The Catch (Huntress of the Star Empire Episodes 7-9)

by Athena Grayson

  Vakess bristled at the other man’s order to his concierge android. Vox Unificus had embraced Vakess’ vision for the new Union that formed from the broken pieces of the Star Empire. The man had rebuilt himself from shattered obscurity to support Vakess in every move he made that took the Union forward, and in return, Vakess had granted him power and discretion to clear the way for sweeping reforms.

  “Good evening, Prime Minister.” Vox exited as the panel slid open.

  But there was a stubborn part of Vakess that refused to die along with the old ways, and that part hissed poison into his mind at quiet times, and low hours of self-doubt, and that voice now wondered when the Director had been granted such license over his own personal schedule. “Good bye, Vox.”

  When the door closed behind the cyborg, he sent another command through the private padd, calling for Draylin Duvainik. The request would take some time, given the flags the legendary AI programmer’s name would send up, and the efforts Vakess would have to go to circumvent those flags. In the meantime, he turned his gaze away from the padd and the door to contemplate the map, and the pattern in his mind that overlaid it.

  The corruption had spread from Tenraye to Guerre, following his Vice Hunter like a cloud. Both Vice Hunter and psypath were coming to the Capitol, bringing the darkness with them. But as he watched the veins of corrosion spread out on the glittering gold of his mind web, he saw troubling movement. He saw tendrils darkening like veins along the bright lines, coming from Guerre, from Tenraye.

  From the Capitol itself.

  ***

  “Good day, ma’am. Lieutenant Haarkon.” The smartly-dressed junior officer snapped a crisp salute as he and Treska approached the landing ramp. “I’ll be escorting you and the prisoner to the—the—the—”

  “Brig?” Micah drawled. He could have marked the exact instant when the young man came into Treska’s personal space and unconsciously detected her pheromones. The starched attention faltered along with the young officer’s sudden stutter, and the man’s body language went from regulation straightness to a distinct lean in her direction. Treska’s tranquilizer hadn’t knocked him out, only made him a little less circumspect in his behavior. Instead of tranking him with her second dart, Treska looked at her empty wrist-shooter magazine and just sent him a glare as she slapped the repulsor cuffs back on his wrists. While he still possessed his consciousness, he couldn’t find the right words to warn her about the Union’s betrayal of her. What words did one use to gently reveal to another that their very existence was a lie?

  Now, while he struggled for eloquence, this starched set of freshly-programmed recruits had appeared at the top of the ramp, armed to the teeth and ready to close ranks around the fiction the Union had crafted to encage her.

  It filled him with rage that the tranquilizer intercepted, stealing its heat from him and leaving him with nothing but a cynical humor at the absurdity of the situation.

  The other two soldiers flanked him. One reached for his arm and Micah sent him a withering glare that caused the young man to freeze. Treska turned around and took Micah by the arm. “Don’t be difficult or I’ll trank you again.”

  “That worked out so well the first time, didn’t it? I think I’m building up an immunity.” His words were only slightly slurred. “Besides—” He leaned in close. “If you trank me, I won’t be able to warn you that this guy—” he nodded to the guard that had backed away from him, “—is checking out your ass.”

  Treska’s head whipped around, and the soldier that had tried to take her arm stepped back another pace. “Beg your pardon, ma’am. I was—I was checking you for weapons.”

  Micah snorted. “Nobody ever fooled anyone with that line, bub.”

  His attitude projected somewhere between relaxed and impaired, Micah’s gaze roamed the battle cruiser, taking in the ship’s profile, weapons nodules, and shield generators visible from their position on the ground. As they passed up into the maw of the ship, his eyes caught Treska’s. For a moment, uncertainty clouded her features and he sobered up to sharp. “Treska, you should know something.” There simply weren’t going to be words to ease her gently into this. “You aren’t who you think you are.”

  Her lips tightened and she looked away. “I know exactly who I am.” She shoved him and he stumbled forward into the hands of the waiting guards. The pair jumped to catch him. Their gloved hands shoved his arms behind him, where the repulsor cuffs clicked together and held them there. The other two in the honor guard edged closer to her as they moved off the ramp. He held her gaze as long as his position would let him, until the last slice of golden Guerre light disappeared as the ramp sealed them inside the sterile hold of the battleship.

  The soldiers were already responding to her. Someone like Xenna, trained in the use and manipulation of her pheromones, could control her body well enough to use her pheromones for any number of outcomes. Treska, on the other hand, didn’t even realize how far she spun out of control.

  Treska was more than happy to pass through the sonic and microbial scrubbers that stood between the cargo ramp and the ship’s hold proper. As the crystal dust shook off her body, she breathed deep the sterile air of the battle cruiser. Next to her, the lieutenant gestured. “This way. We’ll get the prisoner to the brig and—and—”

  Whatever made him stumble irritated her. Between the failure of her trank dart—and she worried that maybe Micah really was developing an immunity—and the behavior of the soldier—and she still felt the man’s eyes on her—she was more than ready to deposit Micah in the brig and get away from people for awhile. Get away from Micah’s presence.

  She searched for peace in the Scimitar’s sterile white walls. The softly glowing blue lights running at shoulder height cast a pallor over her own hands as she gripped the remote to Micah’s cuffs.

  As the white gave way to industrial gray and the lower levels of the ship, Enlightenment’s words still haunted her. No one knew more about the mind than psypaths. And no one knew more about the Order’s knowledge than Micah. There was no one else to know. Micah’s own words haunted her in the cadence of his footsteps as he followed along behind her, prodded by his guards. I’m your last chance to find out.

  The ride in the lift stretched out in uncomfortable silence. From the docking level to the detention level couldn’t have taken more than five minutes, but by the time the doors opened, Treska found herself surrounded by a ring of soldiers more concerned about her safety than her personal space. And no one seemed inclined to move once the lift doors opened. She shot a glance at Micah, searching for the green LED of the collar.

  His guards shifted, blocking him from her sight. Still, nobody stepped off the elevator, and she was starting to sweat under her jacket. The lieutenant shuffled his feet, which carried him closer to her, rather than out of the lift. She frowned. Was she supposed to give an order? Most of her dealings were with squads of special forces, very rarely officers, and never the type of career military whose trajectories carried them to the bridges of large cruisers.

  Finally, frustrated with the sheer lack of fresh air, she put her hands together and drove them between two crewmen and pushed them apart. She strode forward out of the lift and was several steps ahead before they caught up and clustered around her. She caught a glimpse of Micah, still held immobile. “Steady, Treska.”

  He was crazy. He was the one who should be confused. He was the prisoner, not her! Unless he was somehow influencing the crew. She cleared her throat. It echoed off the industrial gray walls of the room. “Put him in the cell.”

  The two crewmen moved to do her bidding. The lieutenant stepped closer to her and breathed deeply, then saluted.

  She nodded back and watched the crewmen handling Micah. When the force field flared, sealing him in, she released the cuffs. Micah brought his arms back around to his front. “Just stay calm.” His voice was distorted through the field, but she heard his words and shook her head. Behind her, she heard Lieutenant Haarkon ordering the c
rewmen back to their duty stations.

  She stepped over to the cell. “Don’t try to influence them,” she said. “It won’t work. And it won’t help your case.” He seemed much calmer than he should be, and that raised flags in her mind. She shifted position to see if he’d smuggled or stolen a weapon, and when she moved, she bumped into a warm male body.

  “Lieutenant Haarkon, what in the name of nine hells are you doing?”

  The lieutenant’s aristocratic nostrils flared and he gasped. He licked his lips and his eyes flicked up and down her body several times. “I—Ma’am, I—” He stepped forward. She stepped to the side, coming up against the edge of the cell’s doorway.

  “Treska,” Micah said from the other side of the force field. “Be calm. Project—”

  “Shut up!” she yelled at him, confusion and frustration and the terrible sense of finality coming down on her all at once. This is it. He’s out of your hands now.

  Meanwhile, Haarkon’s forehead glistened with sweat as he came closer crowding her back against the wall. “Ma’am, I need to—you should—Oh, nine stars!” He sucked in another deep breath and his hands came up to grab her shoulders.

  She broke the hold, gently but firmly. “Haarkon, you’re ill.” This is how things should be. The psypath neutralized. Her will a law unto herself. She flashed her ident tattoo to remind him whose space he thought to invade. “Report to Medical immediately. That’s the only excuse I’ll accept for your behavior.”

  “Ma’am!” Haarkon’s tormented face crumpled with relief and he snapped a salute. He practically ran out of the room.

  As soon as the door closed, Treska whirled on him. “What have you done to him?” she demanded.

  “Nothing,” he replied. “I tried to help the poor bastard. You’ve got to control—”

  “That’s a lie!” Her eyes searched the room, looking for something out of place. “I knew I could never trust a psypath. Not even for a second!”

  Micah’s voice rose to match hers. “There’s no getting through to you, is there? You are absolutely determined to believe the worst of me no matter what I do.” He narrowed his eyes. “For a woman willing to trust me enough to kiss me, you’re equally ready to condemn me. People will start to wonder about your taste in men.”

  “Silence!” she said, powering up the control station to the holding cell. “Guerre,” she said. “It must have been the Southern continent that caused a malfunction in your neuro-collar. Easy enough to solve that. You can’t be snaking minds if you’re out.” She thought she might always hate that moon now, for the way it made her abandon her ideals.

  “Treska, wait. Please!” His voice grew desperate. “You need to know, to protect yourself. I need to warn—”

  She met his eyes as the brig flooded with narcotic gas. His stormy eyes dimmed, and she saw regret in them. “Don’t do this,” he said. “I can’t protect you if I’m—” Something tightened in her chest as he slumped to the floor, unconscious.

  She summoned the officer replacing Haarkon. “Alert Medical that we’ll need a cryogenic stasis unit down here. Prisoner is too dangerous to keep awake.”

  No. Guerre wasn’t to blame. Guerre was what it was. It wasn’t the moon. It was the man.

  Captain Iverka’s voice bid her to enter his ready room. Treska stepped through the portal and the door slid shut behind her, sealing out the light from the white-walled bridge. Iverka sat in a pool of light behind the wide desk that also served as a strategy map when necessary. Right now, his face was obscured by the three-dimensional projectors displaying a quiescent starfield and a small red dot indicating the Scimitar’s position in the starfield. A tiny blue circle directly in the ship’s path indicated the Jumpgate to which they were headed, and the numbers above the gate indicated time to arrival. Two and a half hours. “Vice Hunter. Welcome aboard.” He rose and bowed. “Please accept my apologies for the disruption in securing your prisoner.”

  She nodded in greeting, keeping her limbs stiff at her sides. The episode with Haarkon, and the crewmen under his command, made her a little more conscious of her body. Never mind Micah’s puzzling warning to her to control herself. She was in control. “Any word on Lieutenant Haarkon’s condition?”

  Iverka’s head moved in the affirmative. “Just as you predicted, Haarkon’s symptoms cleared up almost as soon as he reached Medical. Only residual traces of elevated endorphins were found and a slight increase in epinephrine. He’s also acquired a glazed look of a man who needs some shore leave time, but that may be unrelated to interaction with the prisoner.”

  “So he’s going to be okay, then?” She moved further into the room. Task lights illuminated two stations against the wall, and a case opposite displayed a model of the Scimitar carved from striated crystal. The rest of the room remained in shadow, save for the large viewport behind the desk.

  Iverka nodded again and stepped around his desk. She now saw that he wore a breathing mask over his nose and mouth. He motioned to it. “Please forgive the mask,” he said. “It’s a type of vapor therapy to induce clear thinking. I’d—appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to anyone.”

  “Should I assume you have a license for that?” she asked.

  “I do have a license, but I’m afraid it’s expired. I haven’t been back to Capitol to renew it.”

  She shrugged. It wasn’t regulation, but she’d rather have an alert captain. “See that you do when you drop me off. I’ve placed the prisoner in cryo-stasis. He should pose no more trouble to—” me “—the crew.”

  Iverka nodded. “The Scimitar is at your service for the return trip to the Capitol.”

  She was not used to the niceties, although she was aware of the careful dance in which parliament, the Prime Minister, and the military engaged in the running of the Union. “I should thank you for your assistance, although my ship’s repairs were progressing on schedule.”

  “It is our pleasure to aid in anything Special Affairs might require.” He extended an invitation to use the ship’s resources. “The ship’s recreation facility features a number of virtual recreation sims. I recommend vent-sailing on Vultary. The sim is very real and quite stimulating. We also have a full library of entertainment and reference entries, and my first officer ensures that we are kept up to date in holo-dramas. Simply schedule a time and the rec deck will be cleared for your convenience. There’s also a contemplation center. I understand you’re an adherent of the New Morality. Many of our crew members are, as well.”

  She glanced around at the captain’s office. It gave the illusion of efficiency, but she picked up more than a handful of luxuries of subtle taste. Not ostentatious, like the old Star Empire style, with its ornamented flourishes, but the furniture was decidedly not basic-issue modular. Discreet ornament, fine materials, hand finishing, all marks of a man who enjoyed his luxuries. The Captain might allow the New Morality in his ranks, but he wasn’t about to partake. That meant he wasn’t exactly a trusted insider to Special Affairs. “Captain, how did you know where to find me?”

  The Captain waved a hand. “The Scimitar prides itself on the highest grade of technology. We simply acknowledged a…special request, from Special Affairs.”

  She left the Captain’s quarters and followed the guide on her padd that led her to quarters of her own. On her way down the corridor, she kept catching hints of some aroma that felt vaguely familiar and puzzled at it. She’d looked forward to breathing scrubbed air on a ship again after Guerre’s dust and crystals.

  She’d be happy to stay in her quarters and just sleep the rest of the time it took to reach Prime. Sleep, and stop worrying about how her focus had diffused so much without her inhibs. The Captain’s mask was only a small symptom—ordinarily, she would have confiscated the mask as an illegal vice—everybody knew the masks were used more for Fogging—breathing in narcotic or mind-altering substances—than “vapor therapy” or whatever he called it.

  She was sure she knew enough information to shut down Brezeen’s littl
e unauthorized requisition operation on Guerre, yet she failed to do so, even going so far as to trust the avian to extricate her from the riot-in-waiting in the marketplace. She should be planning to request an entire Special Affairs unit be sent to that moon to clear out the whole damn lot of those outlaw birds. The only thing that kept her from logging the communication on her padd was the thought that Enlightenment might be caught up in the sweep.

  She refused to even think about the other evidence of the lack of clarity she suffered on that moon.

  She turned down the corridor towards her quarters and two officers passed her, saluting as she went by. She returned the salute with an absent nod and continued to her door. As she was activating her thumbprint and code into the lock, she felt a presence behind her and whirled.

  The two officers had doubled back and were passing her again. One of them reached out and touched her shoulder. “Pretty,” he said.

  She swatted his hand away. “Demoted,” she retorted, “if you touch me again.”

  He blinked. “What—”

  She stepped inside her quarters. “Piss off.”

  The door snapped shut behind her and she shook her head. Maybe the atmo-scrubbers were faulty or something. Maybe the Scimitar’s crew needed some serious shore leave time. Come to think of it, she could use some, as well. She almost envied Micah—at least cryo-stasis left you well-rested.

  The room’s communications panel chimed. “Ma’am,” a female voice said. Treska activated the tiny visual screen in the panel. A woman with first officer’s stripes on her shoulders saluted crisply. “I’m Commander Wullas. Captain Iverka has instructed me to see to your personal needs. I’ll see to your refreshment if you’ll log a food order through the panel, and in a few moments, I’ll be at your quarters with a portable diagnostic for your checkup.”

  Medical? “That—er. No, thank you,” she said. “A light snack’ll be fine.”