by Jenn Lyons
weren’t going to have one now. Not with this. I could only imagine his disgust.
“Really? ‘Cause what it looks like is a woman who let herself get way, way too close to the man she was supposed to be hunting. Oh, and let’s not forget the next part, where you kill Kaj-Shae Threllis after swearing up and down that you didn’t care about revenge.”
I paused. “Next part? Zaladin and I kissed after, not before.”
“So you don’t deny—”
I raised a hand and ignored the guns that raised in response. “He’s never left video, Belisle. Never. Why did he this time?”
Campbell frowned.
“He didn’t have time...” Belisle shrugged.
I laughed. “He had all the time he wanted. He had shut down the self-destruct. You were locked out, and anyone trying to use the same route we had to get into the Administration Annex was going to have their work cut out for them. Whisper Jack was the only person who could stop Zaladin and he’d washed his hands of the whole situation. No, no, he wanted you to see this. Why?”
“I’m sure we can work that out later, Lieutenant,” Belisle said. “In the meantime, you’re under arrest.”
Campbell was chewing on his thumb, but he looked up for long enough to say, “That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? MacLain under arrest.”
I nodded to him. “If he frames me, then you’ll either be so busy chasing me around that you’re forced to divide up your forces or you lock me away and lose the best chance you have of stopping him.” I chuckled. “He said he didn’t have to kill me to stop me. Now I know what he meant.”
Belisle pointed to the screen again. “That doesn’t really look like you were trying to stop him.”
“Oh sure, he wasn’t going to show you the vid footage where we were trying to kill each other,” I snapped. “Come on. You can’t seriously tell me that you believe this!”
“You know what I think?” Belisle said. “I think that this fancy school needed to have a way of controlling their students, and I think that meant they had brainwashed trigger commands. I don’t think you meant to kill Kaj-Shae Threllis. I just don’t think you had any choice in the matter.”
It wasn’t the truth, but it did fit all the facts. My mouth flattened in a thin line as I contemplated what he’d said. At the very best, my career in the military was over—and that was on a good day. At worst, I’d end up in a lab or on a slab for being far too great a security risk to be allowed to exist.
Everything Paul had worried about applied just as much to me if I ended up on the hybrid list.
“He wouldn’t have left me alive if that was the case,” I reminded Belisle. “All the others have been suicides. Those trigger commands include one to top yourself after. I notably don’t seem inclined to do that.”
“Yeah, but I do think you might be special,” Belisle said. “That fancy school existed for close to twenty years, and none of those other students had their own real Sarcodinay High Guard handling their training, let alone the same High Guard who taught the crown prince. Zaladin may have hated the old man enough to do him in, but he liked the prince just fine.”
I did a double take. “Hated him enough...what?”
Kovacs illuminated the mystery. “Zaladin killed Kathosis. That’s what started all this. Zaladin assassinated the old Emperor. In light of these killings, the Sarcodinay have come forward and admitted the old Emperor was the first to go.”
The room swam, but thankfully, no flashbacks triggered. “That’s impossible.”
“That’s what the report claims,” Campbell said.
“But for a High Guard to kill the Emperor...have you ever heard of such a thing? Ever?”
A new voice spoke. “Let me get this straight: you’re telling me that you’ve got us hunting down the man who ended the war?” Tetsuo had decided to join in.
The room was silent.
“It’s a might more complicated than—”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much exactly it,” I said. “If he killed the Emperor, Zaladin ended the war. Kathanial isn’t like his father. Kathanial isn’t interested in an endless occupation that drags on for decades or centuries.”
“Zaladin’s killed a lot of people,” Belisle reminded us all.
“Sure, and that is tragic,” Tetsuo said. “But how is this not an internal matter? A Sarcodinay is running around killing other Sarcodinay. So what? That doesn’t sound like our problem.”
“Collateral damage makes it our problem,” Belisle said. “It’s politics and if we want peace, then it becomes our problem.”
An unnamed woman spoke up. “I don’t feel comfortable arresting this woman for assassinating a war criminal and helping the man who’s been bringing other war criminals to justice. We should be giving her a medal, not throwing her in jail.”
“She did kiss a Sarcodinay,” another man reminded her.
The woman shrugged. “So? And how is that more her problem? I mean really, the bond sets in, he’s the one that’s screwed. You know, so to speak.” A couple of people laughed and clapped her on the shoulder for telling a good one.
“It’s not our duty to question orders,” Belisle raised his voice over the chuckles and the ribbing. “She’s helping an assassin. She’s under arrest. End of story.” He looked over at Campbell. “Are you with us on this or not?”
Campbell nodded, his expression stern. “Absolutely, Colonel. If someone wants to loan me a sidearm, I’ll take her back to FirstCity and have her cleared by Tal-Stiles, then we can catch a military transport out to Liberty and stay low until this is finished. After this is all over, you can court martial her at your convenience.”
I blinked at Campbell. The words didn’t match the emotions bubbling underneath. He was angry and frustrated, but playing good soldier on the surface.
“Dammit Campbell! You know this is wrong!”
He shrugged. “You’re too close to this. It’s made you sloppy. That’s how he got the drop on you.”
“Oh? So what’s your excuse?”
He flushed slightly as Kovacs handed him a weapon. Instead of responding, he ignored me and checked the gun’s ammunition.
Belisle said, “I like the plan. I’m sending Kovacs and Petrov with you, just to make sure. Tetsuo, escort these two down the landing bay and put them on board a shuttle for FirstCity. Make sure it’s not her shuttle—I don’t know what kind of security she had set up, but I don’t feel like taking any chances.”
“Or, alternately...” Campbell corrected as he aimed the gun to Belisle’s head, “You can put your weapons on the table and order your men to stand down.”
The room fell quiet again.
“Now son, this isn’t a very smart thing to do,” Belisle replied. Kovacs and Petrov took a step towards Campbell, and Petrov looked away from me. It was all I needed. A nanosecond later, I had Petrov’s gun and a knife from his belt, and that same knife resting gently against Petrov’s throat.
A half-second after that, a dozen strikers were pointing weapons back at us. Tetsuo was looking from me to Belisle, then back again.
“Stewart, what are you doing?” I asked Campbell, as if I were inquiring about an investigative technique.
“The stupidest move of my career,” he answered with a cheerful smile. “But technically that career ended when I disobeyed orders to keep investigating these murders. So why not do what’s right for once in my life?”
Belisle sighed. “Boy, you picked a hell of a time to join the revolution. Why don’t you both put down those weapons and we’ll forget this ever happened like nice boys and girls?”
I snorted. “That’s not too likely, is it?” I looked over at Tetsuo. The way I saw it, he was the deciding vote in this little stand-off. “It’s your call.”
The old striker sighed. “You’re putting me in a spot you know.”
“I’ll owe you one,” I offered. I didn’t know him, but I hoped I knew his type.
Belisle started to lose a little of his good ol’ boy cool. “You’re und
er orders, Tetsuo.”
The striker laughed. “Shit, you’ve got a lot to learn about strikers, Colonel. Like we’ve ever given a flying fuck about behaving. Plus, she’s cuter than you.”
“I served with—” I started to tell him about the Fallen Angels.
“I know who you served with,” Tetsuo told me. “I know who you are, Bruja.”
I closed my mouth and continued pointing Petrov’s gun at the floor. The knife was the greater threat—I took it on faith that Szabo had his crew’s weapons biometrically locked. Petrov was tense and unhappy and starting to look like maybe he wanted to start something. I leaned the edge of the knife a little harder against his throat to discourage that impulse.
Belisle looked over at Tetsuo. “Well? You think you and your boys can take her?”
Tetsuo raised his eyebrows at the blunt question. “Honestly?”
“No, I want you to tell me some pretty lies,” the Navy Intelligence man growled while he gave Campbell and his gun a wary eye.
“It’s a small room. Even if she didn’t have your boy there it would be hard for any of my people to get a clean shot at either of them that wouldn’t risk hitting you or our own. I’ve seen her fight before.” Tetsuo grinned and rubbed his chin. “Lost a lot of scratch betting against Satan’s Witch in a martial arts contest in the Singapore QZ a few years back. Never forgot it. I’ve also never seen anyone move faster. You tell me she was trained by High Guard? I say that explains a few things. We might overpower her, but I wouldn’t take those odds. Best case, she’d make us bleed for it.”
“You should listen to him,” Campbell said. “She took eight of my men, and they were armored and had shock sticks.”
“That hardly counts,” I said, “MOJ are wimps.” I glanced at Campbell. “No offense.”
“Whose side are you on?” Campbell asked.
“If I’m not honest with you, how will you improve?” On the other side of the room, the entire striketeam nodded in sage agreement.
“You do this, Lieutenant, and there will be no saving you,” Belisle said. “You’ll go down as a traitor. So will you, Campbell.”
“Oh Belisle,” I said, shaking my head, “this isn’t over. This isn’t anywhere near over. It’s a little early to be fitting me for that noose and coffin. Zaladin set all this in motion because he knows I’m the only person who actually has a shot at stopping him, so he’s making you to do his dirty work for him.” I looked at Tetsuo. “You’ll stay out of this?”
He shrugs. “My people were having a spirited game of mahjong when this all happened. Pity we didn’t find out in time to do anything.”
“Good. Then I’m going to get in my shuttle and go elsewhere. Campbell, you coming along?”
He started to answer, then shook his head. “I can’t. If someone doesn’t stay behind with a gun on these three, you’ll never make it to the docking bay before they’ve turned the station defenses on and disintegrated the Aegis.”
I tilted my head in Belisle’s direction, still keeping the knife on Petrov. “Really Belisle, would you do that? Wouldn’t Ernak be just a teeny bit upset with you?”
The room was silent and then Belisle sighed. I’d called his bluff. We both knew it. “Kovacs, put your gun down. Petrov, stop thinking you can play hero. She’ll eat you alive.”
I pushed Petrov away as I tucked the knife into my belt and dismantled his gun.
Belisle rocked forward a little, and looked me straight in the eyes. “You sure you want to play it this way, Lieutenant? There’ll be no convincing the boys back on Terra that you’re not in this up to your ears if you run like this.”
“There’ll be no convincing them anyway. You don’t understand, Colonel, so allow me to illuminate matters. He deactivated the self-destruct all on his own. That’s a two person shutdown, and he didn’t have two people.”
Belisle look perplexed. “Well then how—?”
“Think, damn it. How has he been able turn off every camera, lock every door? He was in complete control of the computers on Keepers’ Island. The same thing was true on North Point Station. He overrode the security at the Farthest Shore so his sleeper could walk straight through the front door armed with a gun. Any Sarcodinay system is his slave. He can make them do whatever he wants. What stopped him here wasn’t the computers, it was physically-barricaded doors and humans he couldn’t mind control. We won’t be that lucky again.”
“Yeah, we might have caught him if you hadn’t—” Petrov shut up as I gave him a withering look.
“He has the Master Commands. Do you really think you were going to stop him?”
“The Master Commands are a myth,” said the same woman from before.
I nodded to her. “I always thought so too, but I don’t have any other explanation.”
Kovacs frowned. “We’ve never found any evidence—”
“Maybe he’s just that good,” I said. “Maybe he has his own AI. I don’t know. All I do know is that if you had arrested me and sent me back to FirstCity, I’d lay even odds that one of the automated defense systems blows our ship out of the sky before we even come in for a landing.”
“No,” Belisle shook his head. “He’s not going to kill you.”
“I don’t share your confidence. Just because he would hate killing me doesn’t mean he would hesitate.”
“He killed her on Keepers’ Island,” Campbell pointed out. “And yeah, the fact that she died right on top of the world’s best equipped hospital with nanites on hand—maybe he had that in mind. Maybe he didn’t. But it was one hell of a risk if he didn’t really want her dead.”
“I think he’d like me alive,” I admitted. “But I don’t think he cares who he has to sacrifice. He’s going to finish his mission.”
Kovacs asked, “What is his mission?”
“I don’t know yet, but if I run, at least I know the security system are set to kill. Belisle, just make sure that the MOJ computers know I got away, or you’ll end up under fire the first time you approach any port that’s hooked up to the Ministry of Justice grid.”
A look of horror flashed across Belisle’s face, quickly gone. “How...” He shook his head.
“How do you stop someone like that?” Petrov finished for him.
“You don’t,” I said. I turned to Campbell. “Is the Aegis here?”
He nodded. “Merlin dropped it off at the main dock.”
“Good. And Stewart?”
Campbell looked over at me.
If I left him here, he would be lucky if all Belisle did was arrest him. I didn’t trust the navy intelligence officer to let Campbell go with a warning, not when Campbell had embarrassed him in front of a whole striketeam. Maybe he’d be magnanimous about it, maybe he wouldn’t. I wasn’t feeling trusting.
And I owed Campbell. I owed him a lot.
“You coming or did you want to join the game the kids in the back have set up?”
“What about—?” Campbell looked over at the others. I could tell what he was thinking: he wasn’t feeling very trusting either.
“Belisle won’t,” I said. “He knows he’d have to answer to Ernak Szabo if he did. Now let’s get out of here. And hey, Belisle, the man you’re looking for is Sector A6, hiding in one of the storage units. Don’t say I never did you any favors.”
He actually looked happy about that.
Stewart covered me while we left, outlaws.
TWENTYONE.Mallory
Medusa lowered the door to the Aegis as I pulled myself to the ship from the docking bay. Campbell floated close behind, jumpy and waiting for the ambush behind every corner. He didn’t have my advantages, couldn’t know that Belisle would keep his word or that Ernak Szabo’s displeasure was a significant threat.
“Ship diagnostics in order?” I asked out loud.
Campbell started to answer when Medusa did instead. “Merlin had me check before the last jump and no one’s approached the ship since. Are you all right? I was terribly worried—”
“Th
e feeling was quite mutual, but let’s get out of here. Did Merlin set up a meet?”
“Yes, I have current coordinates running through Oracle.”
“Make sure no one tracked the pull.”
“I think I’ve just been insulted.”
Campbell stared up at the ceiling, then looked around. “Wait, who—”
“No time. We’ll talk about it later.” I didn’t bother with the pilot’s rig this time, but sat down in one of the regular chairs. “Sit down and strap yourself in, Campbell. Medusa is taking us out right now.”
“I thought you had to steer.”
“Keepers no, I’m a terrible pilot. I built Medusa to do all the flying so I wouldn’t have to.” I looked over to make sure he was strapped in, then saw to my own buckles. “We’re ready.”
“Jumping in three-two-one. Jump.”
I hadn’t pulled up the holographic displays, there was no sign that we’d moved at all except for gravity clicking in—almost a full gee, pushing us both back in our seats. “Where are we, Medusa?”
“An uncharted planet in the Thoth system. Merlin provided the coordinates. He’s going to meet us here with Gala-Lee Vanessa.”
“You know you can drop the Gala, Deuce. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure Vanessa wouldn’t mind if you never called her that again.”
Campbell scrambled to remove his belt. “MacLain, we need to talk.”
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
I paused, then sighed, and turned to face Campbell. “Campbell, this is Medusa.” I gestured towards the air. “She’s an artificial intelligence, and I would be lost without her, as I think my performance on Deimos aptly demonstrated.”
“I accept your apology.”
I nodded, lips thin. “Thank you.”
Campbell looked around, not saying anything as he processed that piece of information. “She’s stored here on the ship?”
“The Aegis might be considered her body, if you were the romantic sort.”
“I do love to make her dance.”
“You do so very well,” Campbell said.
“Oh, I like him, Mallory.”
Swell.
Campbell smiled, although he wasn’t really feeling it. He turned back to me. “We need to talk about what happened back there.”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we’re on something of a tight deadline. I don’t think is the time.” I started to walk away.
He grabbed my arm.
I looked down at his hand. “Move that or lose it.” I wasn’t in a good mood anymore.
Campbell removed his hand. “If I’m going to keep working with you, if I’m going to watch your back, I need to know a few things.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “But you don’t need to keep working with me and you don’t need to watch my back. I’m doing the next part solo. So your need to know isn’t so needy. Now if you’ll excuse me—” I walked over to one of the locked cabinets, unlocked it, and started pulling out replacements for Medusa’s data link, my masers and gloves.
“If you don’t tell him, I will,” Medusa said.
I stopped and blinked. “I’m sorry. You’ll what? What did you just say?”
“He deserves to know the truth, Mallory.”
I think my mouth must have been open. “Deserves? You...what?”
Campbell walked