“I was reasonably certain you’d attempt to arrest me.”
Anford scoffed. “You would never sabotage a gate. Quickly, this space is not secure.”
“My crew comes with me.”
“Fine,” she said, “it’s not like we don’t have the extra chairs.”
Biran winced at that. The Keeper body count must be high. At a low signal, Conway and Knuth retreated to The Light. Sanda would not leave Bero alone on this dock, and she wanted them able to respond if anything went sideways. Anford must have noticed, but said nothing as she led the way through the station to the secure center where the Protectorate met. Sanda had never walked those halls before. She found them depressingly grey.
Biran pushed the door open to the war room, and Sanda’s breath caught. Vladsen and Singh were the only members of the Protectorate there. Vladsen’s eyes widened with an emotion she couldn’t place as they walked into the room.
“Is this…?” she asked.
“We’re all that’s left,” Singh said, shaking her head sadly. “Please, sit, Commander, and—?”
She pointed with her thumb. “Arden, Nox, and Liao.”
“Surnames…?”
“None of your fucking business,” Nox said, settling into a chair nearest the exit.
Singh laced her fingers together and leaned toward him. “What a mouthful, where is it from?”
Nox cracked a smile. “I like her.”
“Enough fucking around,” Anford said. She and Biran took seats to the left- and right-hand side of an empty chair. Sanda’s chest ached. Director Jian Olver had never been her friend, but he’d been a kind leader, by all accounts. Biran had admired him, and that was enough to make him a good man by Sanda’s estimation.
The GC and fleeties stepped out and shut the door behind them. “Major, you should know that we had Rainier’s apartments searched after your report. She’s gone, as are all of her personal items.”
“Damn,” Sanda said, “she must have known I survived.”
“Survived?” Singh asked. “You have us wrong-footed, as you seem to have a good deal of information we do not.”
“Apologies. General, have you filled them in on what I told you regarding my encounter with Okonkwo and the alien ship?”
“I have,” she said.
“We thought the story mad, naturally, until that ship of yours docked here,” Singh said.
Vladsen was pale and silent, twisting his fingers together under the table. He kept throwing glances at Biran, as if reassuring himself of something, and the movement rubbed her nerves raw.
Shock could make someone act uneasily, looking to a superior for reassurance, but it didn’t sit right with her. She caught Nox’s eye and he nodded, lacing his fingers behind his head as he leaned back in his chair to better keep Vladsen in his peripheral. She eased slightly.
“We received warning that Rainier was coming to take what, we believed at the time, was the sphere we discovered on the ship. I ordered the evacuation of the settlement that was hosting us and decided to lie in wait for her with a weapon. I recorded the encounter, though it cuts off before she tells me she planned to reverse the energy burst from the gate opening.”
“Energy burst?” Singh frowned.
“Just… watch it.”
Arden flicked the recording up onto the wall screen. Sanda didn’t need to watch, it hadn’t been all that long since she’d lived those moments, so she watched the small gathering instead.
Confusion marred the already exhausted faces around her. Biran’s hand, previously lying flat on the table, curled slowly into a fist as Rainier became threatening. He’d tell Sanda off for staying behind.
Anford’s face went stony as Rainier talked about the blowback, the extinction bursts humanity wrought across the stars. Vladsen watched Biran more than he watched the screen, but had stopped twisting his fingers together. Singh gasped softly as Rainier’s helmets dropped, revealing the multiple instances of herself. The screen went black.
Sanda cleared her throat. “Shortly after she revealed her plans, I set off an EMP burst that disabled her present bodies.”
“Did Keeper Lavaux know of this?” Singh asked.
Vladsen let out a tight bark of a laugh, then looked up, embarrassed. “Forgive me. He was… one of them.”
Biran looked at Vladsen like he’d sprouted a second head.
“A version of Rainier?” Anford asked, baffled.
Sanda shook her head. “No. The second sphere describes a method of replacing one’s biological cells with synthetic versions. I don’t claim to understand it, but it explains what I saw when I battled Lavaux here. His skin and muscle tissue healed right before my eyes. It seems Rainier was allowing a small group access to her ‘gifts’ for their loyalty. Rayson Kenwick betrayed that loyalty, stole the sphere and the ship, and hid them at those coordinates behind a deadgate.”
Biran drilled Vladsen with his gaze. “You knew about this?”
The young man shook his head, lank curls bouncing. “Not entirely. I understood he’d been involved with the Imm Project and had some success. I thought he had developed a method of continual healing with nanites.”
“Not an entirely incorrect assumption,” Liao said. “If you take the alien tech angle out of the equation, then that’s what his remarkable healing ability would look like.”
“And what is your part in this?” Singh asked, focusing on the doctor.
She squirmed a little. “I was recruited—under false circumstances!—to build the amplifiers Rainier used to change the energy directional for the gate. We… the scientists and I on Janus… we didn’t know.”
“It is not your fault,” Sanda said firmly.
“I’m inclined to agree with that,” Biran said. “If the hiring process appeared legitimate to you, then there’s nothing you could have done.”
“And you can help us now,” Anford said. “We must eliminate these nanite swarms from the vicinity of the gates if we are to deem them safe to travel. They may already be spun, but we can’t discount the possibility that Rainier has another trick up her sleeve. Can you give us a place to start?”
“Yes, of course. And I’m sure my colleagues from Janus will be eager to help.”
“May I make a technological suggestion?” Sanda asked. Anford nodded.
“The EMP worked well enough on Rainier’s bodies. I suggest powering down the gates, then releasing a series of EMPs near them.”
“People aren’t going to be pleased about having to power the gates back up,” Anford said. “That was streamed live to all of Prime, and I’m certain the video has made the rounds on the net. Those who weren’t watching at the moment have seen it by now.”
“I understand that, but we can test the process on a known deadgate to make sure it spins back up safely.”
“That solves our immediate problem,” Singh said, “but I feel we should address the fact that this being has accused the human race of mass genocide.”
“There is an easy way to confirm that,” Biran said. “The secondary Ada gate is still online. If we can confirm that the nanite swarm has been cleared and that the gate hasn’t been tampered with further, we can lead an expedition through. In theory, if these gates have been destroying life during the initial burst, then this time we should discover life on the other side.”
Everyone was silent a moment. Sanda said, “It occurs to me that the blast failed to destroy all life in this system. Rainier’s claims may be ravings.”
“But you don’t believe so,” Biran said.
She shook her head. “No. Mad as she is, I don’t believe she has lied to me yet. I suspect something failed her—maybe the reversal signal wasn’t complete, I don’t know, and we only got a partial hit from the blowback.”
“It was powerful,” Anford said, looking at something on her wristpad. “This side of the gate was pointed at our star during the moment of initialization, with Ada and Icarion on the other side of the star. Solar storms are intensifying
, but it could be we got lucky.”
Sanda frowned. “Possible, but if we got lucky, then I find it hard to believe another system hasn’t had the same luck. We’ve punched hundreds of gates, General.”
“What about the deadgates?” Arden asked.
“What about them?” Anford said.
Arden cleared their throat. “We were only on the other side of that deadgate briefly, and we had other shit to deal with, but I noticed a nearby dwarf planet on initial scan. There’s no reason Prime couldn’t have opened another gate in that system. Maybe it was closed to hide obvious evidence of life?”
“Rainier implied the life in other systems isn’t advanced. If they haven’t discovered radio waves yet, then it would be easy to conceal them.”
“We are avoiding the elephant in the room,” Singh said.
Anford said, “Which is?”
“Prime Director Okonkwo. According to the major, she arranged to have her and her crew killed to steal this sphere. Lest you have forgotten, she commands the entire fleet and the guardcore. There is a council in place, yes, but in practice her power is almost absolute.”
Anford winced. “She’s been forcing a call through the quarantine nonstop since I cut all communications.”
Biran let out a surprised laugh. “You’ve been ignoring a call from Okonkwo?”
Anford met his gaze levelly. “I went over your sister’s evidence of the alien ship long before this moment. While I did not entirely believe her until now, I had reason to have doubts. We need to figure out what Ada’s response to all of this is going to be before we deal with the Prime Director.”
Sanda chuckled.
“What?”
“Okonkwo said you could be trusted. I guess she was right.”
Anford scowled. “I can’t put off this call much longer. What is our response?”
Biran hmmed to himself and spun a stylus on the table. “Honesty. If she truly has betrayed Prime for the knowledge of that sphere, then we’ll see the truth on her soon enough.”
“And if she has betrayed us and, in showing our hand, uses her incredible powers to squash us?”
“Bero has the raw video footage. Once again, no ship made by Prime can catch him if he runs. There will be no keeping a lid on her secrets.”
Anford frowned, but nodded. “Very well. Let us rip this bandage off, then.”
She flicked her wristpad and sent the call to the viewscreen on the wall. Okonkwo’s face sent a shock of terror down Sanda’s spine at first, but she clamped that down.
“Damage report,” Okonkwo said. “How many have we lost?”
“You see the remaining members of the Protectorate gathered here,” Biran said, waving at those in the room with the side of his hand. “We are still tallying the others, though only those on ships were destroyed. The planets and station escaped the blast.”
“Jian?” Her voice was strained. Biran shook his head. Okonkwo closed her eyes briefly, shoulders rounding. When her eyes opened again, her rigid posture returned. “Commander Greeve, you seem to show up whenever there is a catastrophe. Where is Demas?”
“Excuse me?”
“The GC I sent with you through the deadgate. Where is he? I’ve had no report from either of you. Highly unprofessional.”
Sanda’s mouth went dry. She leaned toward the screen. Either Okonkwo was the best liar in the universe—a distinct possibility—or she really hadn’t heard from Demas.
“Prime Director, Demas left us for dead on the other side of the gate. It was only because of Arden’s quick thinking that we were able to power up the ship we found there. The Thorn is destroyed, derelict. When we found it, Demas was not in it. We assumed a GC ship picked him up and returned him to you.”
It was Okonkwo’s turn to look astonished. “You assume I gave him the order to leave you for dead?”
“We saw no other option.”
“You damn fools,” she snapped. “I did no such thing. You should have reported this to me immediately. Anford, why was I not informed?”
“I—” Anford stammered. She pulled herself together. “I assumed you knew.”
“You, of all people, should know better than that. Did he indicate where he was going?”
Sanda blinked, shook her head, and laughed softly to herself. “She said she didn’t want it. She didn’t lie. She already had it.”
“She who? And had what?” Okonkwo demanded.
“The sphere,” Sanda said, scrutinizing her reaction. Not even a flash of confusion. She knew about that, at least. “You said you were a member of the Acolytes, but you never said what you were acolytes of. It’s the sphere, isn’t it? Acolytes of the Sphere. Fucking hell, that wasn’t a planet on that tattoo, it was the sphere. You’ve known all along the gates aren’t human tech. Did you know about the synthetic cells, too?”
“My,” Okonkwo said, leaning back in her seat. “You have been busy. Yes, I knew. The Prime Directors and Acolytes have always known.”
“You should have warned us.” Sanda lunged, palms slamming into the table hard enough to make everyone jump. “We had no idea what we were walking into. My crew almost died because of it.”
Okonkwo waved a hand through the air. “I could not be sure of what you’d find and had every confidence that you would prevail. Though I did not see Demas’s betrayal coming. That is unfortunate. I presume he delivered the sphere to Rainier?”
Sanda clenched her jaw so hard it hurt. “I presume he fucking did.”
“Major—” Anford started. Sanda cut her a look and she fell silent.
“How could you let Rainier run loose all this time?”
“Lavaux assured me he had her under control. He requested the transfer to sleepy Ada to better fence her in. I have told you, Greeve, I do not break tools. I use them. Even as an Acolyte, I understood that she was potentially useful. I simply had not yet found a way to use her.”
“She’s not the kind of person who gets used.”
“Yes, I see that now. Pity.”
“Pity? People have died, Okonkwo. Jian is dead because you let Rainier fester. She wants us dead, you understand. Not you and I—all of humanity.”
“Why?” Okonkwo appeared genuinely at a loss. The mention of Jian had landed hard, her expression was tight with concealed pain.
“She calls us exterminators,” Sanda ground the words out. “Or did you know that, too? That when the gates open, they destroy all life on the other side?”
“What—” She stammered. “I’ve seen no evidence of this. The scouting bot swarms reported no such thing.”
The realization was so very heavy Sanda’s arms trembled. “Those bots. Are they another of Halston’s designs?”
“Yes.”
Sanda said nothing for a while, just let the same realization she’d come to settle over everyone. “They do more than scout. They clean up after her weapon. They scour.”
“There’s no evidence the gates give off an energy pulse,” Okonkwo said, but even she sounded uncertain.
“The destruction of the Keeper contingent today was caused by a reversal of a small portion of that blowback. Rainier arranged it. I have video.”
“Send it to me, secure channel.”
Sanda caught Arden’s eye and nodded. Their eyes were huge, but they went to work all the same.
“We will send an expedition through the gate here before the scout bots, to see if we can confirm Rainier’s claims,” Biran said.
Okonkwo nodded, her gaze cast down, watching the video on her wristpad and hearing it through her implant. “You have a method devised to confirm the safety of the gate?”
“Yes,” Sanda said. “Doctor Liao worked on the amplifiers. She requests her colleagues from Janus join her to help in the cleanup.”
“Permissions granted,” Okonkwo said offhandedly, eyes narrowing at her wrist.
“There is also the matter of the ship we found containing the sphere. It can bypass all security protocols on the gates. It is also the fastes
t ship that we know of. I plan to spearhead the expedition with it.”
“Absolutely not,” Okonkwo said, looking up from the wristpad. Her jawline had hardened, made her already sharp cheekbones appear to wing outward. “You will take that ship of yours, Greeve, and hunt all instances of Rainier Lavaux into oblivion. This is your primary objective and supersedes all other orders until accomplished. Am I understood?”
A thrill raced up Sanda’s spine. “Yes, Prime Director. Gladly.”
“Keeper Greeve.” Her attention shifted to Biran. “You will spearhead the expedition as director of Ada.”
He flinched. “Director?”
“Someone needs to do the job, and the people trust you. Singh, you are his second-in-command and interim director while he is through the gate. Understood?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“Good.” She met the gazes of everyone at the table. “We must know the truth. But even if we are guilty of these crimes, Rainier’s assault cannot go unpunished. See to your duties for now. Secure Ada, and I will be in touch soon for more detailed planning. Be strong and be careful. There is no telling how deep Rainier’s roots have grown.”
Okonkwo cut the feed. Sanda slumped back into her seat, leaving her arms limp on the table. Stars, but she was tired. She reached for her wristpad, remembered she’d ripped the dead thing off, and almost laughed.
Anford delved immediately into finer plans, and Sanda found herself capable of only half listening. Her wrung-out mind had grabbed onto something, some word or moment, and couldn’t let it go. A creeping sense of dread rose within her, drumming out the sounds of the others’ chatter.
Across the table, Biran reached out and touched her arm lightly. “S?”
She snapped her head up and met his gaze. “S,” she repeated. “Sisters. Rainier had talked about her sisters. She would have said sister, singular, if there was only one other sphere. The gates, the nanites, and… what else? How many?”
No one at that table had the answer.
CHAPTER 81
PRIME STANDARD YEAR 3543
Chaos Vector Page 54