been worth changing my mind just to see the surprise on her face. “We may not know who to trust inside the compound. But we know we can start with Abril and Caze. Two more sets of hands is a start.”
She grabbed my bowl and washed them both quickly. “Let's go find that exit.”
The further back we explored, the rougher the walls became, tapering in until the similarity to the tunnels below was impossible to ignore.
“I wonder,” Valrea said as she ran her hand across the carved rock. “Do you think the original Compound was underground?”
I shrugged. “No telling now. Rhea is the only one who would know. And it sounds like the general might have had his followers entrenched here before he forced her to join him.”
“If the outside world was filled with things like the Devourers,” she mused, “no wonder they built underground until they had the security dome running.”
