Recruits Series, Book 1

by Thomas Locke

  Tirian did not meet his eye. But the man was listening intently now, his breath catching with each exhale.

  Sean went on, “You figured the previous three attacks were just probes. Your concern was that the aliens might now be returning in a new guise. That they were readying a different method of assault. You had no idea what it was going to be. But you were determined to protect your students. The aliens were not ever going to have access to those placed in your care. Even if it meant turning your school into a windowless prison, one that only opened to the outside world on the solstice, when every door and window on Lothia was ordered to be opened.”

  “Pure conjecture,” Tirian muttered.

  Sean ignored the interruption. “You suspected the next attack would come on a world like mine. An outpost world. One where the empire had almost no presence. You had no idea that the Assembly feared the exact same thing. Or that Watchers and Counselors had been assigned to monitor any suspect activity.”

  He snapped around. “How do you know this?”

  “I told you. It’s all conjecture. But it makes sense, doesn’t it. There is no way a Counselor responsible for several outpost words would take such an interest in two raw recruits. Or planetary Watchers would be set on constant alert, or Praetorian Guards readied for attack. They wouldn’t do this for new recruits. They wouldn’t keep us in place. They would ship us off to a school like yours, where we could be monitored and protected. But they didn’t. And I can only think of one reason to keep us there, out in the open.”

  Sean turned to the mirror. Glared beyond the glass. And finished, “They used us as bait.”

  When he turned back, Tirian’s scowl was twisted by a fascination he no longer tried to hide. The former Examiner chewed on something, but all he said was, “The aliens.”

  “Right. Once this is over I want to research how the three alien attacks that focused on transiters might be linked. But here’s what I think. The aliens almost succeeded. It was only by chance they were halted. It’s why the authorities let you make your school so confined. It’s why they don’t allow recruits to extend their abilities. It’s why the instruction is so boring. Because everyone is terrified the aliens will use any new experiments as a conduit to enter and take over and attack.”

  “They’re right to be afraid,” Tirian said.

  “This fear restricts our understanding of their tactics,” Sean shot back.

  Tirian’s sneer took hold once more. “Forty centuries of fighting an unseen foe, and here you come. Less than two months of training and you have all the answers.”

  “Just one,” Sean replied. “More like half an idea. Which is why I’m here. I need you to tell me what happened before you were taken.”

  46

  Tirian froze. His mouth worked. He needed several tries to reply, “I don’t remember anything.” But the truth was evident in his flickering gaze and the tension that stretched his dark features tight as a drumhead.

  Sean replied, “I know you do.”

  “You know nothing.” But Tirian could not draw up any scorn. Not now. “You’re accusing me of lying?”

  “I know there was an instant between your normal life and your period of being under the aliens’ power. I know this because we were almost taken as well. I need to know what happened next. What we did not experience.”

  But Tirian was not listening. He twisted his wrist against the plasti-steel bracelet clenching him to the table. “I am ready to return to my cell.”

  “The aliens could be attacking Cyrius next. It’s crucial that I—”

  “Guards!” He struggled harder. “You can’t deny me my rights under the planetary convention!”

  But as the prison security stepped forward, a disembodied voice said, “Hold as you are.”

  “This is outrageous,” Tirian said, but his snarl was toothless.

  The door opened behind Sean. Carver and Ambassador Anyon entered, accompanied by a stout woman with features flat as a cooking pan and eyes hard as agate. The woman said, “As Justice assigned your case, I hold the power to release you to house arrest while your fate is determined.”

  “I’m innocent,” Tirian said. “I’ve done nothing to deserve—”

  “But first you must answer the young man’s question,” the Justice said. “That is your choice.”

  “Take me back,” Tirian insisted weakly.

  “You are so eager to face further imprisonment? Even when the court recognizes you may have done nothing more than be used by our enemy?” She pointed to Sean. “Answer his questions and return home. Refuse again and go back to your cell. That is your choice.”

  When Tirian remained silent, Sean softly repeated, “I need to know what happened in the moment of your capture.”

  Tirian’s head went down, his features slack. He kept tugging against his restraint, but it was the feeble efforts of a defeated man.

  Sean could taste the man’s fear. “They lured you in.”

  Tirian muttered, “You know nothing.”

  “Actually, I do,” Sean replied. “They did the same to us. And now you know I’m speaking the truth. The attack at the Charger was real. It almost succeeded.” He leaned across the table. “Tell me what I need to know.”

  The act of drawing his next breath caused Tirian’s body to spasm. Then he confessed.

  It was a sordid and shameful tale.

  “I . . . met a woman,” he began.

  The image of the three beautiful college girls waving at them from the bus stop caused Sean to shudder.

  Tirian must have taken Sean’s movement as assent, for he went on, “She was young. Beautiful. Vibrant.”

  Sean knew a bitter shame at having undergone the same temptation. He did not like the former Examiner any more now. But he felt for him. Deeply.

  “She had such a delicious laugh.” Tirian’s hand trembled as he wiped his mouth. “I can still hear it. She . . .”

  “Wanted you,” Sean said softly. Remembering.

  “She drove me mad. The more I had of her, the more I wanted. Only it left me hollow and wasted.”

  Sean studied the man seated opposite him. Tirian’s empty flesh was nothing more than a dull wrapping that encased old rage and bitterness at the core of his being.

  “She consumed everything.” The tremors fractured Tirian’s words. “When I finally accepted what was happening, she lost her physical form and swept into me. I know that sounds impossible.”

  “No,” Sean said. “It doesn’t.”

  “I was utterly helpless. She devoured me.” Tirian became wracked with shudders so tight his words became almost unintelligible. “She feasted on my life with a delicate bliss. And I could do nothing but watch.”

  Sean gave him a minute to recover, then asked, “What happened next?”

  “When she had gorged on me, when I was truly empty, she reached out,” Tirian replied. His eyes carried the feverish quality of returning to that dark hour. “It felt like she touched a switch. And I lost consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was being arrested and brought here.”

  Sean turned to the Ambassador and said, “I have what I need.”

  Anyon was clearly a man coming to terms with the restructuring of his family’s core. He viewed Sean through this dual lens, a young man who possibly held the key to the empire’s safety, and yet the same man threatened to steal his youngest daughter.

  Every eye in the room save Tirian’s shifted to Anyon, and still he struggled to fashion the simplest question. “Will you tell us what is happening?”

  Sean replied, “We need to get back to the station and start putting things in motion.”

  Tatyana protested, “First we must have a clearer sense—”

  “The aliens are coming,” Sean replied. “Right now that’s all you need to know.”

  47

  Sean wished he could lose himself in the act of just walking around the station. Reveling in the place they had dreamed about for ten years and counting. Carey smiled as she watch
ed Dillon and Sean turn in a slow circle. The two of them. Out in the open. Free to do whatever they wanted. Which for the moment was try to take it all in. Watching the people on the moving walkways that curled up the sides and across the distant ceiling. They observed glass trains that swooshed in and out of the long glass tubes. Riding into a world that beckoned.

  Dillon’s yearning and excitement were clear in his gaze. Sean knew what his brother was thinking. They could take their seats and fly off to some unknown city. They now had passes to the planet’s entire rail system. And a payment chip, good for whatever, embedded in thin gold bracelets the four of them wore on their left wrists. Sean especially liked how Carver had supplied one for Carey. He knew it was the adults’ way of clearing the decks, not going so far as an official statement of regret, but saying in more than words that he and Dillon were now part of the team.

  Dillon lifted his arm and let the bracelet sparkle in the surrounding lights. “We could have it all wrong. Maybe the aliens came for the veggie wraps.”

  Elenya clearly did not feel this was a time for jokes. She gave that gentle pressure to Sean’s hand, her own manner of silent speech. When he looked at her, she whispered in time to the whoosh of a departing train, “Soon.”

  He nodded, grateful that she understood. Wherever they went, the trip needed to hold that special sense of fulfilling a lifelong dream. And he did not want to rush that.

  Plus there was the small issue of not knowing when the aliens were going to show up. All they could say was, Dillon’s last sweep had turned up nothing new.

  Of course, this was assuming that they had it right. That they hadn’t blown the whistle for nothing. That the invasion was real.

  But something else had come to Sean as they were leaving the prison. An experience so powerful he had asked for this moment before they started on the next step. Because there was every possibility that it would be his only chance to revel in this place. His and Dillon’s very own twin world.

  The experience had occurred as he’d returned to the prison’s transit room. In that grim and charmless tomb, Sean had received an idea from somewhere beyond himself.

  Only it was not just an idea.

  The event had been amped a thousand degrees. It had not been just one concept. Instead, a myriad of images had flooded him, swirling through his brain with the brilliance of a lightning barrage at ground zero. But without the noise, the charge, or even the shock.

  Sean had been frozen to the spot, for how long he had no idea. But when it was over and he managed to refocus on the prison’s transit room, the adults were still clustered, talking over what steps to take and when.

  In that instant, Sean knew what it was he had to do. Even though he probably wouldn’t survive.

  Sean made a final slow circuit of the Cyrian train station. He took it all in deep. He was swamped by an abiding sense of sorrow over how this could be as far as he ever went on Cyrius.

  Dillon asked, “Something wrong?”

  Sean saw the uncertainties on the faces that watched him. And the trust. And that gave him the strength to hide away what he could not reveal, the plan that was his alone. For the moment.

  He said, “I guess we better get to work.”

  Station security operated from a warren of offices located a third of the way around the central belt from the clinic. Glass portals opened into a large front chamber with counters running down both sides. Electronic screens flashed and voices called. More and more people crowded into the vast space, their faces grim, their attitudes pompous.

  Sean came here because he needed to confirm what he had suspected would happen, which was, the adults would mess things up.

  He didn’t need to understand the language to know a lot of egos were jostling for position. The glances cast their way were swift and dismissive. He sensed Elenya’s disquiet and Dillon’s irritation. But this was exactly what Sean had hoped to find.

  He spotted Carver deep in discussion with Tatyana, Ambassador Anyon, and a number of other officials he didn’t ever need to meet. He walked over and stood where Carver could use him as an excuse to break away.

  Sean spoke in English so Carey would be included. “We need to change the way things are getting done.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, that is what we—”

  “Not them. Us. And we have just one chance to get this right.”

  Carver had a military officer’s ability to pare away the noise and the confusion and focus on the essential. He focused that laser gaze on Sean now. “Explain.”

  Sean summarized his reasoning. When he was finished, the best thing he could say about Carver’s response was, the officer did not dismiss him outright.

  Carver asked, “How long do you think we have?”

  “I can’t . . . Hours, maybe. Or minutes. But we need to get started.”

  Tatyana heard his tone, glanced over, frowned, and went back to her serious conversation with the officials. Adult to adult. Carving out turf. Wasting time.

  Carver said, “Tell me how you can be so certain about this change in direction. I’m asking because your idea is going to set off a firestorm.”

  Sean motioned to the various clusters of adults. “They’re putting in place the same old guidelines that missed everything that’s happened so far. The aliens have changed tactics. We need to do the same or we’ll miss this chance.”

  Carver asked Dillon, “You sense this also?”

  “I know they’ve been here. To this station. Small ins and outs. I can’t say more than that. Sean’s the one who fits together the pieces of invisible puzzles. That’s his specialty.”

  “You need to listen to him,” Elenya urged.

  Dillon said, “Remember how you missed the signals Sean picked up before the Charger attack? If he says jump, you’ve gotten your orders.”

  Ambassador Anyon chose that moment to break off his conversation and walk over. “Is there something I need to be aware of?”

  Sean saw Tatyana frown at the interruption, but she joined them as well. Sean felt Elenya’s rising ire like heat off a stove. But he felt this conversation was inevitable. It had to be dealt with. Now rather than later.

  Tatyana asked, “What’s going on here?”

  Anyon replied, “I was hoping to find that out.”

  Sean could tell Elenya wanted to snap at them. Again. But he took her hand, squeezed, and released. A quick jolt. Enough to stifle her comment. Carver caught the motion and offered Sean his trademark half-hidden humor.

  Sean said, “We need to move everything that’s happening here outside the station.”

  “We are organizing a central power structure and setting up a defense perimeter,” Tatyana stated.

  “You should be pleased,” Anyon said. “An interplanetary response is being readied, all on the basis of your intelligence.”

  Words, Sean thought. Adult gobbledygook. But what he said was, “That’s great. But it’s not what I’m talking about. You need to think of us as an early-warning system. And for this to work, we need to get everything we’re doing and all these people outside the alien attack zone.”

  Dillon halted in his murmured translation for Carey long enough to add, “Like you said, you’re here because of our intel. You need to accept we have ideas all our own.”

  Sean almost smiled. That was as close to diplomatic as Dillon would probably ever come.

  Carver interrupted the Ambassador’s retort with, “What do you need?”

  “Keep all your transiters off-world,” Sean replied. “Especially any other Watchers. Bring us the two who were on duty the night they blasted our home. Give us the clinic. We’ll bring you confirmation.”

  Tatyana protested, “What you’re suggesting will undo everything we’re trying to put in place.”

  “You’re missing the point,” Dillon said.

  Sean said, “The aliens have moved on. You need to do the same.”

  “Sean isn’t talking turf,” Dillon added. “He’s talking strate
gy. And you need to do what he says.”

  Sean went on, “The last three times, the aliens used a different system of attack. They went after transiters. They tried to hit one point, then spread.”

  Carver muttered, “The station.”

  “Same concept, different planet,” Sean confirmed. “They failed going head-on against the Guard. So now they’re hitting a world and a travel point where the Guard aren’t welcome. And these forays are their method of making sure we’re not around.”

  Carver was with them now, nodding in time to Sean’s words. “Which is why they masked the attacks on you and Tirian.”

  “They went after us because we were here on Cyrius,” Sean said. “Transiters suddenly arrived at their next target. They saw us as a threat to their plans. We had to be taken out.”

  Anyon asked, “What do you suggest?”

  “Like I said, get everybody here outside the station. Nothing that might alert the aliens when they show up next. Then bring us the Watchers. I need to ask them a question, and they need to give you official confirmation this thing is real. Once that happens, we’ll also need our own space beyond the station perimeter.”

  Carver offered, “I’ll go fetch the Watchers.”

  “And one more thing,” Sean said. “Everyone who enters our space comes under our command. No arguments, no back talk.”

  “This is going to be our ops center,” Dillon said.

  Elenya saw her father’s resistance and added, “And no exceptions.”