by P. R. Adams
But the camera wasn’t active at all. It hadn’t been for a while, apparently.
Not good.
She backed away from the closet. There was still time to make a clean run, but it would mean losing out on the data the SAID agent had been hoarding. It meant operating in the dark, with a handler who might be just as corrupt as Patel.
That wasn’t why she’d been created. It wasn’t who she was.
Her mask flashed, and the most wonderful message possible flashed on the display: System download complete.
She tugged the connecting thread free from the zipper and backed farther into the cabin, then twisted around to give everything a final check. The overlay flashed through one item after another: bunk, bedspread, sheets, pillow, shoes, sink, desk, jacket, luggage…
Everything showed green.
Her tracks were covered.
Now all she needed was to make her way—
The hatch opened, but the lights didn’t flicker to life.
Stiles froze, allowing her suit to blend her more fully into the background.
Then Patel stepped through, and the hatch closed. He looked directly at her with a wicked smile.
And pulled out a monomolecular assassin’s blade.
“One should be careful entering a spider’s web, Lieutenant Stiles. They’re oh so hard to exit.”
7
“You have a solution to the shadowsuit?”
On one level, Stiles’s brain acknowledged the danger she was in, but on a rational, logical level, the revelation that the SAID had developed a technology to deal with what her people called shadow tech…
Everything had changed.
For her, it meant Patel’s small cabin was an even greater disadvantage than it would have been. Maneuvering would be hard.
And the shadowsuit—so constrictive, the armor so pointless with the blade he held.
His breathing was soft and even in the quiet of the room.
No abnormal heat, no sharp tang of sweat—he was cool.
In control.
He didn’t move. His eyes traced the contours of her body, maybe taking in the defensive pose she’d assumed, probably searching for the best place to strike, certainly not paying any attention to the form itself. “I must admit that your calm is admirable.”
“Begging for mercy would be pointless.”
“It would.”
“Then it’s right to focus on my curiosity, isn’t it?”
“Understandable, certainly. For someone like you.”
“Should I try to unpack the meaning of that with my own filters, or do you want to tell me what you mean?”
“What if I were to say that I would be just as happy to see you accept an offer from the Directorate as I would to stuff your corpse into an airlock. Actually, bringing you into the Directorate would be quite the feather in my cap.”
“You wouldn’t be the first—”
“To try to recruit you? Obviously. But you can’t be recruited, can you?” His knife twitched ever so slightly.
“I have one overriding directive.”
“The greater good of the Kedraalian Republic. Yes. I assumed as much. Working for SAID doesn’t negate that. Did the others who tried to recruit you not tell you that?”
“Morality and ethics are subjective.”
“That was their pitch? It’s such a gauche view. I prefer to acknowledge the failings of others and to emphasize the value of creativity and flexibility.”
“How amazing is it that our language allows so many ways to say the same thing?”
“A no, then?”
“My loyalties aren’t for sale, Agent Patel.”
“The airlock it is, then.” He took a step toward her, knife at the ready.
Stiles matched his advance and raised her hands. She would have to grab his wrist, or it would all be over.
The SAID agent stopped. “I do have to ask first, though: What really happened on Jotun?”
“To your sister?”
He shrugged. “I’m somewhat obsessive-compulsive. And I can promise you that what you tell me won’t leave this room.”
“Does it really matter?”
“Humor me.”
“Srisha attacked one of the Marines. Another Marine shot her.”
“Which one?”
“It doesn’t matter. What killed Srisha was the automaton.”
For the first time, Patel’s calm broke. His brows raised, and his eyes widened. “You saw it.”
“Yes. I saw it much more than I wanted to.”
“It’s still down there.” He licked his lips. “We’ll find it.”
“Why? If you’ve already broken the technology, why would you need to risk lives trying to capture a weapon like that?”
“Because it’s more than the trickery of light like—” He waved the knife point at her. “The gains those ruins offer up would leapfrog us over any of the other powers.”
“There were a lot of frozen Azoren corpses in those ruins. It seems to me they probably thought like that, too.”
“We don’t make the mistakes they do.” He smirked. “Except for—” He waved the knife at her again. “Tell me, what generation are you?”
“I can’t.”
“Won’t. Of course you can. The conditioning doesn’t go to that level, now does it?”
His posture had slowly changed. His muscles were tensed, and he’d sunken a centimeter or so lower. Although he was doing a good job of pretending to maintain eye contact, his eyes frequently jumped around, always coming back to her body.
He doesn’t see me. Not fully.
She tried to project relaxation. “You’re from a family with ties to merchants.”
“That’s hardly a significant revelation, if you were trying to impress.”
“I was hoping to find something we could agree upon: negotiation.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you leave here alive.”
“Then there’s no reason not to exchange a little information. I give you something, you give me something.”
“Ah.” He smiled. “The survivor walks away with some meaningful gain.”
“And giving up some trivial information isn’t such a terrible thing.”
“Yes. To a corpse. I see. All right.” He tried the same thing she had—projecting relaxation.
She hoped she had been more convincing. “Colonel McLeod—is he one of your assets?”
The SAID agent snorted. It was authentic. “No.”
“Is he loyal to the GSA?”
“McLeod is a kite on his own string. He’s far too risky to try to turn.”
“Can he be trusted? Does he operate for the greater good of the Republic?”
“I told you, that’s such a restrictive view.”
“You’re not exchanging information. That was the deal.”
“It was.” His lips stretched into a grim smile. “All right. Your colonel considers SAID dangerous. But you knew that. You were told to find out where his true loyalty lay—owl or raven.”
“And do you know?”
“I know that I’ve answered your question, and now it’s time to answer mine.”
“It wasn’t a complete answer.”
“The problem was the question, Lieutenant. Now, here’s mine: What happened with Agent Penn? Hm?”
The tension was more noticeable in Patel’s body. His eyes flitted around more often. In the dark of the room, he was able to use something to get at least an idea of where she was. Current. Air disturbance. Some sort of recorded image of the room that a system could run rapid compares against to enhance the faint shimmer her suit gave off. It was enough for him to know where her body was. He was guessing about her face, hidden as it was behind the shadowsuit mask.
That was important to know. It dictated the best approach to take.
She bowed her shoulders. “I killed Agent Penn.”
“Ha! I knew it! And you came here to steal my data device.”
“I have it.”
Real
surprise registered on the SAID agent’s dusky face. “A bluff? After we’d established such trust?”
“No bluff. Check your jacket.”
“It wasn’t in the jacket.” The smirk returned. “You’ll need to be more honest for an exchange to go on between us.”
The tension returned as well, which turned the smirk into more of a sneer. It was his little tell, the betrayal his body had. She had seen it enough now to know for sure when he was lying through his teeth and planning something bad. Like the installation of the stealth system aboard the Pandora. Like sending her down to the moon to retrieve “data.”
There was a hint of truth to hide the lie: The device wasn’t in the jacket; it was part of the jacket.
And their exchange was over. He was coming for her.
She curled her toes, breathed in. “What if I told you the zipper was a sloppy idea?”
That triggered him.
He lunged.
She flipped over the thrust of the blade and tumbled across the floor, but before she could get to her feet, he was in front of the hatch, blade level.
He lunged again, catching her before she could roll again.
The blade slid along a small strongpoint of the armor protecting her abdomen, then caught the right side of the sternum plate and popped up, rising over her breast and into her shoulder, where the tip finally plunged in.
Fireworks exploded behind her eyes—sparkles and splashes of fiery light.
Stiles twisted, pulling free of the knife and bringing an elbow around. But she was off, low. The point of the elbow should have caught him at the base of the neck and snapped his spine.
She managed to knock him forward and off-balance.
But he still managed a slash that caught her on the hip.
Fast. He was every bit as fast as her, or at least close enough. So he’d been modified. And he had the knife. And that made up for any difference.
She kicked with her left leg, catching him in the back of the knee.
He grunted in surprise.
She was bleeding. Heavily.
The blade had gone deep into her shoulder, and it had gashed her hip deep enough to leave her aching.
Pain could be dealt with. Blood loss couldn’t.
Still, he had been surprised. That was good.
He came at her again—fast, fast, fast!
She gave ground and grabbed for his wrist.
The blade went into her palm and poked out halfway through her wrist.
Wrong move. Blood loss. Slowing.
Stiles yanked her hand back before he could do more damage with a twist, then came to a rest against the hatch.
It wouldn’t open.
Patel laughed. “One last chance to extend this out, Lieutenant. What generation were you?”
“Th-third.”
“Genesys 3? Who knew they were this far along? I guess your little organization deserves more praise than I was willing to give. That said, I’m afraid you’ll just serve as warning that your kind can never displace us.”
Once again, he lunged at her, but this time she twisted at the last instant.
The blade once again scraped along her armored abdomen and failed to penetrate. This time, she got a grip on the wrist of the knife arm. She locked that grip and brought her bleeding hand up into his elbow with everything she had left in her.
Bone snapped. Ligaments and tendons tore. The knife fell from Patel’s hand.
And he gasped.
She was conditioned not to waste time on emotions and irrational behavior. Every second mattered now with the bleeding. The knife could have caught an artery, and she would only know when she passed out. And resuscitation wasn’t likely for someone like her.
But, damn, there was joy in hearing the man in pain.
So she wrenched his wrist around, grinding the shattered bone of his elbow until his gasp rose to a high-pitched whimper that drove the agent up onto the tips of his booted toes.
Then Stiles put her good shoulder into his sternum and drove him back into the far wall, knocking a shelf free and sending some of his possessions to the floor.
Where the two of them collapsed.
He swung his good arm at her, but without the knife, the shadowsuit armor was sufficient to handle the blow. It knocked her aside a little, but not enough.
The SAID agent crawled toward the knife, dragging his shattered arm behind him, hissing.
And she fell on him.
Drove him to the floor with a high, keening howl.
Wrapped her legs around his thighs, her arms around his throat, and squeezed.
And squeezed.
Don’t let emotions get to you.
But his struggles, the way he scraped the mask of her suit in search of eyes he could gouge out, the sound that wasn’t a sound but should have been as he struggled for breath.
And, finally, the crunching collapse of his windpipe.
There was a wrongness to the excitement it all brought to her. She shivered. Her belly burned. Her awareness took on the hyper-focused clarity she’d managed with Kohn in the nights where he’d spent so much time only on her.
It was the risk. The bloodlust. Literally.
She rolled Patel onto his back and popped the mask of her suit. The SAID agent’s eyes blinked rapidly, and there was a panic to them she’d seen before, during training.
When things went bad that first time. When she’d killed without meaning to. When an instructor had pushed her too far and she hadn’t known what she was capable of.
That feeling was there again. The trembling muscles between her legs, warmth rising up into her gut.
Patel’s lips moved. He was begging, raising the excitement higher. Words didn’t need to come out. It was in his eyes, in the desperate working of lips and the contortion of his handsome face.
She kissed him, tasted the blood and desperation on him. “We had a deal, remember?”
Spots danced in her vision.
The infirmary. That would be her best bet. A call for help. Benson. That was the only person to trust.
No. Kohn. He was better.
But she wasn’t done yet. And she couldn’t stop. Not now.
She crawled to the blade, fumbling around with fingers gone clumsy and slow.
Then back to the dying agent.
Straddling him. Grinding against him even though she couldn’t really feel him through the armor.
She didn’t need to. The horror in his eyes was enough now.
Quivering. Shaking.
It finally passed. Now she was done with him.
Almost.
She showed him the blade, slapped him when life began to leave those eyes.
“Don’t go, Samir. Not yet.”
The blade slid into the eye socket so easily, cutting through nerve and muscle, popping the orb out.
He thrashed weakly for a few seconds, then went still.
Just like that. So quick. So fragile.
We’re all so fragile. Animals. Just animals. All of us.
Even me.
Darkness flooded Stiles’s mind, and she had a vague awareness of slumping to the floor and a realization she’d waited too long to call for help.
But she had Patel’s eye. The eye that could see the shadows somehow.
She could only hope someone else would understand the meaning.
8
Even a blind man could sense the joyous anticipation of the Spear of Destiny crew, and Captain Bryce Morganson was no blind man. In fact, his silvery eyes took in much more than most. It was all part of the gift of life, the design of his father. And now Morganson was close to providing the Supreme Leader a gift in return: the destruction of the Kedraalian Home Defense Fleet.
From the raised vantage point of the command station that rested dead center on the bridge, that destruction was a glorious sight, a grand fire against the dark canvas of space. Rather than computer simulations, his crew looked upon the real imagery of the enemy fleet. And with each explosion
that jetted fire into the hungry black, the youthful captain’s heart beat faster.
An older, stoop-shouldered helmsman turned, heavy brow wrinkled, slit-thin lips wide enough to reveal yellow teeth. “The fires, Captain. It is as if we are close enough that they warm us.”
The heat wasn’t imagined. The life support systems were operating at lower capacity. There were always sacrifices when ships were built.
Especially brilliant weapons such as the Spear of Destiny.
What was stale air and a little warmth for the glory of the Azoren?
And that glory could only come through using the shadow tech that was every bit the heart of the ship as the reactors and Fold Space drives. Sneaking into Kedraalian space, maneuvering until almost on top of the enemy fleet…
He nodded to the stoop-shouldered helmsman, a lieutenant with a name not worth remembering. “The fires purify, Lieutenant. Hail the Supreme Commander.”
“All hail him!” The older man threw up his right hand in salute—ramrod straight—so that the fingertips pointed to the Supreme Leader.
It was a nonsense idea: The Supreme Leader was everywhere, so have the arm go out straight and stay shoulder level. The Supreme Leader would know.
To say “Stiffen your arm directly in front of you” would have been more sensible. As great as the Supreme Leader was, he was still mortal. He couldn’t possibly know all thoughts and be in all places.
But the salute was a matter of appeasement and structure.
The people of the Azoren Federation wanted something to worship, and the Supreme Leader was it. Their god.
How did it feel to be the child of a god?
Powerful.
Morganson brushed fingers over his black dress coat, smiling at the soft touch of the material. It was smooth and fit perfectly on a body crafted by science. The rest of the crew wore simpler uniforms, some of them frayed and stained. Resources were focused on weapons and command staff. These were necessary sacrifices in the name of Operation Heart Thrust. In a few hours, the true glory of the operation would begin, with spacecraft entering the atmosphere to drop atomic weapons on the heart of Kedraal.
It was all cleanup operations until then.
The captain connected to the Raven, the destroyer sneaking into position against the unexpected strike force that had nearly spoiled the attack.