by Jamie Sawyer
“Is that how it happened?”
Harris’ smile became fixed, eyes glassy. His stomach was weeping blood now. “We both know that’s not how it worked though. We both know that I didn’t make it off that station. And we both know that I’m only in your head.”
“So ghosts like to drink now?”
“Everyone’s got to have a vice,” Harris said. “Even ghosts.”
“I’m so sorry, Harris. I let you down.”
Harris shook his head. “No, you didn’t. I came back for you, on Jiog, because I wanted your help.”
“I should’ve stopped the Spiral on Darkwater.”
“You did what you could, kid. I don’t matter. Not anymore. But you and the Jackals, you can make a difference. The Firebird is your ship now.”
“It looks that way.”
“Hey, she’s a decent ship. You could do a lot worse.”
“I’d gladly hand her over to you,” I said. “I’m not sure that I can take the responsibility. I’ve fucked things up so many times that I’ve lost count.”
“We all make mistakes. Learning from them is what matters.”
“Being dead seems to have filled you with moralising bullshit.”
“Maybe,” Harris said. He sat up in the chair. I could almost hear his bones creaking. “But I’m out of the game. Over to you, Keira.”
“Any last words of advice, then?”
“This is your war now,” Harris said. “Be careful how you fight it.”
“Is that all I get from my old commanding officer?”
Harris sighed, looked at me some more. “Maybe listen to your squad. That’s what I used to do. Sometimes, just sometimes, they might be the ones with the answers.”
“Novak has answers?”
Harris shrugged. “I’m not saying him, necessarily. But the lifer has his uses, I’m sure. Watch yourself out there.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“What?”
“‘Watch’ yourself?”
He shook his head. “I don’t get it. You’re weird sometimes, Jenkins.”
I woke up with a start.
In a heartbeat, I took in the chamber. I was still sitting in the briefing room. Elena’s data-packet was open on the smart-desk in front of me, but nothing else had changed. Harris, of course, wasn’t there. The chair in which he’d been sitting was empty. Everything else just as it had been, except Zero was also present.
“You were sleeping,” she said.
“Right, sure,” I said. “Fine.”
“You okay? Your neck looks …” She let that trail off, but the look on her face was enough. I sure as shit wasn’t going to win any beauty pageants until I got my injuries seen to.
But I just nodded. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I muttered. “I was reading the data-packet. I must’ve fallen asleep.”
Zero gave me a knowing smile. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s been a long day.”
“It has.”
“I brought coffee,” Zero said, sliding a plastic cup across the desk in front of me.
“Thanks. This is exactly what I need.”
“You were talking in your sleep.”
“I … I do that sometimes,” I said. “That, and snore.”
“Your secret’s safe with me, ma’am.”
“Still no sign of the Paladin?” I asked hopefully.
Zero pursed her thin lips and shook her head. “Nothing, Jenk.” She nodded at the smart-desk, at the open data. “Looks like Colonel Harris was well prepared for the next stage of the operation.”
“He was,” I said. He is, I wanted to say. “But there’s nothing in here about the Shard, or about what we found at Darkwater.”
“I’ve run a search,” Zero said, “and I can’t find anything, either.”
“That’s hardly surprising, but thanks for trying.”
A quiet stretched between Zero and me, and she stared down at her coffee cup. There was something that she wanted to talk to me about, I realised.
“Go on,” I said, sipping the coffee. “Talk.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“We know each other too well, Zero. Something’s been bugging you for a while. Since Jiog.”
She bit at her lower lip. “Yeah, it has. I tried to tell you before … before the farm. But the moment didn’t, well, seem right.”
“Well now’s the time,” I said. “Go on.”
Zero tried to keep smiling, but the expression dropped. She looked away from me, to the view-port that showed space outside.
“When we were on Jiog …” she started, faltering, “Kwan—Commander Kwan—he was, well, talking about the Aeon …”
The Aeon: a name or word that seemed to be following us around. Kwan had seemed to think that it was linked to our mission to find the Hannover. He’d called it a weapon, had been determined to find it as a result. At the time, it hadn’t meant anything to me. I’d figured that Kwan had gone insane. But the prisoner had referred to it as well. That was beyond coincidence; the Aeon must have some significance.
I wasn’t tired anymore. It was as though I was using a simulant, and my senses had become hyper-focused. Zero’s uneasiness only heightened my concern. Something snapped inside me. Riggs had the Hannover’s data-core, the ship’s black box …
“Tell me that you didn’t …” I said.
The pieces all fell together. Suddenly, everything made sense.
Zero shivered. “Don’t be angry with me, Jenk. Please don’t be angry.”
“Tell me what happened,” I said as firmly but compassionately as I could.
“When we were aboard the Santa Fe, I opened the Hannover’s black box,” Zero said. Speaking quickly now, as though that would make this all better, as though I wouldn’t be able to follow what she was telling me: “When we escaped the Gyre, before we Q-jumped into Directorate space, I opened the Hannover’s black box. I read the files. I know what the Aeon is.”
I called a briefing. The Jackals sat around the table, Pariah and Lestrade included.
“I—I tried to tell you before,” Zero stammered.
“It’s okay. Just calm down.”
Zero kept talking, like she couldn’t hear me, waving her arms around to demonstrate her point. “So much has happened. We escaped Jiog, found Lazarus. I kept trying to think of the best way to put it, the best time to tell you. We haven’t stopped running since we left Directorate space, and then we had to plan the raid on the farm, and then Lazarus—well, you know about him, and I just—”
“Zero, please calm the fuck down.”
Zero went quiet. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times—looking a bit like a fish gasping for air, somewhat ironically—but she eventually stopped doing that as well. She was shaking. It’d taken some nerve for her to admit this; I had to give the girl credit for that.
“Tell me from the top,” I said. “What did you do?”
“After we escaped the ark-ship, in the Gyre,” she said slowly, methodically, “and Riggs started the Q-jumps back to Alliance space, I opened the ECS Hannover’s black box. I cracked the encryption and downloaded the contents to the Santa Fe’s mainframe.”
“We talked about this,” I said, remembering our conversation aboard the Santa Fe. “I told you—”
“That you didn’t want it to be your problem,” Zero completed. “But I thought that I was helping. It … it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was trying to take some of the pressure off you, ma’am. I figured that if I could, you know, take responsibility for it, then it would—”
“Did you tell Lazarus about this?” I asked.
Zero gave a small shake of her head. “No. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
“What is all fuss about?” Novak blustered. “Why are we bothered that Zero look in box? Is just data, yes, and Spiral have box anyway. Is no big secret.”
But Feng had already figured it out. “Commander Kwan used the redactor on Zero,” he said. “He looked in
her head, Novak. Whatever Zero knows, the Directorate will too. Kwan has that information. They also have the Santa Fe, and whatever was downloaded to the data-stacks. The Directorate have an intelligence lead, and it’s for that reason they won’t give up.”
Feng steepled his fingers in front of him, all formal suddenly. He tended to get that way, I noticed, whenever we talked about the Directorate. His expression was fixed, maybe even a little broken. Are you sure it’s such a good idea, a small voice taunted me, to have the Directorate errand boy in the room while you discuss classified intelligence?
Fuck you, I answered. He’s a Jackal.
Support for Zero came from an unlikely ally. Lopez piped up, “How was Zero to know that we’d be captured by the Directorate? She didn’t know that they would go poking around in her head when she opened the Hannover’s box.”
“The black box was classified intelligence,” I said. “What in the Maelstrom were you thinking, Zero? You more than anyone on this squad appreciate protocol.”
“It was a bad call,” she started. “It was just … well, we’d come so far. Our mission had cost so much. The crew of the Santa Fe, Major Sergkov … It didn’t seem right that we would never get to know the Hannover’s mission. This sounds like I’m making excuses, but I’m really not. I know that it was wrong.”
Feng’s lips tightened into an approximation of a smile, although the expression was more disappointed than humorous. “I guess that people are paid to know these things, Zero. There’s a reason why the grunts aren’t told everything.”
Novak crossed his enormous arms over his chest. “Still do not see big deal.”
“So, Zero, what did you find?” I asked, leaning forward.
“This is going to make it worse yet. Commander Kwan and his surgeon used the redactor on me, and I … I can only remember parts of the download.”
“Then tell us what can remember, yes?” Novak said.
“I’ll try. The Hannover was sent into the Gyre to search for an asset.” Zero looked down at the table now. Her voice took on an even tone, as though this was a mantra she had memorised. “Something capable of countering the Harbinger virus. Special asset X-93: also known as the Aeon.”
“How did they know about the Aeon?” I questioned.
“I can’t remember that part,” Zero said. She was almost in discomfort, in pain, as she rubbed her head, rubbed the burns caused by the redactor’s probes. “I don’t know if I ever knew.”
“What is the Aeon?”
“A weapon,” Zero intoned. “It can scrub whole planets or send stars supernova. We’re talking interstellar-level devastation. I remember that part well enough.”
“Holy Christo …” Feng said. “Can you imagine the Directorate with that sort of power?”
“Unfortunately I can,” I said. All too well …
“The Aeon was a weapon used to oppose the Shard,” Zero said, “during the Great Conflict between the Krell and Machines.”
“The Shard?” I queried.
“Yes,” said Zero, nodding. “There was something … something about a planet.”
“Tysis World?” I led.
“That name sounds familiar,” Zero answered. “But I can’t remember why, or how it fits into this.”
“Does the Aeon mean anything to you, P?” I asked Pariah.
The xeno listened on silently, watching Zero. “It does not,” it said.
The answer didn’t strike me as very truthful for some reason. But it was hard to evaluate the alien’s responses—everything came out in that same flat voice. Something grazed the edge of my consciousness though.
“What sort of weapon is this Aeon?” Novak asked.
Zero shook with an imaginary chill. “I don’t remember that. I’ve tried everything to bring the memory back, but the redactor: I think it permanently deleted some information from my head.”
“At least Commander Kwan didn’t get everything,” Feng suggested. “We interrupted the download.”
“Small blessing,” I muttered. That had happened almost by chance; given another few minutes, the process would’ve been complete, and Zero would surely be dead … But whatever Zero had downloaded to the Fe’s data-stacks: Kwan had that.
Lopez looked to me. “Ma’am, what about a hypno-debrief? Would that help Zero remember, or at least let us get the information out of her head?”
Hypnotic debriefing was an intensive interrogation method that allowed Science Division to pull memories out of an operator’s head. It was a much kinder process than redaction, and the Jackals had been subject to such a procedure once before, after the disaster at Daktar Outpost. Although it could be very painful, it tended to get results, and in most cases it was reasonably safe. There was just one problem.
“That’s not going to work,” I decided. “Zero can’t use the simulators.”
Zero was a negative. She didn’t have data-ports, and as such couldn’t use the tanks. That was a requirement for a hypno-debrief.
Lopez’s shoulders sagged. “Good point.”
“It’s not the first time that my not being able to mount a tank has caused an issue,” Zero said, “believe me.”
But Lopez hadn’t meant it that way. “Sorry, Zero. Didn’t mean to piss on your show.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’d love to get in a tank, do what you do. But you know how it is …”
Zero pulled back the sleeve of her suit to expose her bare forearms, the scar tissue vivid and angry, despite it being years since the data-ports had been removed.
“So,” Novak summarised, “Aeon is weapon. We don’t know what. Directorate know about Aeon because Zero look in box. And Spiral know about Aeon because they have same box.”
“That’s the size of it,” Zero said. “Except that, maybe, the Directorate know more about this Aeon than I do, because I can’t remember some of what I read …”
“Does it feel better to come clean about it?” Feng offered.
“I guess so,” Zero agreed.
“Anyone else got any secrets that they want to tell?” I asked, looking around the table. Even P seemed to wither a little under my gaze. “Because now is the time to tell them.”
No one reacted to that.
“Good.”
It suddenly struck me that whether my squad had secrets or not wasn’t the issue. I had been keeping secrets from them. Feng’s implant, for a start. Did this new intelligence relate to that at all? Why was he still carrying the wetware around in his head?
“It’s down to us now,” I said. “The mission has to continue. We’re going to finish Harris’ work. We’re going to stop this war before it starts.”
I called up data on the main display, and colourful tri-D projections danced in front of me.
“This is our current location,” I said, pointing out a system towards the Former Quarantine Zone. “And this is our objective.” Another marker sprang to life. “Harris’ original plan was to acquire material from Darkwater Farm, then jump to Mu-98.”
I flagged quantum-jump points that took us to Mu-98, on the very edge of safe space. The Firebird’s mainframe had been updated with the latest intelligence, and Zero and Captain Lestrade had managed to access all of it. What they found was less than appealing. More Krell incursions into human space, and specifically within the vicinity of Mu-98, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
“Does the Spiral have every Shard Gate now?” Lopez asked.
“Almost,” I said. “The only Gates under Alliance control are here, here and here.”
I pointed out the disparate locations. They were in the Mu-98, Beta Tanis and Tripolis Binary systems. Even the Gates that we had used to reach Darkwater were now listed as contested territory. None of the remaining Gate systems held much in the way of resources, but they were rapidly becoming major chokepoints for the war. Militarisation was inevitable, and I could well imagine how these systems would look. In combination with the Krell exodus, the Spiral’s seizure of the Shard Gates would inevitably
trigger a refugee crisis. Population centres would swell, life support would become stressed as it was required to sustain numbers it had never been designed to cater for. Food, water, air: the basics would become luxuries.
“Our objective is Kronstadt, in the Mu-98 star system,” I said. “Specifically, the capital city Svoboda.”
Novak grew misty-eyed. “Kronstadt?”
“That’s right,” I said. “It’s Russian-held territory. Federal space.”
“This system is in great danger,” Pariah suddenly interjected.
The xeno stirred from behind me. The alien had been completely still, almost silent, throughout the briefing. Now its back-antennae were writhing, agitated. All eyes turned to the alien as it stood at the table.
“Something to add, P?”
“Yes,” it said. “We do.”
“Then be my guest.”
“There are Kindred beyond that Gate,” P said, indicating the Shard Gate in the Mu-98 system. “They mass in great numbers.”
“Good fishes, or bad fishes?” Novak asked.
“Bad Kindred,” P said. “Infected Kindred. We feel them.”
Lopez swallowed, uncomfortable. “You feel them across this distance? We’re still light-years away.”
P made a clicking noise at the back of its throat. “Irrelevant. The Deep is disturbed, and the infected bide their time. It will not be long before this world is taken by the Harbinger.”
“I guess that means we’re on the clock,” I said. “The Watch has a contact operating in this sector.”
An image appeared in tri-D, a woman with a bob of blond hair. Pretty, but features a little too cultured—too symmetrical—to be fully natural, I decided. Like Lopez, this woman had been under the surgeon’s laser. As such, her age was difficult to guess, but she was probably approaching middle age by the standards of the Core Systems. Other than her rank and former position, Harris had compiled limited information on the woman. Like Lopez again, she’d come from a privileged family, had in fact studied at Proxima Colony’s oldest university. But she wasn’t Proximan. I’d wager that she was from the Faeran colonies; the draw of her chin, and her body shape, spoke of someone who had grown up in low-standard gravity. She had a slightly unreal look about her, unnaturally lithe, skin almost porcelain. She wore a civilian smart suit, a respirator hanging around her neck, and the image was posed, her smile feigned, face turned so that the photographer caught her from the best angle. Jaunty: that was the word.
