Ariadne

by K J Heritage

  She gives me an annoyed look. “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  There’s no way she can fathom how I feel about the Company, or about my role in the war. No one can. No one except the Skilled. “I want nothing to do with the Company ever again,” I say. “Hell, I’ve been trying to escape them for years.”

  “You have?” says Hewlis with genuine surprise. “But you were one of the grandees. A goddamn member of the Second Executive.”

  “An honorary title that’s been thankfully taken away.”

  “So, what are you now?” Rooba asks. “Your rank, I mean?”

  I shrug. “I am what I always was and what I’ve always been… a Skilled. That’s all the rank I’ll ever need.” I push myself to my feet and realise I’m a little shaky. I go over to Hewlis and look him in the eyes. “What do you really think about the Skilled?” I ask sharply.

  “Something up?” he says. “You seem a little… off.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “You’re like Ariadne,” he replies, and I sense he’s controlling himself. “Another Company human experiment.”

  “That’s true,” I reply. “And who or what are you?”

  Rooba’s confusion enters my mind. She’s perplexed by the way I’m talking to the engineer. But I’m only just starting.

  Hewlis draws breath to reply.

  “And don’t lie,” I say. “I know you’re not who you pretend to be…”

  Rooba places a delicate, long-fingered hand upon her snouted chin. “What?”

  Hewlis says nothing for a few moments, his face a perfect mask of confusion. “Did you also get bashed on the head?” he says, a jovial slant to his tone. “You sure look serious.”

  I set my jaw, pushing my teeth together, my words a growl from the back of my throat. “I’m always serious, or didn’t you get that about me?”

  “Vatic, I have no idea what you’re—”

  “Do me the courtesy of telling me the goddamn truth!”

  Hewlis becomes suddenly very still.

  I sense the engineer’s mind becoming ordered, relaxed. No longer working on the pretence of his identity. His shoulders go to shrug, but he stops himself. “How did you guess?” he finally says. “I’ve been in the presence of other Skilled before with no problems.”

  “What is this?” Rooba says.

  “Your disguise is a good one,” I continue, ignoring the Jen. “Very good. Most of what I sense from you, is you… Whoever you really are. When lying, it’s always best to fly as close to the truth as you can manage. And you might’ve gotten away with it. But what let you down wasn’t your ability to hide from me in plain sight—instead, it was something far more basic. All those ships you’ve been on. All those years of supposed experience. And yet you lacked the equivalent engineering knowledge. That’s what alerted me to you. A real engineer wouldn’t have wasted his time trying to break into Ariadne’s bridge with Boyd and Drex. A real engineer would’ve told them straight-off that it was impossible. You may know a few rudimentaries to perform routine ship maintenance and you’ve an engineer’s background from somewhere, just enough for you to keep your cover without raising suspicion, but I sensed there was something wrong with you from the start.”

  “If you thought that, why did you trust me. Why didn’t you out me earlier?”

  “I wasn’t sure who you were or what your agenda was. Not everyone hiding in plain sight is a villain. Some are just hiding from Company punishment, some escaping an older, less successful life. As a Skilled, you get to notice these people from time to time. I ignore them. Leave them be. Mostly. It was difficult for me to use my empathic skills aboard the Ariadne, but the Skilled are more than that single trick. Sure, we rely on being able to sense someone’s intentions directly, but when that skill is unavailable, the subconscious takes over. Creating that question mark I mentioned before. I was looking for an imposter, and I thought it was you for a long time. But there was a positive vibe from you, Hewlis. All the way through this. You’ve been on my side. You’ve been wanting to help me. But it was nothing more than pure survival. You knew I was the only one who could get you out of the mess aboard Ariadne. And you did everything to help me—because you wanted to help yourself, because, like me, you’re also a survivor.”

  Hewlis says nothing, his expression far too calm for my liking.

  “Velez, Pirella and Denny, might’ve been pretending to be Neo-Dawn,” I say, “but it’s you, isn’t it? You had been on the Ariadne for weeks. Ever since you heard of the VIP party. Preparing your own terrorist plan. Even my Company wafer had your details. That’s impressive cover. I guess you came aboard the Ariadne with the intention of sabotage, or even murder.”

  The pseudo-engineer’s face becomes more confident and, if there’s one thing I find dangerous about cornering a suspect, its sensing they feel they have the upper hand. And there’s another emotion inside of him. Desolation. The same feeling I recently experienced from Ariadne, now repeated within the pseudo-engineer.

  “What if I did?” he says. “Did you like what Chandrasekhar was doing? Did you like what he did to Ariadne? To that poor humanzee, Giri? I suspect you didn’t. I also suspect that you’re not really happy with what the Company did to you. To the Skilled. They manufactured you just like Ariadne.”

  Rooba makes an audible gasp at my side. Again, I ignore her.

  I notice Hewlis’s hand, the fingers barely tapping together, like I observed back in the airlock when Chandrasekhar’s humanzee was about to kill everyone.

  “The genome is sacred, Vatic,” he says, almost with triumph. “And you, like all the Company’s genetic creations are an atrocity that must be destroyed!”

  The flesh of his right arm twists and unfurls, the bones snapping and readjusting, rearranging themselves into what looks like a sizeable lump of conjoined flesh.

  Hewlis grunts in pain, although his eyes remain fixed upon me. “You think that only those disgusting Jen know about body augmentation? Well think again! Sometimes you have to use the weapons of evil to fight evil!” He glares at me, his face full of manic fervour.

  “What is that?” I say calmly.

  He raises his arm. “This is a powerful explosive. Enough to take out this entire fucking ship.”

  Rooba shouts in panic, clambering off the bed and running towards the locked door, beating against it, screaming and shouting to be let out.

  “A suicide attack doesn’t seem like your style,” I say unfazed.

  “Chandrasekhar had a back-up plan,” Hewlis continues. “A way to escape. Well, he’s not alone. I also have a back-up. A way to get myself out of any mess I may find myself in… permanently. But yes, I always preferred survival, whenever possible. To strike at the Company as many times as I could until I was caught. I came aboard the Ariadne with the intention to act. I had planned a ship-wide failure that would’ve tragically resulted in the destruction of Ariadne and everyone aboard during that VIP party, including that bastard Chandrasekhar, my main target. Until I got aboard that is and realised the ship was way out of my understanding. My plan then was to lie low and get off Ariadne as soon as the opportunity arose. But now… you’ve cornered me. I have no choice but to do what I’m going to do!”

  Hatred, sacrifice and the desire to kill rises inside Hewlis like lava in an exploding volcano.

  “Death to the Company!” he shouts as Rooba squeals.

  His arm jerks, but nothing happens. It jerks a second and a third time.

  The hatred in the man disappears with the sudden realisation that he’s been played. That he’s been caught.

  “How dumb do you take me for?” I ask.

  The door bursts open and in walks Xev and Shereena with two MPs and a very pleased-looking Strategist Stranng.

  “The medic!” Hewlis croaks. “Those… those goddam shots!”

  “Yes,” Shereena says. “Vatic warned me about you. Told me that you were very likely hiding a bio-weapon somewhere inside your body. Those shots cont
ained powerful neutralising agents.”

  “But how did you know about it?” Hewlis says to me. “How did you find that out?”

  “For a start, you were far too quick to spot the bio-augmentation of Professor Chandrasekhar after Giri ripped his throat out. That was quite some catch for a lowly engineer who supposedly didn’t have any idea about bio-systems. And of course, there was your DNA test result generously offered to me by Eric Klund. What did it say? History of bone and circulatory system augmentation. It wasn’t difficult to put two and two together. I guessed that if you were indeed Neo-Dawn, you’d have a similar bio-weapon, activated by the tapping of your fingers, as I observed you attempting before I killed Giri. How better to end your life in a destructive explosion using the ‘foul weaponry’ of your enemy? A bio-bomb is a specialist and expensive augmentation. Where the hell did you get it?”

  “It makes no difference!” Stranng barks. “I’ve cornered and caught a Neo-Dawn terrorist.”

  “With the direct help of Xev Tranth, of course,” Xev says, a smile plastered over the thick skin of his juvo-mangled face.

  “And aided by the ship’s medic,” Shereena adds forcefully.

  “It will take considerable spin to explain why the Strategist was forced to destroy the Ariadne,” Xev continues. “But spin is my business.”

  Stranng nods. “And how I single-handedly destroyed those enemy battleships. I was up to my ears in this ass-mess, but hey, sometimes there’s light even at the end of the most shit-filled tunnel.”

  Hewlis says nothing, I sense him shutting down. He’s been caught. And depending on how long the Company wants to drag it out, Hewlis will be doing the naked dance outside an airlock near here sometime soon.

  “Take him away!” Stranng orders as two MPs roughly grab Hewlis. “And you, Vatic, you’re dismissed. Go to your cabin and get out of my goddamn sight!”

  I give Hewlis one final look, and nod at Xev, who’s face displays some of its old power. This was the lucky break he was hoping for. And I don’t begrudge him that. Not one little bit. Even if I do hate the nasty, sneaky bastard.

  “I said get out!” Stranng barks again.

  SOMETIME LATER, Shereena, the ship’s over-qualified medic, enters my room on the obvious pretence of getting me to report back to the medic bay for a series of tests and more shots to help my continued recovery from overlong hypersleep—which she informs me was the reason I probably passed out on the bridge, although her expression tells me she thinks there’s more to it than that and, of course, she’s right. Death to an empath is a disturbing thing, although I’m now cold to it, but Ariadne dying had been an experience I never want to repeat again.

  “You gonna say nothing about what you did to me?” I ask her. “Crawling into my bed with the intention of knocking me out? That was a low move.”

  She reddens. “I didn’t have a choice. You know Stranng. The man’s a brute. He’s gonna do well out of this,” she says with even more guilt. “And so will I. I’ve been stuck on this ship in the back end of nowhere for too long. Catching that terrorist shithead is going to get me out of here and back where I belong.”

  “You’re a survivor. So is Stranng and Xev, my old boss. Survival is all that matters in this damn existence.”

  Shereena sighs and I sense she wants more from me than this conversation.

  “About last night. Before your adventure aboard the Ariadne. I didn’t need any orders from Stranng to come and visit you, okay? I… would’ve turned up anyway.”

  “You are saying what I think you’re saying?”

  She pulls herself up to her full height. “I like you, Vatic, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

  “Hasn’t Rooba Jen made her move on you yet”

  Shereena reddens again. “She has, yes. But I was thinking. Maybe when we get back to Earth, we can—”

  “Thank you for the offer, but no thanks.”

  The impact of my words hits Shereena with a visible jot. I don’t need no empathy to see I’ve stung her.

  “But I had no choice! You know that!”

  The image of Esta flicks into my mind. And I’m filled again with the desire to go and find and confront her. “I have other things to do.”

  “But afterwards…?”

  I put my face close to hers, glaring at her. “Don’t you understand who and what I am? I’m Vatic, and no one ever crosses me twice.”

  Reviews

  If you enjoyed reading Ariadne: Vatic Book Two, can I ask you to please leave a review.

  It doesn’t have to be anything more than a few words. Just know that your thoughts will be very much appreciated by me and they will certainly increase the likelihood of further novels in this and other series.

  Why am I asking?

  I wish I didn’t have to ‘plead’ in this way but getting reviews is becoming harder and harder due to a tightening of review rules over the last few years.

  Suffice it to say that if you leave me an honest Amazon review (good or bad) or a review on your blog, Twitter, Facebook or on any of the popular reader sites such as Goodreads, LibraryThing, etc. I’ll be well-chuffed.

  I’m always happy to retweet links to reviews to my Twitter followers, or to post on Facebook and elsewhere - and to include them as quotes in publicity releases. Just let me know.

  Over to you…

  Many thanks in advance!

  Kev

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  About Ariadne

  Writing Ariadne: Vatic Book Two has been a real effort of will. What do they say about that difficult second album? It’s all true! At least for this sequel to Vatic! I wanted to give up on quite a few occasions, but knowing you were out there, waiting patiently, gave me all the impetus I needed to buckle on down and bring the thing to fruition. Book two, has been a hard, convoluted slog, but I’m very happy with the finished result.

  I really hope you like it as much as I do.

  It's taken over two years from start to finish and has taught me a valuable lesson: I have to plot! I'm what the writery world calls a pantster—an author who writes the from the seat of his pants. I literally make up the story as I go along, with no regard to characters, plots or mysteries. Stories just happen like the most fantastic magic… mostly!

  Unfortunately, the magic didn’t happen as I would’ve liked this time. Indeed, the magic had to be dragged kicking and screaming from the writing void and forced onto the page. It’s not the first time that I’ve found myself stumped or written into a corner. And so, I have bitten the proverbial bullet and turned myself into… a plotter!

  Heresy!

  Don’t worry, I haven’t fully abandoned my pantster ways, I will be using that technique for outlines only, and will not put fingertips onto plastic until the mystery is in the bag. Hopefully, this should mean a higher output and more stories and novels. It certainly has worked wonders on my latest fiction.

  Speaking of more stories, Vatic Book Three is already starting to form in the deep recesses of my overactive mind. Vatic has a rendezvous with Esta and Earth… who knows what might happen?

  All the very best,

  Kev

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks for the red-pen, scribbling and ‘telling me off in no uncertain terms’ talents of my lovely editors:

  Suzanne Buist

  Blossom Young

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