“Can somebody shut that thing off?” Wren yelled in the background.
Jaeia was oblivious to the commotion that surrounded her. Two officers tried to pull her away from the video, but she fended them off with little effort.
“I know too much.” This time it was the admiral, red-nosed from booze, his face ballooned in the camera lens. His uniform top was unbuttoned, his second shirt wet from sweat and alcohol. “I know what they’re going to do next. They are going to keep those leeches serviceable. They’re too valuable to discharge, too dangerous to incarcerate. We need powerful figureheads now that Li’s gone, but they can’t be trusted. Too unpredictable. Too much like Li... and Tarsha.”
He was weeping now, and it was the most frightening sound Jaeia had ever heard. It was a man at the end of his rope, entirely hopeless, gutted and bled dry, wishing for a swift end to his misery.
“Li and Tarsha were our failures, our attempts at controlling something we didn’t understand, and now look at him—and her! Look at what they’ve done. Look at what we’ve done to them. And we still can’t—we can’t—”
He threw his bottle at the far wall, sending fragments of glass and booze flying. He returned to the visual field and gripped the camera so tightly that the picture trembled. “They’re monsters. We should have killed them when we had the chance.”
Betrayed seemed too pale a word to describe the frantic surge of rage that closed off her throat.
It could have been faked— she told herself. But the clips of her and Jetta were real. And when she saw the look of panic on Wren’s face, she knew that the admiral’s reel was legitimate too.
Victor came onscreen again, a smile quirking his mouth. Statistics and written reports scrolled in the background as if to substantiate Victor’s claims. When Jaeia touched any of the highlighted titles the entire document popped into view. Things like biochips enhanced to track subatomic brain waves of Kyron twins or constant audio-video surveillance of Jetta and Jaeia Kyron authorized by Minister Tidas Razar.
“Jetta Kyron is regarded as volatile, antiauthoritarian, and antisocial with a high propensity towards violence,” Victor said, highlighting several of the reports. “Her behavior would be deemed unacceptable for other military or government personnel, but despite the evidence of her psychosis, she has been given senior-level rank in the Alliance fleet. Jaeia Kyron, with her deep seated lack of self-worth, uses her abilities to control others to compensate for her own insecurities. Surprising to most is how much higher her accidental murder record is than her sister’s. But don’t be fooled by her pleasant nature or her diplomatic titles. She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“Why?” Jaeia stammered.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this,” Victor said, bringing the camera around to focus on his plastic face. He leaned forward, the cut of the diamonds forming his teeth overworking the pixels, “because tomorrow you will have no choice but to submit to my demands.”
The video bleeped out.
Jaeia stood there, unable to move. Someone put a hand on her shoulder, but she barely felt it.
“Council dismissed,” Wren barked.
The rest of the room cleared out. When it was just her and Wren and the hypnotic drum of the ventilation system, Jaeia finally found the ability to speak again.
“Is it true?”
Wren stood a few meters to her right with his hands clasped behind his back, his voice was just above a whisper. “He did those things to provoke you. You and your sister are the key to our last defenses. If he can take you away from us, we’ll have nothing, Jaeia.”
Jaeia saw the logic in Wren’s argument. She and Jetta in command of the Alliance fleet were an unspoken part of the Nine’s treaty. As commanders they could perform miracles against impossible odds, and it was the faith of the original Nine that kept the Alliance together.
Jaeia suddenly laughed. Victor really was the perfect enemy.
“He’s going public with it tomorrow on one of his galactic broadcasts. He wants everyone to see how dangerous we are. When that happens, they’ll petition for our resignation. Or worse. Probably demand an Arish trial.”
Jaeia was too overwhelmed to realize what she had just said. An Arish trial meant no judge, no jury, no deliberation, just sweeping ruling by the crowd. The punishment was a lingering death in which each member of the crowd was offered a small cut of the victim’s flesh.
“Well then, Captain. I think it’s time we plan our offensive,” Wren said.
Jaeia’s heart leapt into her throat. To calm herself, she ran her fingertips along the seams of her uniform and looked at the stars shining through the window. “Can I trust you, Chief?”
Wren made no sound as he approached her. The next thing she knew he was standing at her side, his slanted eyes level with hers. “You have no choice, Captain.”
AT FIRST REHT DIDN’T hear his first mate when he pounded on the door to his den, nor did he notice the message light flashing on his terminal. Femi was frighteningly loud, and she made different vocalizations with each new climax.
“Gibar m’elo k’fatquo!” she cried as she thrust her hips against his one final time.
Reht gasped as he let himself go, flowing into the dark-skinned beauty that lay trembling beneath him.
“Holy—”
It wasn’t just with Diawn, then, but Femi, too—this unblemished, unadulterated beauty he had killed for. He was drained, spent, but still wholly unsatisfied no matter how many times or how many ways he slept with her. It was as if someone had disconnected his drive from his body.
Reht reached for a half-empty bottle of Eckir rum that he had tucked away between the mattresses in case of emergencies. It tasted like battery acid and was probably just as caustic, a swig setting his throat on fire.
Femi lay across him, her hair draped across his chest and arms as she delicately traced his muscles with her fingernails. She looked longingly at him and whispered words he didn’t understand, but he knew what it meant by the need in her eyes. He had seen in before, hundreds of times, in the many women he had bedded in his den. Usually he found it amusing, but at the moment it grated.
Mom growled over the intercom.
“Yeah, I got it,” Reht grumbled as his eye caught the flashing light.
Since Femi didn’t speak Common he didn’t see the harm in letting her stay as he switched the terminal on. The jaded face of Mantri Sebbs materialized on the flat screen, looking even more sour and crusty than normal.
“Oh Gods, Reht—”
Reht stood up, stretched, and yawned as Sebbs covered his eyes and recoiled in horror. Both of his shoulders popped as he shook out his arms and legs. “Morning, champ! Didn’t expect to see your shining face.”
“Chak you, Jagger,” Sebbs said. He lit up, holding the cigarette between two unsteady fingers, but he threw it aside when the first puff threw him into a coughing fit. He looked awful, like he hadn’t slept in weeks.
“I take it back. You look like gorsh-shit. What’s been eatin’ you?” Reht said, grabbing his bottle for another pull.
“Can’t sleep,” Sebbs said. “Bad nightmares. Too real.”
“You should start drinkin’ again,” he said as Femi giggled and pulled him back into bed, spilling rum onto the sheets. He touched the bottle to his lips and realized there were only a few precious drops left, but she assuaged him by stroking his upper thigh.
Sebbs looked disgusted. “You still think this is a game, don’t you?”
The old Dominion traitor searched for something off-camera and then brought back a an advertisement for RedFly. At the bottom was what appeared to be a list in graffiti letters, its writing system familiar but indecipherable.
“See this?” Sebbs pointed to a complex symbol. “That’s your head. Alive gets double. You’re one hot ticket.”
“Where they pitching this? Bounty boards?” Reht said, taking Femi’s hands off of him and tossing the bottle into the ankle-deep collection of garba
ge on the floor. He wrapped a sheet around his waist and moved closer to the terminal, trying to get a read on the foreign logograms.
“No. Bigger. This is strictly for the Slingers.”
Slingers, short for gunslingers, was underground slang for the trained assassins that kept the meat market as corrupt and dirty as possible. The logograms were their secret language, their way of communicating in code right there in the open.
Sebbs once had ties to a renegade Slinger named Landis Trehff. All Slingers were cultivated and harvested by the crime syndicate, and occasionally a few came along that resented their breeding. Sebbs had once helped the defector do the impossible and break his bonds, and in repayment, the former Slinger gave him what every person playing the streets wanted to know: when they were going to buy their ticket.
“That fruitcake taught you their code?”
Femi moaned and motioned for Reht to come back to bed. He could feel himself rising again and was rapidly losing interest in Sebbs. “Look, Mantri, I appreciate all that, but I got a job lined up, and I can’t be losing my head on something like that.”
Mantri snorted. “Bet you can’t get off.”
Reht reared around. “What did you say, old friend?”
“That’s the mindchak. It’s what they did to us. They take away what pleasures us most and replace it with their objectives. That’s why you gotta do what they want—nothing else can give you that high.”
“You lying son of a—”
Sebbs blew air through his lips, exasperated. “Please—you know that bounty board on your skank pilot was a setup. Tell me you don’t believe me and I won’t tell you what could save all of our assinos.”
Femi spread her legs and curled her finger at him. Reht’s mind began to tear at the seams. He massaged his bandaged hands, feeling the phantom burn, and remembered his strange confusion when he discovered Shandin was still alive; how his crew was acting differently—how he didn’t feel like himself. How he couldn’t really get off.
Starfox—
He turned back to Sebbs. “Okay. Then what?”
Sebbs sported an unusual grin. “Pick me up in Southie by the gaming theater.”
Reht thought about it for a moment. “You chicken-sycha. You’ve made a few enemies and now you’re running to me for cover, aren’t ya?”
“Same as you. You, me, your crew—we’re all running for our lives now.”
Reht had Mom touch the ship down near the gaming theater on the south side of the city. It was an area for scavengers, players, and deadbeats, and Reht made sure to position his boys in the weapons pits. The south side was notorious for shooting anything in the sky, even their own people, to protect their games.
Reht had never understood the attraction of the games. He waited by the ramp as Sebbs hurried into the ship, keeping an eye on the street. Only one unfortunate fellow stumbled along the main drag, his eyes bloodshot and vacant, mouth forming words that came out in long strings of drool. The aftereffects of the games were worse than any trip he’d witnessed, so he’d never tried it. Sebbs had once told him the hook was deadlier than methoc, but it was hard to believe a computer simulation could have that much hold on a mind.
“What are you doing in this part of town anyway, jingoga?” Reht said as the Wraith flew back to the safety of the upper atmosphere.
Sebbs rubbed his wrists. The skin was abraded and dark purple with bruises, and the scabbing lacerations at the base of his neck told Reht that someone had not only cuffed him but given him a good thrashing.
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” Reht said, slamming him against the wall.
“You don’t scare me anymore,” Sebbs whispered. His eyes were strangely hollow, his voice mechanical.
Reht dragged him onto the bridge. Mom took one sniff of the Joliak and growled. Ro and Cray snickered in the corner, making sure that Sebbs could see them gesturing at him with their knives.
Reht threw him in his captain’s chair, and the others gathered around. Tech hung from the ceiling and Bacthar stood behind Reht, encircling half the group with his wings.
“Talk,” Reht said, kicking the chair. “We don’t have time for your gorsh-shit.”
“I don’t really know what got me into Southie. A few raw deals. I killed two cops and an undercover hooker. Doesn’t matter. Here’s where I ended up. I was double-crossing some yank in the back alley of a dive when I overheard two game operators talking about the latest craze. Some game called Crazy Betty. Real popular with the guys and lezzies. The most real simulation you can get out there, and it’s all skins and tails.”
For a moment Reht puzzled over Sebbs’ words. Skins and tails were basically interactive pornography, which was fairly popular with all the insecure chums who were too scared to hire a real girl in the red light district. But turning it into a game where the patron jacked their neuro-network into a fully integrated servo deck brought it to a whole new level. Games were played for days or weeks at a time, and the lifelike simulation sometimes killed their patrons, so Reht couldn’t imagine what they had done to turn cybersex into a full-scale game.
“Crazy Betty is so real that those poor stiffs think she’s real. They can’t get their head out of the game. One of the operators said he started throwing ads in the games and watched every sucker go out and buy whatever dumb product he had on the line.”
Reht got in his face. “Not caring.”
“You should,” Sebbs said, “because some of it is hacked military technology.”
Reht drew back a little bit. “Yeah?”
Sebbs grabbed one of his wrists and Mom shoved Sebbs back into the chair.
“Watch it, friend,” Reht chuckled. “Mom’s had a temper lately.”
Sebbs turned bright red as the Talian squeezed the Joliak’s neck. “Aaaack—it’s the... same thing... they’re using... on... us!”
Reht tapped Mom on the shoulder, and the Talian let him go. “How do you know that?”
Sebbs gasped and massaged his neck. He looked indignantly at the Talian, but did nothing else. “Front pocket.”
Reht reached in and withdrew a datachip.
“I swiped it from the operator. Has all the specs on Crazy Betty. Have your tin can look at it. You’ll find hacked Alliance master programs operating the base program.”
Reht tossed it up to Tech, who caught it and swung himself to the upper deck.
“How are you going to help us then, dearest Sebbs?”
“We keep on Diawn. Dig a little bit deeper, figure out the rest of her job. With that information we can bargain with Pancar of Nagoorian.”
“Why that old crust?”
“Because he hated Tidas Razar and all of his illegal, under-the-table gorsh-shit, and because the old bastard snuffed his nephew a few years back. He’ll sympathize with us, grant us asylum, especially if we can give him the information that Razar wanted. He’s trying to take over the Alliance anyway.”
Reht took a gamble. “Everybody out. Except you, of course, darling.”
Mom lingered for a second, but Reht gave him a reassuring nod. “Autopilot’s on, and me and Sebbs got some private business.”
“I’m not really into guys,” Sebbs said.
Reht didn’t acknowledge the Joliak’s newfound humor. “You know who Shandin is?”
Sebbs looked blankly at him. Reht couldn’t tell if he was masking something.
“Diawn’s linked with him. I have a personal score to settle with him. I want both their heads on a plate.”
“It’s dangerous to go after two prizes, especially if it’s between business and personal vendettas. You know that,” Sebbs said. “What will happen if you have to choose? You bet your sack that you’ll lose your head if it comes down to that.”
Reht unsheathed a knife from his belt and stabbed it into the arm of the captain’s chair, narrowly missing Sebbs’ arm. “Do you know who Shandin is?”
Sebbs didn’t flinch. “No,” he said, his eyes flicking to his b
andaged hands, “but I can guess.”
Reht smiled. “You know the Nagoorian’s signature?”
Sebbs grinned.
“Let’s make the call.”
AT FIRST TRIEL DIDN’T know where she was. The heat surrounded her on all sides, beating down from the suns above and radiating back up from the asphalt. It was suffocating, and she took cover under the first shade she could find.
“Where am I?” she said. Once her eyes adjusted to the intense light, she looked around. The street was silent save the blinds flapping in a crashed-out window. In the distance someone gurgled and fell quiet, leaving her alone in the streets among the remains of old hovercars.
Triel walked along the crumbling sidewalk, trying to stay inside the protective shadows cast by the surrounding buildings. The urban development offered no sights but faceless apartment buildings and chain-link fences.
“I feel like I’ve been here before...”
The Healer came across a parking lot in a gap between two buildings. The cars, broken down and covered in tan dust, had long been stripped and abandoned. She yelped when a pair of Domo dogs ran out from behind one of the wrecks and charged the fence. One was missing an eye, and the other’s muzzle was wet with fresh blood.
Triel hurried on, though she didn’t know where she was going as she weaved between open sacks of garbage roasting in the sun. The air was sulphurous and thick, and it hurt her lungs to breathe. The only commercial properties around were liquor stores, smoke shops, and the occasional black arts business, all of which were covered with graffiti obscenities.
“Hey baby—got you some sweetness?”
A man with half a recognizable face appeared from behind a dumpster. Most of his hair and skin had been burned into tight pink lumps. He grinned at her, revealing black stumps. Triel gave him a wide berth as she passed. “No, sorry.”
“I’m going to gut you and eat your face!” he shrieked.
He continued to scream at her as she ran down the street. Even after a distance, she couldn’t help but feel like she was still being chased. She picked up her pace as the surrounding buildings seemed to close in on her. It wasn’t just the homeless man. The street was after her—the unknown terror in the shadows was coming for her.
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