Marduk's Rebellion

by Jenn Lyons

shook my head and pointed at the hologram. “So here, aft-side on the station, where the administrative quarters are located, where Kaj-Shae Threllis is hiding, that’s completely shut off, but these monorails that run through the center of the station are only minimally defended. They’re holdovers from the original blueprints. We can reach them through these ore elevators, here, here and here.” I pointed back to their counterparts at the front of the station. “They connect from the outer wall to the central shaft, and not a security laser in sight.”

  “But they’re not designed to transport people,” Campbell pointed out. “Rocks are dropped in from the center and carried by elevator car to the bottom. Elevators that aren’t running right now. Which means that’s a kilometer of straight tube, and gravity for the first half of the trip. You’re saying it’s not defended at all?”

  I smiled. “Oh, I didn’t say that.” I pointed towards the back section of the outermost ring. “This is where the Meshikath are housed, burrowed into the asteroid rock.”

  Campbell had a look of realization on his face and Merlin already knew everything I was explaining. Belisle looked like he understood a little bit—for example, what a Meshikath was—but hadn’t quite figured out how it was important.

  “You can make slaves haul in chunks of asteroid rock and you can even force them to do some of the basic processing, but you don’t want slaves to be in a position to sabotage the metal that is going to build your weapons and starships. Thus, there is a Meshikath smelting clan living on station—paid for their time and made very comfortable. The Sarcodinay give them a great deal of freedom, but Meshikath are very territorial. No prisoner is stupid enough to try to escape through the Meshikath warrens. No prisoner who lives, anyway.”

  “We negotiate passage through their territory,” Merlin said.

  “But you just said—” Kovacs started to interrupt.

  “I’ve done it before. Anyway, it’s easier that than trying to pass through the security doors and convince the guards on the other side to lower their weapons.” I turned to Belisle. “One person could sneak through the prison yards into the refinery area and from there, negotiate with the Meshikath, head up to administration and monkey with their computers. Once the doors are open, you can bring your striketeam through—” I paused as an alarm sounded.

  “Problem with life support?” Belisle walked over to the control panels. There was a red warning label on every screen.

  I ran to one of the panels and wasted a second cursing whoever was responsible for losing Medusa’s interface. “No, no, no...Kaj-Shae Threllis, you son-of-a-bitch, what the hell are you doing?”

  Kovacs shifted his weight, standing from the console he’d been leaning against. “What’s going on?”

  I looked over at Merlin. “The emergency self-destruct has been activated.”

  “Zaladin—?” Belisle suggested as he failed any attempts at an override.

  “Stop playing with it,” I ordered. “You don’t know what you’re doing. No, not Zaladin. Kaj-Shae Threllis did this.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know! Stupid people do stupid things?” I made fists with my hands as early attempts at a long-distance override proved fruitless. “He might be trying to scare Zaladin off—stay away or we all die.”

  Merlin grimaced. “Given how many people are still on board...it’s going to be impossible to evacuate everyone.”

  “If I were Kaj-Shae Threllis,” Campbell said, “I’d set the self-destruct while I had a private shuttle ready. The explosion would cover my escape, everyone would think I was dead, and if I was lucky, the assassin would die in the blast.”

  Everyone in the room stared at Campbell a beat before Belisle began to curse creatively. “Well mother fussing around the willow tree. Yeah, that would do it, wouldn’t it?”

  “He’d kill everyone on board—” The protest died in me. I somehow doubted that consequence was a deterrent. I turned to Belisle. “You and your striketeam must have a ship, right? If you can keep his shuttle from leaving, he won’t dare set off the self-destruct. That will give me enough time to sneak in the back way.”

  Belisle stopped his pacing for long enough to nod. “All right, Lieutenant. You get your wish. You think you can sneak your way through Meshikath territory?”

  “I’ll be safe enough,”

  “I’m going with you,” Campbell said.

  I shook my head. “Nuts.”

  “You’ll need the back-up,” he countered. “One prisoner gets lucky with a thrown rock and this whole plan falls apart.”

  “I’m going with Whisper Jack.”

  No one spoke.

  Campbell had a stubborn set to his jaw. “And I’ll be with you. Besides, I’ve never met a Kantari. This should be very educational.”

  Merlin sat down at one of the terminals and started trying to raise an outside connection. When that failed, he stood up again. “Something tells me this isn’t the Kantari you should start with. Find a friendlier Kantari like Blue or Alice. Whisper Jack’s more of an advanced model.” He turned to me. “I’m going to see if one of the remaining ships has a link I can use to raise SIL backup. Let’s try to remove as many people as possible, just in case.” He paused to add, “Not that I don’t have every confidence in you.”

  I put my hand to my chest where Medusa’s link usually sat. I had no idea what had happened to the interface: any number of people, including a ship full of actual pirates, might have stolen it. I did keep a spare interface, but it was back on the Aegis.

  “Thanks, Merlin. If you can find a way to bring the Aegis back here too, that would also be a big help.”

  He nodded, looking at me and then over to Campbell. There was something about the way he looked at Campbell that bothered me. He frowned as though he were trying to puzzle something out, but then he smiled one of his rare sunrise grins, and I realized he was probably just worried, and had added Campbell to the list of those worth being worried about.

  “Be good, both of you,” he told us as he left.

  Belisle took that as his cue as well and motioned to his men. “We’ll go round up the cavalry and keep Threllis pinned up in his fortress. You keep in touch and let us know how this is moving along.”

  “I’ll do what I can. Good luck.”

  They left the room and the door shut behind them.

  Campbell and I were alone.

  We didn’t say anything to each other. There was an awkward stillness in the air, and I had the feeling that each of us wanted to say something, but didn’t quite know where to begin. It was certainly funny though, the way the room seemed smaller now that fewer people were in it.

  The silence stretched on, became intolerable and finally snapped as Campbell grabbed the coffee pot and poured us both another cup. He didn’t look at me as he asked, “So what happens next? How do we find this Whisper Jack?”

  I took the cup. “We don’t find him. He’ll find us.”

  “So we just wait? We don’t have much time...”

  I chewed on my lip and stared at him. I was annoyed with him. Really I was. He was being far too jealous and far too possessive, intolerable under the best of circumstances but doubly intolerable in that there was no relationship between us, none that had been acknowledged and certainly none that I could allow. Any hopes I had of this settling into a nice professional bond or even a warm friendship without an intervention now seemed impossible. I was going to have to give him the ‘let’s just be friends’ talk, and I hated the ‘let’s just be friends’ talk. The very idea made my stomach knot up.

  “There is one other thing we need to do,” I told him.

  “Oh?”

  “We’ll need to get rid of these clothes.” I paused as I spoke. “That didn’t come out right.”

  Campbell grinned.

  EIGHTEEN.Jack

  “This isn’t going to work,” Campbell grumbled as he straightened a prisoner’s shift over his chest. “I can’t hide my caste mark. One look and everyone wi
ll know I’m not a prisoner.”

  We’d moved out of the main control room into a smaller medical station off the main access, where we had been able to use one of the examination rooms to change into recycled prisoner clothing. Campbell groused the whole time. I think he was annoyed at having to lose his uniform so soon on the heels of finally having the time to change into one that was properly cleaned and pressed.

  “Put your hair down in front of your face,” I told him, crossing over to where he sat. “Look, just—” I unbraided his hair. “We have to cross through the prison yard. We can do that. We just need to blend a little better.” I pulled strands of his black hair across his forehead.

  I paused as I felt a ghost-whisper of hands touch my waist, not real hands but phantom imaginings lingering underneath my shirt, caressing the skin with long fingers. I looked at Campbell; his hands were folded in his lap. He wasn’t touching me.

  He was thinking about touching me though, thinking about it with startling clarity. He saw my stare and looked away as if he were somehow aware that I was reading his mind. The thoughts faded into an embarrassed jigsaw of conflicted feelings before slipping away from me entirely.

  “I…uh—” I blinked at him. This was new. New, unexpected, and not at all welcome. I thought about the flavor of his thoughts on mine and it was all I could do to maintain my composure, to not give him any outward sign of my horrified surprise.

  I cursed myself for not catching the signs sooner, but I’d still been recovering