by Hugh Howey
“I’m sorry,” Molly told him. She looked him right in the eyes. “I’m sorry for attacking you that day.”
Saunders smirked. “Oh? But not sorry for killing my friend, eh?” He grabbed the reader for a reference. “Are you sorry for Corporal Timothy Reed? Or Special Agent David Rowling? Or how about Staff Sergeant Jim McCleary? Aren’t sorry about any of them?”
“Are those the guys from Palan?” Molly asked.
“The men you killed, yeah.”
“I am very sorry for them. And I’m sorry for Lucin. But they were all in self-defense. You were the exception. You were the only person I attacked in anger, and I’m sorry—”
“I don’t want your apology, Fyde. I’m actually glad you attacked me. I was going to spend the rest of my life at that Academy. I would have been happy, sure, but I turned down dozens of promotions out of love for that place. I needed a kick in the ass to get me out here fighting the good fight.”
Molly was dying to point out that it wasn’t a kick in the ass that she’d given him. Her desire to laugh returned—she swallowed it down, afraid she might be losing her senses.
“What about the fourth guy on Palan?” she asked. “Was he okay?”
Saunders looked at the reader again. “Agent Simmons? No, we know who killed him. Not that it’s going to save your butt. We’ve got more than enough to jettison you into space. I’m just here to make sure we have it all.”
That wasn’t the person Molly was thinking about, but she ignored the discrepancy.
“I’ll answer everything honestly, Captain—I’m sorry, Admiral. I’ve been hunting for answers for over a month, and you’re welcome to the few I’ve found.”
He smiled at this. “You sound as eager as your Palan friend. Boy had so much to say, we couldn’t get it down fast enough. Horrible English with that kid. Turns out he is a fast typist, though. We put him in front of a computer, and the lad is writing a book on what you guys’ve been up to.” Saunders set down the reader. “Now I want to hear it from you.”
Been up to? Molly wondered how much Walter knew of the disaster on Glemot and just what kind of trouble he could really get them in.
As if they could airlock her twice.
“What do you want to hear?” she asked Saunders. She tensed up, afraid of his answer.
But, as it turned out, not quite afraid enough…
Saunders smiled at her and unclasped his hands.
“Why don’t we start with who we’re talking to on your ship’s nav computer.”
31
“I’m sorry?” Molly licked her lips and eyed the glass of water, but her hands were locked behind her back and fastened to the bench. She pictured a long straw extending from the vessel, ushering fluid into her dry mouth.
“Our computer guys found something in your nav computer. They think it might be an AI, or some sort of complex logic tree. It claims to be your mother, and of course, she thinks that our guys are you. Did you steal her off Dakura just now?”
“Yes,” Molly lied.
“I thought you were going to tell me the truth, Fyde. I have to say, I’m disappointed. Lying to me on the very first question. We’ve been talking to Dakura Security. They assure us that such a theft is not possible and that nothing in a standard ship could host one of their AIs. So. Who is she?”
“My mom.”
“How’s that possible?”
“I don’t know. She said she was a copy from when they originally admitted her into Dakura years ago.”
“You want to tell me why you killed your mother on Dakura?”
“What?” Molly furrowed her brow, confused.
“Your friend Walter confessed to doing it, but he said it was your plan. We just want to know why. Why kill your own mother? Or is there no reasoning behind your madness?”
“I didn’t know she was dead,” Molly said somberly. Her dry mouth suddenly felt full of saliva. She felt sure she’d vomit if she tried to swallow it, but had no choice. Her stomach twisted up in knots thinking about her mom, happily birthing and mothering little Mollies just a handful of hours ago—and now gone.
If any of it turned out to be true.
“Well, now,” Saunders said, leaning away from the table. “I would expect you to be a bit more enthused to find out your attack was successful. Or are you just upset at getting caught?”
“I didn’t want to kill her.” Molly looked down at the desk as another layer of blackness heaped on top of her miseries. Each was like a smothering blanket, except they just made her more cold.
“Let’s come back to that. I want to touch on a few things during this session to help steer the next one. We have several jumps before Earth, so you and I will have plenty of time to drill down to details.” Molly glanced up, saw his chubby face break into a smile. She looked back down as he asked the next question:
“How did you get recruited into the Drenard Underground?”
“The what?”
“I’m getting sick of that as an answer, Fyde. The Drenard Underground. Your parents were members. Lucin’s reports claim they infiltrated the group as double agents, but it’s looking like they were actually taken in by these sympathizers. Now, you visit Drenard and take part in some kind of ceremony, get inducted as an honorary Drenard. Afterwards, you set out to cover up any evidence left behind by your parents. I’m slowly piecing together what they were doing on Lok; I just want to know what sort of nasty business you’re getting tied up in.”
“I’ve never heard of the Drenard Underground,” Molly said. She looked up at Saunders, a half-truth giving her a sense of dignity. But the other part of her knew she’d just sat in front of a simulated fire in one of their headquarters, chatting and having tea with her mother, one version of which spoke Drenard.
“Is your father still on Drenard? Is he working for them?”
“I don’t know where my father is.”
Saunders leaned forward. “Just so you know how this is working, Fyde, the cameras behind that mirror, and the microphones over your head, are all keeping track of your lies. We’ve already established that you’re unwilling to be truthful with us, created a baseline. What we’re looking for now are the things you withhold. The things you think are important.” He spread his fat fingers, his hands folding out like an open book. “The things you don’t tell us are worse than your lies.” He lifted one arm and tapped his temple. “The eggheads behind that mirror are telling me right now that the more you’re aware of this inability to fool us, the more power we have.”
He smiled with how clever he was, his cheeks folding down over the corners of his mouth. “Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to let you return to your cell and think about what you’re doing here. You’re a traitor to the human race; you’re aiding our enemy and leaving behind a long trail of dead and wounded, including the man who loved you and trusted you the most. You will be killed for these crimes, Fyde. I promise you that. It’s a done deal. You and Cole both. It might help if you just consider yourself already dead.
“Imagine it for a second: imagine you’re in whatever special hell they reserve for Drenard lovers. Now, someone gives you a chance to come clean. To give information that will help our cause. Help your race. Wouldn’t you love to come back and give that information? Confess everything? Do a bit of good with your life?
“I know this Underground business isn’t you. I know you’re just a hurt teenage girl, messed up because your mother and father abandoned you and you washed out of the Academy. You aren’t brainwashed the way they were—you’re just confused. I know this. You know this.”
He stood up. “Go sit in your cell and think about what I’ve said. Think about where your lies and actions have gotten you so far. Think about the people you’ve hurt. And why have you done these things? For a dream of continuing something your parents started? What if what they were doing was wrong? Have you thought about that? Or do you just trust them because they birthed you on some backwoods planet and disappeared? How muc
h do you know them? I think you should dwell on that as well.”
Saunders left the room, waving at the mirror as he went by. The two guards entered soon after he disappeared; they undid her cuffs from the bench and hauled her back to her cell.
Molly tried to see herself through their eyes as they handled her roughly:
Traitor.
Whipped dog.
Beaten.
She could feel it in her own flat, shuffling steps, and the way her toes never left the decking. She knew how it looked, knew it made it easier for them to pull her hands up high behind her, inflicting as much pain as they could.
She couldn’t really blame them.
••••
Not long after the guards left, having shoved her face into her bunk while they uncuffed her hands, Molly had another visitor. She expected Riggs, or someone else from the Academy, but she was surprised to see Saunders’s bulk looming through the bars.
“That’s what you call giving me time to think?” she asked, still rubbing the circulation back into her wrists.
“Get over here, Fyde.”
She pushed herself up and went to the bars.
“That was the speech they’ll record and analyze. This is the one between just you and me. I’ve already established your propensity for lying, so good luck trying to get anyone to believe your side of what I’m about to say.”
“Look, Admiral—”
“Can it, Fyde. Listen. I’m going to make a career off the mistakes you’re making. I’m going to win medals for cleaning up the mess your parents made and that you’re now smearing across the galaxy. But I meant every word of my speech back there. You can do some good with the little amount of life you have left, before you crash and burn in spectacular fashion. And before you start thinking on these things, I want you to know how I found out about your parents and their work on Lok. The official version is some miraculous sleuthing on my part—enough to skip a few ranks and get Zebra command—but I want you to know what really happened. Just so you realize what you’re up against. How good my intel is.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Lucin told me everything.”
“What?”
“Everything.” His smile faded, jowls collapsing. “I held him as he died in his office. He was spitting up blood and spilling his guts, and not just those that you and Cole blasted out of him. He told me about the special assignment your parents were on. About the Drenard Underground. About what I would find on your ship if I looked hard enough. He told me everything.”
“Saunders, listen. Whatever he said—”
“Let me guess, it was a lie? I think we’ve sorted out the liars from the heroes without your help. I’ll take a dying man’s word over a traitor trying to save her ass any day of the week.”
Saunders stood as straight as he could, tugging down on his black jacket. “I’m telling you this so you can keep Lucin’s last words on your mind as you think about what you need to do. The words he sputtered with his very last breath. He didn’t ask me to tell his wife that he loved her. He didn’t leave any inspiring words for the Academy or anything for him to be remembered by. He used them on you.
“‘Save her,’ he told me. ‘Save her.’ I think he meant for me to save your soul. Rescue you from yourself. It’s going to be up to you on whether or not you made that great man waste his final breath. Did a galactic hero perish worrying about a soul that couldn’t be redeemed? Or was his hope for you justified?
“So, while you’re in here scheming on how to fool me, think on that. You think on whether you want to keep secrets or if you should just tell me what you know.”
He turned and stomped off down the hall, leaving her with her befuddled thoughts.
What did she know?
She knew Walter was a dead Palan if she ever got her hands on him, that was one thing she felt absolutely certain of. She now knew the Drenard Underground existed and that her parents had investigated them on Lok, maybe even gotten involved with them. There was a slim chance her father was a Drenard by rite, if her “mother” could be trusted. But what if Saunders and the Navy had it wrong about the Drenards? It was something she’d been dwelling on since meeting Anlyn. What if the war was some kind of massive misunderstanding? The Drenards had seemed no more prone to kill her or assist her than any other race had, humans included. What if they—meaning every race in the galaxy—were just terrified, confused, and lashing out?
What else did she know? She knew she could trust Cole. There was no point in questioning him. Even if she ended up wrong about him, she wouldn’t mind if that mistake got her killed. She’d likely welcome it with open arms, as she nearly did the last time she doubted him.
What about Lucin? He lied to her and used her. Would he really have lied to Saunders as he died? What would be the point? And what if Saunders had made up that entire scene?
Molly thought about the Navy men sitting in her pilot seat right then, chatting away on the nav keyboard and pretending to be her. What would her mother be telling them? Surely nothing more than she’d been willing to divulge already. And why wouldn’t she see them on the camera? Or overhear their conversations? It didn’t make sense, unless her mom was playing them for fools.
Then again, if it was something her mother knew, why would Navy cryptographers have to ask her? That knowledge would be stored as 1s and 0s on the nav computer. They could just take the info.
What about her other mom? Was she really dead? Would that explain the intense bout of white light and noise she’d endured on Dakura?
She lay back on her bunk and looked up at the underside of the sagging mattress above. What should she do? Carry these mistakes to her grave? Hope her father could rescue himself? Hope her mom would get whatever sensitive information she had to the right people?
And what about the Wadi? Molly rubbed her temples. The thing never even got a name. What would they do when they found an unknown species onboard her ship? Would they dissect her?
Then there was Cole. He would be killed, and for what? For helping her? For falling in love with her? He said on Drenard he wasn’t afraid of his own death, but Molly was plenty afraid for him.
Maybe Saunders was right. Maybe all of this was her fault and she just needed to throw her chips in with the Navy. Every misadventure had been predicated on her absolute faith in two parents she hardly knew. Was it okay to love and trust people completely for no other reason than they birthed you?
And then there was Byrne. Molly had almost forgotten about him. Was he dead? She watched him stand there in a complete vacuum. Could you fit robotics that complicated in such a thin shell? Whether or not he survived, what did he have to do with all this? Why did he suggest he owned her?
Molly grabbed the rough pillow under her head and pressed it into her face. She used it to muffle a yell of frustration, her stomach clenching with the effort.
The screams gradually turned to sobs, her entire body giving in to the overwhelming sadness.
She pulled the pillow tighter to her face, smothering her despair and desperation.
32
Molly was wide awake when they came for her. Her brain had never stopped racing through the same loop of questions, so she was fully alert right when she should have been sleeping. As soon as she heard the footsteps approaching, she rolled from her bunk and moved to the shadows on the other side of her dimly lit cell. If this was an attempt on her life by zealous crew members, she would go out fighting.
Two silhouettes strode into view, the silver bars dividing their profiles into black slices.
“This the one?” It was barely a whisper, nearly inaudible. Molly shrank back into the corner, hid behind the pedestal sink, and pressed herself into the wall. One of the men seemed to fumble for something in his pocket; the other silhouette lurked behind. The figure closer to the bars murmured into a device, and the barrier slid into the floor.
The crew members were coming for her.
The larger man went stra
ight for her bunk, putting his back to Molly. She flinched, thinking of rushing the man from behind, maybe trying to snap his neck. Then she thought of the bars, the man in the hallway, and the fact that she’d still be trapped inside. She rushed for him instead, pushing off the wall with her foot.
The dark figure by the bunk spun as she flew by, reaching for her. The one outside her cell had leaned against the far wall. He seemed shocked, unable to even raise his hands in defense as Molly hurled her entire body into his stomach, driving the air out of him in the form of a grunt. He crumpled in the dimly lit hall, his hands still clasped in front. Molly spun with clenched fists to fight the man coming out of her cell.
The dark figure hissed her name, walking toward her with his hands spread out. Molly stayed in a crouch, one hand holding down the man she’d already taken out. She tried to calm her breathing as she prepared to defend herself.
The tall figure emerged from her cell and called to his comrade. “Riggs? You okay?”
Molly looked down. A pale, familiar face glowered back up at hers. She recognized the rage as well as the man. Black tape covered his mouth, a detail Molly couldn’t process properly. Her hand, pressing down on his shoulder, moved up to his neck. She looked to the standing figure and threw out her terms: “Another step and I crush his windpipe.”
“Please don’t,” the other man whispered. “We need him if we’re gonna get out of here.”
Molly loosened her grip on Riggs’s neck and looked down at him again. He was trying to reach up to fight her hands away, but his own were tied together and strapped to his belt.
She looked up once more as the other figure came forward another few steps, his hands still wide apart. She squinted into the simulated nighttime of the StarCarrier’s hallway, his face coming forward into the pale light.
The first thing she recognized was the flash of his wary smile.