Five
Cierra’s eyelashes fluttered. The intense bright light overhead made her shield her eyes. She started to sit up, but found herself pressed back down on the table she was on. The pressure was firm, but kind. “Where am I?”
“Try to lay still for a little longer. You were knocked out for a few hours.”
“Makram?” Cierra turned her head to see who had spoken. Hubard and Makram were both beside her bed. “What happened? Where’s everyone else?”
Glad that he had persuaded Seneca to get his clothing back before any more of his crew had to see him in the ridiculous gown, Makram patted Cierra’s arm lightly. “There was a crash. The cargo ship we were on was pushed to its limit. It broke apart on reentry to Carristoux. The Grand Council sent out a recovery team to get us. You and Cherish have both been out for a few hours. The doc says Theo might be out for several days. Hojae only had superficial injuries. Irane and Rix were mostly unharmed.”
Someone was missing. Cierra’s foggy brain tried to remember who else had been with them on the ship. “What about Kurga?”
Tears welled up in Makram’s eyes. “H-he didn’t make it.”
Heartache drilled into Cierra’s chest. They had lost yet another teammate. Yareck’s death had been hard. Remi’s death had almost broken her. Cierra wasn’t sure how many more losses she could take. Her monitors started beeping frantically, to let the staff know she was in distress. Hubard leapt into action immediately.
“Cierra, I need you to take a deep breath and calm down, okay? If you can’t get your heartrate under control, they’ll make us leave. Just breathe in and out, okay?”
She struggled to follow his instructions, but eventually the beeping of the heart monitor slowed. “But everyone else is okay, right? Theo has to live.” Theo was the only other person on the team that had experienced the same type of loss as Cierra. His wife and children had perished in the same worldwide inferno, that had claimed her own husband. She had grown more attached to him during their time together working for the Brotherhood.
“He’s fine. He had a bit of a concussion. The doctors seem confident he’ll will recover soon. His body just needs time to heal.” Makram tightened his grip on her arm, to keep her focused on the present moment. He didn’t want her to overexert herself.
“Did…did the council find out who the spy was?” Cierra’s voice wavered, but her heartbeat stayed normal on the monitors.
“Not yet. Senator Philo has already questioned me. He has Hojae right now. Once you’re fully awake, I’m sure he’ll want to interrogate you as well.”
Her bottom lip trembled uncertainly. “I should have known sooner. I should have realized that one of us was sabotaging the missions. If I’d picked up on it, maybe Kurga would still be alive.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over that.” Hubard rubbed his thumb across her forehead in the same way that a father would comfort a small child, after a nightmare. “None of us knew. What happened isn’t your fault, any more that it is Makram’s or my own.”
Makram remained silent. He knew exactly what Cierra was feeling. He had been blaming himself as well for his team’s deaths and failures. He watched her eyes blink, suddenly as if she were trying to focus on something. “What? What is it?”
“It’s probably nothing.”
“We’ll be the deciders of that. What is it?” Hubard leaned in closer to her.
The internal struggle of reality and fiction furrowed Cierra’s brow for a moment. “I don’t even know if it was real or just a dream. Back in the mines, after the explosion, there was a split second where just before the impact hit the Yasta on the other side of the wall from us, I thought I saw them disappear. That’s crazy right?”
“What you most likely saw was them, being blasted by the shockwave. It is possible that a direct hit could have vaporized the closest bodies.” Hubard thought back to the makeup of the bomb they had used on the Yasta mine. It was possible that such an impact could have destroyed the bodies within a certain range, so suddenly that to the naked human eye they appeared to vanish.
“No, no. It wasn’t like that.” Cierra struggled to focus on the memory. “It was almost like they were cloaked.”
“Cloaked?” Makram was beginning to worry that Cierra had suffered more brain injuries than Seneca had let on.
“Hubard…” she let her voice trail off meekly, “do you think they could have found a way to use Relissarium as a part of some cloaking technology?”
The old man scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “I don’t think that would be very likely, but I’ve seen enough in my day—and invented enough for that matter—to know better than to say it’s impossible. I doubt that was it, but I’ll think about it more. The main properties we’ve focused on so far with Relissarium has been its ability to cut through almost anything, and its ability to absorb energy. The idea that such a metal would also be used in a cloaking device seems peculiar to me.” Something buzzed in Hubard’s pocket.
“What is it?” Makram leaned over to see the small screen on the device Hubard pulled from his borrowed lab coat.
“Cherish is awake now. I need to go run some diagnostics to make sure all of her systems are functioning properly with the new upgrades. You stay with Cierra. I don’t think it would be good to leave her to her thoughts just now.” Hubard looked at Makram pointedly, and was answered with a simple nod.
“Go make sure she’s okay. I’ve got this.” The leader of the Strike Force Retaliation team gave Cierra a reassuring smile. “I’m not going anywhere, okay? It’s all going to be okay. We always make it through, don’t we?”
Cierra’s eyes were glossy with tears again. “Most of us anyway.”
Six
The doors opened easily for Hubard, as he walked back over to the table where he had been working on Cherish. He had given the entrance chip to Makram. Seneca had shown him where he could sterilize his hands and dress in medical scrubs and lab coat, when they had first arrived. The doctor had been under strict orders to give Hubard everything he needed in order to save the Brotherhood’s investment in Cherish. Hubard had only managed to swipe one extra chip, but still it had already come in handy. The automated voice chimed overhead as he entered Cherish’s room, “The doctor will see you now.”
Cherish was already sitting upright on the table. Her back was straight, and her eyes were responsive. “I feel…different.”
“Well, I imagine you would. I took the opportunity to install several upgrades for you.” A diagnostic podium lit up, as the chip on Hubard’s lapel came within range. “We need to run a few tests to make sure everything is in working order. Do you think you are ready for that?”
“Yes. Should I feel…lighter? My density has changed.”
“That would be the Relissarium I installed.” Hubard beamed proudly at the woman in front of him. He considered her to be a sort of daughter. It was true that at this point she was much more machine than human, but that didn’t matter. He had created her. “I’m going to punch in some code and transmit it to your central database. Let me know if you have any trouble deciphering it.”
Cherish tilted her head up. Her eyes squinted at the ceiling as she focused on the incoming information. “That all seemed fairly straight forward.”
“Good. Consider that to be your new user manual, if you will. I’ll go over some of the new features with you, but you can use that for a guide when you’re on your own. Okay, Cherish, why don’t we start with something easy. Can you lift your left arm for me and then your right?”
Her arms moved as he directed. “It may take me a bit to get used to this new density. I feel as if I’m suddenly much lighter. It reminds me of when I was human. My mother would take me to get my yearly haircut. I always felt lighter then as well.”
Hubard rarely heard her mention her strictly human life, before she had been selected for augmentation by the Brotherhood. He wondered if it was a side effect of her humanity trying to deal with the near-death experience she had
just endured, or if it could possibly be a reaction from her new upgrades. Either way, he made a note in her chart.
“Can you give me just a light burst from your jet packs? I want to make sure they’re functional, but I don’t want you to bust through the sickbay ceiling.” He hovered his finger above the input panel on the diagnostic podium, and waited for her to try the new exhaust recycling valve he had put in.
In a moment, Cherish shot a foot and a half off of the table. She quickly adjusted the trim, and began a slow, controlled descent until she was seated again. “I’d like to have a few hours in the training room to perfect the regulation of my new hardware. I’d much rather learn in a controlled environment than under fire. Do you think we can arrange that?”
“The Relissarium will have superior application in flight, but I think it may be a bit difficult to arrange any training time at the moment.”
“Why?”
Hubard felt her eyes on him, gauging every subtlety of expression. “The Grand Council of the Masters is still interrogating us, about the spy in our midst. You’ve been unconscious, so you haven’t really been aware of everything that’s been going on since we got here.” He gave her a rundown of the status of the rest of the crew, including Kurga. She took the news better than Cierra had.
A speaker in the wall came to life. “Hey, Hubard, Cierra was wanting to know if everything was looking good with Cherish. I tried to reassure her, but she’s a bit…well…emotional.” There was the sound of skin smacking against skin followed by a muffled ‘ow.’ “Well, you are!”
Hubard pressed the ‘on’ button with his elbow, and nodded that it was okay for Cherish to speak. Her voice came out a little louder than intended at first. With the new upgrades, even some of her typical functions had to be adjusted. It was nothing she couldn’t modulate on her own. “Hello, Cierra! I assure you that I’m doing better than ever. Hubard gave me some upgrades!” She gushed about her internal changes the way some of the women in the Souk twittered over new shoes. The jovial tones she used were clearly meant to put Cierra at ease.
“I’m so glad to hear your voice!” Cierra’s voice cracked when she spoke. “I wish I—”
“Ahem!” Hubbard cleared his voice huskily, to pause the conversation.
The automated voice overhead chimed, as Seneca walked back into the sickbay, followed by Danthois. The two of them were talking in hushed tones. Hubard was able to catch one phrase: “He’s in there.”
As they approached Hojae’s room, the door slid open. Danthois stood erect with his arms tucked behind his back. “Senator Philo would like to see you now.”
“I suppose it’s my turn for questioning then?” The Josti slid off of the metal table he was on and cracked the knuckles on all four of his hands.
“Follow me.” Danthois stepped aside, and waited for Hojae to emerge from the room. The three men exited through the sickbay doors.
Hubard waited until they were out of earshot. “I guess they still haven’t pinned down the traitor yet.”
“I was able to catch some of what they were saying before they came in. Gyrra was questioned for several hours. While they find it suspicious that she was the only one that survived, Philo was unable to find anything incriminating. Gyrra wasn’t even with the Brotherhood when the Grand Council became suspicious that there was a spy in the organization.” Cherish reported what had been too hushed for the rest of her team to hear.
“I can’t imagine losing everyone at once like that.” Cierra’s voice sounded wistful. “It was hard enough losing Yareck, and now Kurga. Do you think they were afraid at the end? I know that’s something we don’t really talk about, but every time we go out, we may not come back. At least they weren’t alone at the end.”
“What do you mean?” Makram’s voice joined hers over the speaker.
“Hojae was with Yareck when he was shot. Kurga was in the cockpit with the other when the ship went down.”
“Wait.” Something clicked in Makram’s head. “Hojae was the only one with Yareck when he died. No one else saw it happen, or saw the body. Hojae was also the only one on Turtiez for several days, before the rest of us got there. That would have been plenty of time to fill in the Yasta about our mission. Then he just happens to escape from the guards, when we are about to be thrown out of the air lock?”
Hubard could see where his line of thought was going. “You don’t think…”
“Yes, unfortunately, I do.” Makram bolted from Cierra’s room. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“Wait!” The commander paused only long enough for Hubard to toss something through the air. “You may need this.”
From under the table where he had been performing maintenance on Cherish, Hubard unsheathed a lasana blade. With a skilled hand, Makram caught the blade by the hilt. He nodded his thanks. Being without a weapon had made him feel naked. Now that he was armed again, there was going to be hell to pay.
The sickbay doors registered the chip, and opened easily to let him pass. His footsteps pounded down the hallway and echoed into the distance. A body was slumped up ahead. Danthois. Makram jabbed his finger against the cyborg’s neck to check for a pulse. He was still alive–just. Making a mental note to send help back for his fallen comrade, Makram continued running. Hojae couldn’t have gotten far.
Gyrra was pressed against the bars of the holding cell. She called out to him, “It’s the Josti! He knocked out Danthois, and took off towards the docking bay!”
“You had him! You had him in your custody, and you let that Yasta scum get away!” Makram bellowed, as Philo exited an interrogation room
Philo puffed his chest out defensively at Makram. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Hojae! Hojae is the traitor! He took out Danthois, and now he’s escaping!”
“Over my dead body!” Senator Philo set his jaw, and charged down the passageway that led to the reception chamber and out to the docking bay. “All the ships seem to be accounted for. I’m not pulling up any recent departures in the past hour. He has to be close by.”
“If the ships are all still here, he had to have found another way out.”
“The base is underwater! How else is he going to get out? Unless he has developed the ability to hold his breath for an extremely extended period of time—and trust me, if he had we would have known about it.” Philo scoffed under his breath.
“All due respect, Senator, but he was a Yasta spy, and you didn’t know about that. So, forgive me if I’m not too keen on trusting you right now.”
“Me? The man was on your team!” Philo’s face turned red with anger. Suddenly, something lit up in his eyes. “No. Oh, please, no!”
“What is it?” Makram watched Philo rush over to a cargo ship with its back hatch open. The senator pounded his fist on the side of the cargo ship. “This was loaded with Relissarium. Now it’s empty!”
Makram put his hands on his head, and looked up in exasperation. That’s when he saw it. The apex of the dome was no longer covered by water. On top of that, there was a hatch that had been flung open. “Gotcha.”
Following Makram’s gaze, Philo saw the hatch. He rushed over to the lift. The cables from the elevator had been slashed with a lasana blade. “This is hours of major repairs! We don’t have that long before the tide comes back. We have to get the hatch closed and the lift back up and working before the next shipment comes through.” Philo rushed off, swearing and murmuring about getting more men.
There was no time to lose. Makram quickly searched the area. There had to be something! From the corner of his eye, he spotted a jetpack in one of the ships. Strapping the jetpack on, he climbed onto the ship’s hull. One of his hands clung to the rungs spaced up the side of the ship. The other one clutched the lasana blade that Hubard had given him in the sickbay. His shoes slipped against the metal that had not yet dripped dry. Makram felt his stomach bottom out. Hanging by one hand, he managed to scramble, until his feet were once again firmly on the rungs.
>
The top of the cargo ship was close to the open hatch, but it was still out of jumping range. If he was going to trust his life to a jetpack he had just found, he would much rather depend on it for as short a distance as possible. Makram positioned himself under the open hatch. Finding the ignition control on the jetpack, Makram prepared himself for the sudden upward thrust. It never came.
“Oh, come on!” Makram smacked the steering rod. Part of him briefly considered running back to get Cherish, but his pride nixed that. It was his fault that Hojae had been on the loose as long as he had. If anyone was going to bring him to justice, it was going to be Makram.
Fiddling with the controls some more resulted in a sickly sputtering from the engine. Makram smacked the pack around a little more. He only needed it to work for a short while. The guttural rumbling of a poorly maintained jet pack sounded like music to his ears. In circling swoops, Makram made the ascent towards the hatch. A firm kick of his shoe after he cleared the rim forced the hatch back down into position. He heard the hiss as it pressurized. Over the surface of the water was a tower built into the top of the dome.
The air around the tower and the dome shimmered like a mirage. From outside the field, it would appear to be empty. No doubt to someone who had never been inside, it would look like any other empty fly zone. The field would guide the ships and aircraft around the area as if a strong wind was blowing it around. Ships manned by the Brotherhood were all equipped with technology that allowed them to pass inside unharmed. It protected the base and the Brotherhood. Towards the top of the tower, Makram spotted a platform where a fleet of monowheel-aquacopters were perched. If Hojae was able to leave the base in one of the Brotherhood’s crafts, it would give the Yasta a golden ticket to one of the best-hidden bases the Carbonari had left. That was not a risk Makram was willing to take. Whatever it took, he had to make sure Hojae never left the base.
The Relissarium Wars Omnibus Page 22