Assured (Envoys Book 2)

by Peter J Aldin

  “What? No. They just look like sickly, slimy fish things with sort-of Human faces and arms.”

  At a curt gesture from Bradstock, they fell silent again.

  The nurse had said, From a Xenthracr’s point of view, we’d look like Tluaanto.

  If only she knew.

  You should hope that they don’t think you’re us, Buoun thought.

  23

  They saw their first Qesh within moments of entering the shaft. The group had split into two lines, each hugging their own side of the tunnel wall. Hecate led the group to the left—a meat shield for Pan—with Gregory bringing up its rear. Westermann led the one to the right with Grace at the back. With inconstant lighting from flashlights, Gregory had to pick his way carefully over the rough stone flooring with one hand against the wall. When she was ten meters out from the T-intersection at the end, Westermann enhanced the lighting by tossing a flare. She held up a fist, indicating both groups hold position. Gregory presumed she wanted to see if the flare brought any response.

  It did.

  Within seconds, the tapered form of a Qesh appeared from the left side branch of the intersection, approaching the pyrotechnic with caution. Quickly locating the safe end of the flare, the Qesh held it at arm’s length and started toward the exit past the twin lines of humans.

  “What’s it doing?” Esana asked tersely.

  “Removing a hazardous object,” Pan said. “Hold position, everyone. The flare can’t hurt you through the suits.”

  “It can hurt me,” Hecate complained and pressed against the wall.

  Despite Pan’s reassurance, Gregory noticed several guns tracking the Qesh as it approached. Before it reached Westermann and Hecate, it hesitated, moving its cargo to the side so it could better taste the air. Scenting nothing about these strange newcomers to concern it, the creature was on its way again, waddling between them on three limbs. Gregory tried getting a good look at it as it passed him; it seemed identical to the Qesh he’d seen at Kh’het4. And, like them, it paid him no mind.

  “No more flares, Captain?” Westermann asked.

  “Flashlights for the time being.”

  At the head of the corridor, the Peacekeeper checked both ways. “Left side clear. To the right, we have a tunnel collapse.”

  Gregory glanced at the ceiling above him. It seemed secure, but he was no expert in architecture.

  The captain obviously had the same thought, asking Westermann, “How’s the roof look to the left?”

  “Seems fine, sir. There’s another Qesh down there, staring into my light. If they live here, it has to be okay, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe. All right, people. Hold here while Westermann and I scout the next section.”

  “Is that wise, you going?” Gregory said. “You’re our leader, after all.”

  “You’re all resourceful people. Something happens to me, you’ll figure it out.” He slipped past Hecate.

  Ten minutes of comms silence followed, Gregory hearing only his own breathing and the hiss and hum of his suit systems. His nose itched. He tried wriggling and wrinkling it, but nothing helped.

  What happens if you sneeze in one of these damned things? How do you clean the visor?

  He’d never wondered that before. And wished he hadn’t now. He was saved from further brooding by the snap-hiss of comm-speakers in his helmet.

  “It’s secure, so come on through,” Pan said. “Fingers off triggers, though. There’s one Qesh in the tunnel and I don’t want anyone killing it.”

  Around the corner, the new passage was tighter, forcing them into a single line. The Qesh squatted to the side beside a pile of tubers. It chewed on one while scrubbing dirt from the rest with a brush made from woven grasses. This one did notice Gregory as he passed it, but it appeared to look through him rather than at him.

  They might be sentient. If they or their forebears built this place, they must be. But sapient? I’m not so sure.

  Not for the first time, he wondered if the Xenthracr had somehow exterminated a smarter caste from among the Qesh.

  After a few minutes of travel, the passage doglegged right and Gregory saw warm, yellow light through an archway ahead. The group emerged into a vault the size of Assured’s bridge. Pan had placed a flat-paneled lantern in the center; he was down on one knee beside it, studying information on the small tablet he’d brought along. Westermann had her back to the lamp, watching the three other archways that led off the chamber. Each archway—each path out of the vault—had been placed in the exact center of a wall. Gregory studied the ceiling again. It was twice as high as the tunnel’s had been and seemed sturdy, made from the same interlocking rock tiles as the walls. There were no fittings in it, and none in the walls, no furnishings in the room.

  Toller commed, “What do they use this place for? There’s nothing in it.”

  Before anyone responded, Pan said, “Esana? How’s the air quality?”

  Consulting her device, she replied, “Better, sir. Actually, much better. Little stale and dusty, but no pathogens and no airborne pollen.”

  “Maybe the twists and turns in the corridor keep it all out. We’re a good way into the hillside. Let’s give our rebreathers and O2 supplies a break.” He reached up to unlock and remove his helmet. With his head exposed, he took a few deep breaths, then signaled the others to remove theirs too.

  When he’d done so, Gregory found the air flat and tangy with dust. But it was cool on his sweaty face and hair.

  “This might make a reasonable base short term,” Pan said, getting to his feet. “We need more scouting first. Toller and Ms. Renny …”

  “Just call me Grace,” she said wearily.

  “Grace, then. Please scout down that path.” He pointed to the arch opposite the one they’d entered through. His gesture moved to a side archway. “Westermann and Esana, that one’s yours. Go no further than one hundred meters and return. We’ll scout the final passage after you’re all safely back.”

  The two pairs departed via their assigned exits.

  Sintopas had his tablet in his hands, head lowered over it.

  “Picking up anything?” Pan asked him.

  “Negative, sir.” Sintopas grimaced an apology as he stowed it in a suit pouch. It might have been the lantern light, but the man still looked pale and sickly.

  “So much for the idea of them having comms in here,” Pan said with a scowl toward Gregory.

  “Live comms,” Gregory corrected him. “We may still find Qesh tech we can use, even if it’s old.”

  They waited. Pan concentrated most of his attention on the one archway no one had been through yet. With the captain distracted, Hecate sidled closer to Sintopas. Making eyes at him, she jerked her head at her right arm which Westermann had recuffed to her belt at some point. Sintopas’s head shook vigorously at the wordless request for freedom. Hecate pouted and turned her back on him.

  The nerve! Gregory thought. She just helped kill dozens and dozens of people and she’s playing games.

  Grace appeared from the passage she’d been sent into, Toller at her heel.

  “Short tunnel,” she reported. “Ends in a smaller room with a lot of dry and crumbly old wood. Like maybe there was furniture or fixtures once, but they’ve collapsed into piles of crap.”

  “Be good firewood,” Toller added.

  “If we’re here for a while, we might need a fire,” Pan replied.

  Hecate sniggered and mumbled something. Sintopas was glaring at her back, but Gregory couldn’t tell if he’d heard what she said, or simply hated her like most people did.

  “No Qesh food stocks, either,” Grace added, completing her report.

  “Let’s see what Westermann and Esana find,” Pan replied. “We’ll wait till they’re back before exploring the final tunnel.”

  When it seemed there was no other immediate business to discuss, Gregory asked Pan, “Earlier, you mentioned saving our O2 and rebreathers. Anything to be concerned about?”

  “It’s a
matter of rationing. Rebreathers are good for twenty-six hours generally. We have two spare e-suits plus a dozen spare rebreathers in the pod. I haven’t done the full math, but if we really need them, they won’t last long. And we could be here weeks.”

  This time, Hecate burst into full-blown laughter. Pan, Grace and Toller stared at her with open disgust. Sintopas went a step further, unclipping his holster and putting his hand on his pistol butt. Gregory clicked his fingers to get the comms officer’s attention, then shook his head. Sintopas winced and looked away. He was trembling. Gregory wondered just how gravsick he was. Or was it simple shock? His hand remained on the weapon, his jaw set.

  Can’t have him shoot her. Much as it would spare us her damned insolence.

  Gregory stepped up to him, held out his hand and mouthed Now. Another hesitation. Then Sintopas drew his weapon, placed it on Gregory’s palm and stalked off into a corner, subvocalizing curse words.

  Hecate laughed on.

  It was a ballistic pistol like the one he’d been equipped with, like the one Grace had been training him on. Gregory checked the safety, then found an empty suit pouch for it.

  When finally the Xerxian’s mirth subsided, Pan said, “For that little display of insanity, you’ll be watching the rest of us eat dinner tonight without any of your own.”

  Grinning, she gave him the bird.

  “Let’s make it breakfast too. Keep this up and the ambassador won’t have to prevent people from shooting you. You’ll starve to death.”

  She rose to her feet, chin high, grin plastered on her face. “Wanna know what I find so funny?”

  “No,” said Pan.

  “How about you, Ambassador? Wanna know?”

  “No one does.”

  “Oh, you should. You all should.”

  “I think you should shut up now,” he said. “And probably for the rest of the time you’re here.”

  “Gonna be a long time, that. The time we’re here.”

  “He said shut up!” shouted Sintopas, startling everyone.

  Everyone but Hecate, that was. She whirled on the comms officer, grin wider than ever. “But I feel like telling them a story.”

  “I’ll goddamn shut you up then!” He came out of his corner, closing half the distance between them before Pan barked at him and froze him in his tracks. The comms officer shook a fist at Hecate. “She’s getting in our heads. She’s a monster!”

  “If you want me to stop talking, poker boy, how much will you … um … pay me?”

  Suspicion trickled into Gregory’s mind then, an instinct based on the body language he was witnessing: Hecate’s sureness and Sintopas’s growing alarm. Grace had caught it too—her ex-cop instincts surely better honed that his diplomatic ones. She began crossing the chamber toward the comms officer.

  Gregory snapped his fingers again. Sintopas looked at him. “What is this about, Ensign?”

  “About? Nothing. She’s messing with our heads. We should gag her or something, like the captain said back in the pod. Stick her in that cubby.”

  “Gag me and you won’t know just how bad things are for you. Now poker boy’s lost his gun, I feel a little safer to tell you all this. You’re gonna be waiting a lot longer than a few weeks. The Tluaanto are shit-scared of the bugs so that frigate’s not comin’ to rescue you. And the DCHC’s not comin’ either. Not tomorrow. Not in a few weeks. Not never.”

  “Goddamn crazy Silver!” Sintopas snarled.

  Turning her back to him, she added, “And the reason the DCHC’s not coming for you is that the DCHC don’t know you’re here.”

  Toller blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “To defeat your enemy, you gotta exploit their weaknesses. And they don’t come much weaker than poker boy here. He has a lot of debts. And all he had to earn a shit tonne of money was do us ‘Silvers’ a tiny favor.”

  “What,” said Pan through clenched teeth, “favor?”

  “Poker boy here entered one piece of coding into the ship’s systems. That’s all. Something that did its job, then erased itself in case anyone went looking for it. Oo, I have your attention now, don’t I? You all wanna hear my story now. No one’s interrupting, not even poker boy, coz he didn’t know what the coding was for. It ate all the messagepacks you sent before we came here, everything you told them about Kh’het system. It overwrote the trigger that tells you when FTL messages aren’t getting through. And finally, it screwed up the FTL signal buoy Sintopas dropped when we arrived. Then it deleted itself. No trace. If there was nothing around here of value—and we came back to Confed space with you still as best friends—the comms glitches could be blamed on … what did Fowler call it? … Oh, yeah: residual malfunctions leftover from the Domain Space viral attack.” She blew out a breath. “That was a long story, I know. And—” she faked a sympathetic wince. “—it don’t have a happy ending. But I kinda like it. Because we beat you, you arrogant rat turds. We beat you good.”

  A dread silence had settled over the vault. Grace disturbed it by marching straight by Hecate and breaking Sintopas’s nose.

  When Westermann and Esana returned ten minutes later, Sintopas was still on the floor, whimpering and trying to stem the flow of blood. Grace was pacing, fuming. Pan had leaned against a wall, lost in thought. Toller still glared at Sintopas as if ready to kill him.

  Westermann blurted, “Captain, we found a room you should see. Seriously. There’s some hinky shit in there.”

  She stumbled to a halt, halfway across the vault, finally catching on to the mood in the room. Sintopas’s bleeding nose made her flinch.

  “Okay,” she said. “What I miss?”

  24

  There weren’t any handcuffs apart from Hecate’s, so Westermann asked if she could bind Sintopas’s hands with tactical cord.

  “What would be the point?” Gregory replied before Pan could. The comms officer was still on the floor, his arms around his knees, his face hidden. Blood had dripped and run along his suit legs from his injured nose. “The fool’s trapped here with the rest of us. What’s he going to do?”

  Grace and Toller grunted agreement with his reasoning. Westermann looked profoundly disappointed.

  Hecate rattled her arm and its cuffs. “By that logic, you can undo these.”

  No one agreed with that.

  Pan stirred, finally. While Grace had been bringing Westermann up to speed, the captain had been so still, so blank, that Gregory feared he’d been having a stroke. “Corporal, you mentioned a room …”

  “Uh, yessir.” She flexed her fingers and shuffled her feet, seemingly struggling to focus, to think about what came next.

  Not alone there. Gregory’s legs felt weak, his body heavy. He lowered himself to the floor and sat as comfortably as he could in the e-suit. What was their goal now? Survival? For how long? We might be here the rest of our lives.

  Westermann shook herself, cleared her throat. “We … we found this room. And it has a bigass box in it. Glossy. Black. Looked techy.”

  “Some writing on the wall near it too,” said Esana. Her voice was dull. Her eyes were dull.

  “Very well,” Pan said. “We’ll check that. Not all of us. Westermann, Toller, hold position here with the Tactical. Everyone else is with me.” He hesitated, then added, “Including you, Sintopas.”

  The comms officer jerked at the sound of his name, but didn’t raise his head.

  “Why him?” Grace said.

  “I need him and Spacer Esana to help examine it. It might be anything. It might be comms. It might be FTL comms.”

  “Right.” To Sintopas, she said: “On your feet, Judas.”

  When he didn’t respond, Westermann stomped over and grabbed a fistful of his hair. He yelped. “Get up. Or I drag you up.”

  Sintopas got up. When he was on his feet, Westermann sent him stumbling toward the archway. He stopped halfway to it, keeping his back turned to them while he waited.

  Pan hesitated a moment, as if gathering strength. Then he came al
ongside Sintopas, pointed to the passageway and said, “You first.”

  Before the recent hostage situation, Ana hadn’t used her retinaid in a month. She hadn’t needed to, hadn’t wanted to. In the past, the wetwired device occasionally made her motion sick when in use, and often the mission data it provided was useless and distracting. Worst of all, just having the thing stuck inside her head gave any commanding officer potential leverage over her, a measure of control. Because that officer had authority to power up the damn thing at any time and broadcast all kinds of crap straight into her head. And hadn’t her trainers just loved using that particular feature during her initial Tactical training.

  Another helldamn thing to hold over us.

  Today, however, the retinaid would be her best friend. Ana had been trying to crack into its operating code for the past two years—with encouraging success—all in preparation for the day she could escape the Sevens and Xerxes, the day she could break ties. One of the side benefits of this dabbling had been her discovery of how to break into other people’s devices, to piggyback her own data on another stream. Once—and only once—she had used it to send a private message to Tactical Olesco from the other side of the town they were working in. Olesco had freaked when he’d worked out what she was doing; she’d sworn him to secrecy, claiming it was part of some research she’d been doing for their commander at the time, the C.O. before Fowler. Olesco hadn’t bought the lie, but neither had he reported on her.

  All of which means I can do this, she told herself as she snapped herself out of the well of memory she’d gone down. It will work.

  She was in the finishing stages of meal-prepping in the yacht’s small galley. Spooning the thick broth into three of the ambassador’s pretty-ass ramekins. She glanced out into the lounge where Fowler and Umbrano slouched against the tables, watching her. They’d laid their rifles on the couches. They looked tired now, and ravenous. There wasn’t going to be a better opportunity, she thought as nerves twisted at her gut. The aroma of the stew should have made her hungry, but it only brought bile into her throat.