Xee’s feathers fluffed up in agitation before smoothing out again. “Comms,” it said, moving towards the communications station. Argus shot Jira a look—she nodded. They had come this far, after all. Now was not the moment to hesitate.
Moving too quickly for Jira to see, the alien typed in a series of commands into the Steadfast’s comms console, the comms officer looking on. He looked to Argus. “Sir,” he said. “There’s a signal coming from the planet. But I don’t understand it—perhaps it’s encrypted.”
Jira hurried to the comms station. She studied the message for only a second before her heart began to thump.
“This is a Federation signal,” she said, trying to contain the eagerness in her voice. She looked up at Xee. “Are they down there? Who gave you these credentials?”
Xee reached for the console again. Jira caught its wrist, squeezing it tight in her fist. If it were human, she would have left bruises. “No,” she said firmly. “Not until you answer my questions.”
It squawked in alarm.
Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the signal disappeared. There was nothing but silence emanating from the planet. Jira still clutched Xee’s arm as frustration surged through her.
Argus was about to get up from the captain’s chair when a spasm juddered through the Steadfast, as if they had been hit in the middle of a fight. “Ops,” he growled.
“All nav and helm systems are dead,” the officer replied. “I don’t know what happened—we’re dead in the water.” He scanned the system sensors. “Other systems are beginning to fail,” he said. “I can’t seem to stop it—”
Xee trilled and reached for the comms once more. Jira still held the alien away until she heard Argus speak. “Let go,” he said to her.
Jira released Xee, who immediately opened an audio comm channel. She suppressed the urge to cover her ears as it emitted a high-pitched scream that faded into a string of incomprehensible syllables.
The shuddering stopped, as if the invisible hand that had seized the Steadfast suddenly opened. “Systems are coming back online,” the ops officer reported.
Xee turned its inscrutable face to Jira. “Down,” it insisted.
“I don’t like it,” Argus rumbled, as Jira strapped a blade to the inside of her belt. There was no telling what was going to be on the surface of the moonlet. Or who. The knife was an addition to a lasgun and an old-fashioned gun with bullets, a gift from Hogarth.
She had to be prepared for anything.
“No, I don’t want you with me. The Steadfast needs her captain. I’ll be fine,” Jira said firmly despite the queasy mix of fear and excitement that circulated through her veins. It had been there the moment she’d recognized that Federation signal. And it wouldn’t go away until she unraveled the mystery on the moonlet below.
“Conrad would—”
“I don’t care what he would or wouldn’t do,” she snapped, quicker than she intended. “Right now, everything hinges on finding allies. This is our best option—our only option.” She checked the weapons, ensuring that they were secured to her body. “If I’m not in contact within the next twenty-four hours, get out of here. Don’t come after me.”
Argus’s ears flickered. Jira suspected that her final admonishment was going to be ignored. She reached out and scratched the Kazhad’s chin affectionately.
“I’ll be back soon,” she promised, and turned to walk up the ramp of the ship, Xee already aboard.
As she slid into the copilot’s seat, she ran her hands over the instrument panels with wonder and nostalgia. It was so familiar that it made her ache.
The ship vibrated as it powered up. As the Steadfast ejected the ship into space, Jira leaned back in her seat. “What’s this ship’s name?” she asked.
Xee continued to fly the ship, ignoring her.
“It must have a name,” she said. “No Caderan ship is ever allowed to fly without being named. It’s against all tradition.”
Xee warbled something under its breath. “Ask her,” it said. “She will tell you all you need to know.”
A jag of frustration stabbed into Jira’s chest again. “Tell me more about her,” she said. “This servant of the Locc. She’s a Nu, isn’t she?”
She’d known something about the Nu. Conrad had told her what had happened to him at Alpha Aurigae. But there was so little that even he had known about the creatures. Even Hogarth had revealed nothing about them, although Jira suspected that even if he had more information about the Nu, he would have told her nothing. He only ever told her what he thought she needed to know, and nothing more.
“One of the Nu,” it confirmed. “Trust her. That is all.”
Jira sighed internally and turned her gaze back to the moonlet.
It wouldn’t be long now before she got some answers.
They prepared to disembark on the side of a sand dune, the wind blowing tiny particles into their faces. Jira shielded her face from the gust with her hand, blinking against the onslaught. When she lowered her hand and her eyes adjusted, she realized that it was night on the moonlet, the entire surface of the planetoid draped in darkness and dappled with starlight.
Xee lowered its crested head and zigzagged across the dunes, flapping its wings, and launching into the dark night.
“Wait!” Jira shouted. “Where—” she began. But the alien was already gone, taking to the air with easy grace. She slowed down as she neared the bottom of the ramp and kicked at the sand. She could track the faint shape of Xee across the sky, but it wasn’t too long before it faded out of sight completely.
She sighed and sat down at the bottom of the ramp. In a strange place like this, she knew better than to run off without the right tools and navigation. Here in the ship there was at least protection against the elements. A light shiver ran down her spine. The moonlet—Thypso, her eidetic memory whispered—was as desolate on the surface as it appeared to be in orbit.
Jira rested her chin on her knees. She ignored her chronometer. It would only make time seem to drag slower and slower.
Instead she escaped into her memories. Thypso reminded her vaguely of Asmafor, a planet where she had hidden with General Ilm and his troops as a ten-year-old girl. It was there that she learned how to shoot, firing lasguns into the endless flats of Asmafor’s salt deserts. Jira closed her eyes for a moment. At the time, she’d told everyone how much she hated it; but now it seemed familiar and even friendly.
Time passed. Something hooted in the distance. Jira’s head lifted, her hands still wrapped around her knees.
“Xee?” Her lips were dried from the wind and her throat was hoarse. She stood up, a hand hovering near the weapons strapped to her waist. “Are you there?”
There was nothing but sand and darkness. The wind blew harder, beginning to whistle in her ears. Her instincts suggested that something was coming—a storm.
Jira turned away, annoyed by her own skittishness. She eyed the Caderan ship’s hold as the wind intensified. “Sorry, Xee,” she muttered, making her way up into the ship as the ramp lifted behind her. “Hope you found a nice tree to perch in ‘till this all blows over.”
The ramp clanged shut.
It was at that precise moment that Jira felt a soft, human hand on her shoulder.
She whirled around, her blade clutched in her palm. The tip of the knife came to a stop inches away from the face of a woman—a woman with dark eyes and hair, dressed in a simple black jumpsuit.
“How did you get in here?”
The woman reached up without fear and touched the blade, brushing it down. “This is my ship, after all,” she said calmly. “I should know my way around it.”
There was something unsettling about the woman, Jira decided. Her gaze was piercing and veiled at the same time.
“You’re the one Xee was talking about. The servant of the Locc.”
The woman lifted her fathomless gaze to meet Jira’s eyes. “Yes,” she said. “My name is Qloe Apta. Well; that was one of our names. We’ve h
ad so many.”
Jira shivered. “Xee brought us here for answers. Do you have them or not?”
“He is not here,” Apta observed.
Jira’s eyes narrowed. “Who—Conrad?”
Apta merely blinked. Jira’s patience was wearing thin. She could feel the fatigue in her body from days of poor sleep and worry, her skin and body dried from the winds of Thypso. She ran a thumb over the edge of the blade.
“I came here for answers,” Jira said. “And help. Where is the Federation? The signal you used was one of ours. Tell me where they are,” she said. “So I can find them, and get Conrad, if that’s who you’re after. Tell me.” She took a step forward, but Apta remained still, utterly calm, and relaxed.
The Nu seemed to be evaluating her. Jira didn’t blink as the creature stared her down.
When it moved, it was faster than Jira could have expected. The Nu’s hand seized her throat and squeezed—
Jira dropped the blade, gasping. Apta’s fingers moved, seeking something ...
The Nu were once human women, as you are, Apta said. This is a connection the Nu can only make with other women. Jira wasn’t sure if the words were coming out of her mouth or if she was hearing them in her head. Now you must see.
Jira’s mind filled with a flurry of images. She choked against the Nu’s hand as they poured into her mind, threatening to overwhelm her conscious mind and plunge her into oblivion. Her mouth opened. Her body went weak, and Jira fell to her knees with a hard thud.
Do you see? The Nu’s voice echoed off the insides of Jira’s skull. They are driven back.
Jira’s heart pounded as the visions overtook her, relentless. The Federation dying, ship by ship, as the Empire hunted them down. Retreating. Retreating even beyond where Apta could follow. The Nu had been at the battle of Baro, and then at Heimdas ... she or one of her sisters. She’d been a part of the Federation, pretending to be human. She’d seen the Empire bring down the fleet at Heimdas with her own eyes, barely escaping with the Xee.
That was the last image that the Nu shared with Jira—her Caderan ship, flying away from a scene of absolute devastation and chaos. Jira seemed to sense a strange hint of regret in the creature at this memory.
Then she felt something new: a twinge of surprise as Apta touched something else in her mind. There was a sensation of her memories being gently prodded.
Perhaps the Locc intended us to save you, not him. The Nu’s thought echoed briefly in Jira’s mind before disappearing.
Just as quickly as it had begun, the transfer ended. Jira felt wetness and tasted salt on her lips—her own tears. She wiped them away with a clenched fist, looking up through blurry vision at the Nu staring down at her.
“The Federation is shattered,” said Apta. “Dissolved into the shadows. Every link has been broken, every last cell in the core worlds ferreted out and eradicated. The data stores that were so precious to generations of rebels have been discovered and destroyed.”
“All of them?” Jira whispered. If true, it was a fatal blow.
Apta tilted her head. “Every data store ... except for you.”
“Me,” Jira mumbled. “My memory.”
“Yes,” said Apta. “I was surprised to find it. Every piece of data that you have absorbed throughout your life. Every last navchart that you memorized, before the battle at Baro. You’re all that’s left. These are dire times indeed,” said Apta. “And as you can see ... the answers are painful. But what truly matters now is what we must do.”
“And what is that?” Jira said, her body quaking.
The Nu stirred, as if she herself doubted what she was about to say.
“Escape the Empire.”
Chapter 20
He woke up in a darkness that smothered him like a suffocating blanket. He sat up, feeling his muscles protest as he stretched them. He touched his chest. He was wearing something—a uniform. He recognized that much. It was a uniform, cut tight against his body. Running a hand over his chest he felt the sharp, distinct feel of metal insignia.
He licked his lips. He didn’t know what the insignia meant. Or the uniform. He was alone in the darkness, and as he stretched his mind back in time, he felt a growing terror that he could remember nothing ...
Not even his own name.
Now, that was alarming.
That’s something I should know, he thought hazily. He ran a hand through his hair and took a breath. He scanned his body quickly. He had no injuries, at least.
He rested his feet on the floor. He was wearing shoes—boots. His hands rested on a thinly-padded metal bed. Gripping its edges, he wondered for the first time where he was.
Without warning, the darkness turned to blinding white light. He groaned and squeezed his eyelids shut against the sudden change, the light digging and stabbing into his head like daggers.
What’s wrong with my head?
“Sir,” he heard a man’s disinterested voice say. “The admiral is waiting.”
Sir? He walked through the corridors, focused on putting one foot ahead of the other. He couldn’t trust himself to do much more than that.
“Easy,” he muttered to himself. “Easy.”
The man ahead of him turned his head, giving him a dubious look. “Are you alright, sir?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Who’s this ... admiral?”
The better question is: who am I?
“Admiral Karsath,” the man said, as if the name should have meant something to him. As if it was obvious. “He’s requested to meet you as soon as you awoke from the procedures.”
“What procedures?”
“I’ve not been briefed on the details, sir.”
The man stopped talking as they approached a pair of doors. They were wide and heavy. Whoever was behind them, he decided, was important.
Does it even make any difference to me?
His guide waited at the doors until he stepped through them, and then they closed shut. He looked around. He stood now in a magnificent room, a man in a uniform standing at the window on the far side.
The admiral. Must be.
He studied the man as best he could. The admiral had the straight, balanced stance of a man who was used to getting what he wanted, he decided. Something that bordered on arrogance. He wasn’t young, but looked strong.
He looked down at the uniform he was wearing. They echoed each other, although the insignia on his own chest was simpler than that which the admiral wore, and his uniform was of a more basic design.
He lingered near the door, unwilling to approach him.
“Come,” the admiral commanded.
He found his feet moving forward as if he was compelled by an invisible hand. The other man held up a hand as he approached, and his feet stopped.
It was disconcerting, to say the least, to find that his own body no longer obeyed him.
“So,” the admiral said. “That part of it did work. Good.”
He felt a frown pass over his face. “You’re Admiral Karsath,” he said. What else was there to say? He hardly knew anything else.
“I am,” the man confirmed. “And you are ...?”
He licked his lips. He wanted to ask, but it seemed preposterous that he didn’t even know his own damn name.
“Do you remember being in this very same room yesterday?” asked Karsath.
Grudgingly, he shook his head. The answer seemed to satisfy the admiral.
“You want to know who you are,” Karsath said, his eyes glinting. “Don’t you?”
He gave a single, hesitant nod.
“An understandable impulse,” Karsath said. “We humans—we spend our whole lives wondering who we are. What our purpose is, why we live, and why we exist. What our place is in the universe.” He gestured up towards the ceiling of the room and smiled faintly.
“A name?” he tried. “Can you tell me that?”
The admiral continued on. “I have a name for you,” he said. “I have all that and more. A name ... a rank. A mission.
A reason for being, even.” He folded his hands together.
He stared at the admiral. That would explain the uniform, he realized.
Am I a soldier? Have I always been? He touched the collar of his uniform. It was constricting, but wearing it felt as natural as his own skin.
The admiral took a few steps forward, his posture confident. “You, commander, answer to me. Consider me your superior officer. You are suffering amnesia due to your previous mission, where you were sent to infiltrate a Federation cell on the frontier.”
“The Federation?”
The admiral smiled patiently. “You’ll understand everything in due course,” he said. “We rescued you after nearly two years in the underground. You were—and are—one of my most important operatives. We cannot recover most of your old memories, but we can give you new ones. We’ll implant the necessary knowledge in your mind, via direct synaptic transfer. It’s not enough to fill in all the blanks—we can’t give you a childhood again, for example—but it will be enough information to allow you to take up your old role once more. To allow you to serve the Empire.”
The Empire. The Federation. He reached back into the depths of his mind and found nothing.
“You’re whole,” Karsath said. “You’ll observe that there are no injuries on your body. That’s because we healed them all.” He advanced on him. “The mind is a more difficult thing to recover and reconstruct. It will take some time, of course. But we will retrain you. Give you back the things you’ve lost.”
Something in his body and soul lurched at that promise. It was strange to be so utterly devoid of meaning and knowledge. It was unnatural. He had to rebuild, if only to save what scraps remained of his sanity.
Yes, he decided. This feels right. I’m ... missing something.
“I won’t disappoint you, Admiral,” he said as firmly as he could.
He felt the heavy weight of the Karsath’s hand as he rested his hand on his shoulder. “It’s good to have you back again, Commander Southwark,” said the admiral, a knowing gleam in his eye.
Sanctuary's Gambit: The Darkspace Saga Book 2 Page 12