Joe scowled back at him. “Better leave your gear here, Skulls. You can come back for it later if you feel like having some fun.”
Brak stripped naked and cloaked himself, but the spike remained visible, floating in one hand. Invisible fingers closed around it, and the device all but disappeared.
“Good enough,” Joe said. “Let us know when you’re done, and make sure you get the right conduits. They should be marked CC or CC-SYS. If you get lost, send me a message, and I’ll try to guide you from the schematic.”
Brak gave no reply, but Lucien heard a faint whisper of footsteps and felt the air stirring as Brak left.
“Skulls?” Joe asked.
Lucien nodded down to the end of the alley. “He’s already gone.”
“Frekking aliens,” Joe muttered.
Chapter 43
Astralis
Skulls? Joe asked via text message.
But there was no reply.
Brak? Lucien tried.
“Frek it!” Joe said. “Why doesn’t he answer?”
Lucien shook his head. It had been over half an hour with no news from his partner.
“They must have been waiting for us,” Joe said, looking around quickly, as if expecting to find a squad of security officers lurking in the shadows of the alley. He took two quick steps toward Lucien and grabbed him by his shield vest, as if to hoist him up onto tip-toes, but the difference in their heights made that impossible. “Is this some kind of sting?”
“You’re joking, right?” Lucien asked.
Joe sneered and began nodding to himself as if he’d suddenly figured it all out. “That bit about the Faros taking over Astralis was a load of krak, wasn’t it? You’re undercover, trying to pin something on us. Well it’s not going to work. I tape everything that happens in the club. I’ve got a recording of you explaining how all this was your idea.”
“This isn’t a setup,” Lucien growled, and jerked out of Joe’s grasp.
“Then why’s your partner gone dark on us?”
A telltale hiss sounded, and the air beside Joe shimmered. “Boo,” Brak said as he appeared.
Joe almost jumped into Lucien’s arms. “For frek’s sake!” he roared and aimed his rifle at the Gor. “I should shoot you!”
Brak grinned and chuckled darkly. “Gors are hard to kill. You shoot me, I’ll still have time to rip out your throat.”
Joe scowled. “Why didn’t you reply?”
Brak waved a hand over the comm link to make it de-cloak, too. “No signal on the reactor level,” he explained.
“Did you overload the conduits?”
Before Brak could answer, Guntha called to them from where he sat inside the van. “We’ve got the call! I’m starting the clock. Twenty minutes.”
“Everybody in!” Joe barked.
Lucien jumped in the back of the van and buckled up while Joe gave directions to the car. They turned around and went back up the alley to join the main street running by the entrance of the Resurrection Center. From there they drove by the entrance and pulled into the guest parking lot. Joe directed the van to park near the back, in the shadows. Guntha waved the door open and climbed out. He’d changed into a maintenance worker’s coveralls while they’d waited for Brak, so he was ready to go. Guntha walked around the back of the van and retrieved a tool box.
I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got the security disabled, Guntha texted via their comm links.
We’ll be waiting, Joe replied. “Looks like you get to come along, after all, Skulls,” Joe said aloud.
“Yesss...” Brak replied as he retrieved his equipment from where he’d left it littering the floor of the van. Before long he was dressed and ready for action again.
While they waited for Guntha to check in, Fizk popped open the briefcase in his lap to check on his bomb, and Lucien thought to check on his wife.
“Tyra, are you there?” he asked aloud.
“Finally!” she replied. “I was afraid to call and distract you at the wrong moment. Is everything okay?”
“We’re about to go in. No word from Wheeler?”
“No, sorry. You’re on your own.”
Lucien nodded. “All right. I guess—”
Lucien, they’re here... Tyra said, switching to text-only comms.
Who is? Ship security? Stall them. Ask to see their warrant.
Not security. Marines. Graves is with them.
A muffled bang sounded in Lucien’s ear, followed by the sound of Theola crying and Tyra whispering reassurances in their daughter’s ear. They just broke down the front door, Lucien... they’re coming up the stairs!
Hide!
Another bang sounded, followed by Tyra saying, “Don’t shoot! I have a baby!” Then came the muffled screech of weapons fire and a thud. Theola screamed. Another screech of weapons fire sounded, and then her cries cut off sharply.
“Tyra!” Lucien yelled.
No reply.
“Shhh!” Joe hissed. “Are you trying to get us caught?”
Lucien was shocked speechless. Graves had just shot his wife and his baby girl. His mind raced. He must have stunned them. He’d never get away with killing them. But still, if they hadn’t adjusted the intensity of their weapons properly, they could have killed Theola by accident.
“Talk to me, Lucy-lu...” Joe said. “What’s going on?”
Before Lucien could say anything, a gruff voice joined the conversation. “Hello.” It was Graves, speaking to them over their comm links.
“I’ll kill you!” Lucien roared.
“You can’t kill me, Lucien,” Graves replied. “Who else is on the line? Coretti?”
Joe’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.
“Listen up. Security at the Resurrection Center has already been alerted, and in case you think you can get by them, the Marines are on their way. You’re not going to get far, so I suggest you turn back now while you still can, and maybe we can all just forget that this happened.”
“Frek you, Graves,” Lucien said.
“I have your wife and daughter here. If you do somehow expose me, then I’ll expose them—to space. What do you say? Fair trade?”
Lucien gritted his teeth. “If you touch a hair on their heads, I’ll rip you apart!”
Graves laughed at that. “You’re welcome to—”
Joe ripped the comm link from Lucien’s ear.
“What are you doing?” Lucien demanded, swiping at Joe’s hands to grab it back.
The gangster held it out of reach, and he removed the comm unit from his own ear and tossed it aside. “You don’t need to listen to that krak. We need to move. It’s now or never.”
“He has my family,” Lucien said.
“Yeah, and if you give in to him now, he’ll still have them—but he’ll also have everyone else on board.” Joe shook his head. “The faster we pull this off, the faster we can send the authorities after them.”
Lucien shook his head. “I can’t wait that long.”
“Then don’t, but we’ve got a ship to save—with or without you.”
Lucien looked to Brak, feeling torn.
“I go after your family,” he said. “You stay. Get what we came for.”
“Good idea. Take the van,” Joe added.
“Guntha reports that the security system in the ducts is down,” Bob declared.
“We need to move,” Joe said. “Let’s go!”
Everyone piled out of the van except for Brak.
Lucien traded one last look with his partner. “Find them.”
Brak nodded and bared his teeth. “Do not worry.”
Joe waved the door shut and ran, taking Lucien by the arm and dragging him along as he went.
Lucien kept half an eye over his shoulder to watch as the hover van raced off with Brak inside. Lucien’s mind railed at him. He should have been the one in that van racing off to save his family.
They came to a giant vent along the wall of the Resurrection Center. It should have been blasting
waste heat into the garage, but it was dormant now thanks to Brak’s work on the reactor level. The vent was at shoulder height, but Bob reached up and ripped it out of the wall, popping rivets as he did so. The android set the cover aside and then turned to help give Joe a boost up into the duct. Next he helped Fizk climb in with the briefcase bomb. Lucien ignored the android’s attempts to help him up, and grabbed the rim of the open duct to pull himself up. As soon as he was inside, Bob climbed in behind him. Lucien glanced back to see the android pull the vent back up. A bright flash of crimson light illuminated the duct as Bob used one of his pulse pistols to solder the grate back into place.
“Please proceed,” Bob said.
Lucien turned back to the fore and hurried after Joe. As they crawled through the ducts—turning right, left, climbing up, shimmying down—Lucien realized that he had no idea which way they were going, but Joe led the way without hesitation, always knowing exactly where to go. Maybe he was following his stolen schematic, or maybe he had the way memorized. Either way, Lucien was beginning to feel more like the accomplice than the mastermind of this plot.
How was it exactly that Joe already had the van packed with all their equipment just a few hours after they’d supposedly formulated their plan, and several days ahead of schedule?
It was almost like Joe had been planning to execute this plan for some time already when Lucien had come to him with the idea. Joe had admitted this was an old idea that he’d decided not to use, but what if that was a lie? What if he’d caught them in the act of breaking into the Res. Center for their own reasons?
No small coincidence there, but it was possible. If that was the case, then they were using him to add legitimacy to an actual crime.
But what? What could Joe Coretti stand to gain from breaking into the Resurrection Center?
A muffled siren came screaming through the ducts, interrupting Lucien’s thoughts, and Joe called out, “Someone sounded the alarm! They must have figured out that Guntha’s not the repairman they ordered. Let’s pick up the pace, people!”
Chapter 44
Astralis
Director Nora Helios awoke to the sound of her ARCs trilling with an incoming call. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and sat up.
“Hello?”
“The center has been compromised.”
“Ellis? What’s going on?”
“A group of insurgents have broken into the Resurrection Center. They’re looking for evidence. Can they find any?”
Nora considered that. “If they know what to look for, yes. I covered my tracks, but an in-depth search from a terminal inside the records room will uncover us.”
Ellis made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. “Then you’d better make sure they don’t have the chance for an in-depth search.”
“Have you alerted security? Who are the insurgents?”
“Just get to the center.”
“Ellis?”
Connection Terminated flashed before Nora’s eyes, and she jumped out of bed. “Lights!” she shouted, and spent a moment blinking spots from her eyes as she hurried to her closet and got dressed. It would take time to find evidence of who they were. Even if someone reached the records room, they’d have to crack the password to access any of the data.
There’s still time, Nora assured herself.
***
Astralis
“I’m reading multiple lifeforms in the room on the other side,” Bob whispered to them as he gazed through the grille at the end of the duct where they were all waiting. According to Joe, this was it: on the other side of that flimsy metal plate was the records room.
“They’re too late to stop us,” Joe whispered back. “Bob, would you do the honors of announcing our arrival?”
“With pleasure.” Bob shimmied forward and punched out the grate. It landed with a bang, and he jumped down on top of it with his hands already raised above his head.
Lucien scrambled back from the opening just as a tirade of reflexive laser fire flashed into the end of the duct.
“Stop where you are!” one guard boomed.
“I have stopped where I am,” Bob declared.
“This is a restricted area!” a second guard said.
“It is?” Bob asked, sounding confused.
“I’m reading three more in the duct!” a third guard said.
“Come out with your hands up!” the first one ordered.
When none of them replied, another tirade of laser fire streaked into the end of the duct. This time the metal glowed red hot, and the air shimmered with the heat.
“Bob!” Joe yelled. “Enough frekking around!”
“You guards—get out, all of you,” Bob demanded. “Shoo.”
“What did you just say?”
Lucien snorted.
“We have a bomb,” Bob explained. “And we will detonate it if you do not comply with our demands.”
“It’s a bluff,” one guard said.
“It’s not! Check the scans!” another said.
“What are your demands?” the first guard asked.
“That you leave the records room immediately. We’ll communicate the rest of our demands via comms once you have done so.”
Bob didn’t get any more backtalk from the guards. There came a hurried shuffling of armored feet, followed by the sound of a door swishing open—then shut.
“That was easy,” Joe said, and jumped down into the records room. Fizk handed his bomb down and then climbed down after his boss. Lucien went last. He looked around quickly to get his bearings.
“Bob, secure the entrance!” Joe ordered.
“Yes, boss.”
“What now, Lucy-lu?” Joe asked.
The records room was mind-bogglingly large. It was like a maze, with aisles of data storage units extending for at least a kilometer in all directions. “There has to be an access terminal here somewhere...” Lucien said.
“That way,” Joe pointed to a distant speck at the end of the aisle where they’d emerged from the ducts.
“How did you—”
“Schematics,” Joe replied, cutting him off with a wave of his hand. “I’m going to get on the comms and make sure no one tries anything stupid.”
Lucien nodded. “Should be safe to connect our ARCs to the network again.” He started down the aisle to the data terminal, connecting his ARCs as he went. He was just in time to see the comms icon light up with a message on an open channel. Lucien played the message and heard Joe’s voice echoing inside his head.
“People of Astralis, this is Joseph Coretti. I have infiltrated the Resurrection Center with a five kiloton bomb. It’s wired to a dead-man’s switch and it will go off if myself or any of my associates are either stunned or killed. If you try to remove us from the premises by force, we will also detonate the bomb. I have just one demand: I want a film crew from every holonews channel on Astralis to join us here in the records room of the Resurrection Center and bear witness to what we find. You will be shocked to learn that Astralis has been taken over from within, its leaders possessed by aliens.”
Joe went on to explain more about their suspicions, rattling off a list of people they suspected to be infected: Ellis, Stavos, Graves, Director Helios—even Lucien’s five-year-old daughter, Atara.
“I await the arrival of the first film crew,” Joe concluded.
Lucien reached the data terminal at the far end of the room and took a seat there to access the data. The terminal demanded a password to access the data. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? Dread stabbed Lucien’s heart and panic swirled as he struggled to think of a way to get past the password. Fizk arrived and opened his briefcase on the edge of the terminal.
“What are you doing?” Lucien demanded, watching the bomb as if it were a snake about to bite him. Fragile glass cannisters of red and blue liquid explosives were packed inside the case and wired together with a simple pump. It was a binary explosive. If those cannisters broke...
“I’m fixing
your problem,” Fizk explained and withdrew a data wafer from a slot in the padding of the case. He inserted the wafer into a port in the side of the data terminal, and a split second later, the password prompt vanished.
“How did you do that?”
“You wanna sit here discussing the finer points of network security, or are you gonna find what you came for?” Fizk demanded.
Lucien frowned and shook his head, once again shocked by the amount of planning Joe had put into this.
“Well? What are you waitin’ for?” Fizk prompted. “You better find some evidence before those film crews get here.”
Lucien pushed his misgivings aside and set to work. He checked Chief Councilor Ellis’s memories first, and selected the most recent records—uploaded just last night while Ellis slept. Drilling down deeper, he found specific memories and hunted through them. Most of them contained mundane details from his day-to-day life—the meal he’d eaten last night, the cloning bills sitting on his desk, council meetings...
But then things started to get interesting. Lucien found a seemingly innocuous memory from just a few days ago. Lucien watched as the terminal faithfully reproduced the view of an artificial sunset from the pool on the rooftop deck of the councilor’s penthouse in Summerside. Ellis was busy sipping a cocktail and thinking to himself. His thoughts appeared in subtitles below the scene: These humans can even rival us when it comes to luxury. That sounded pretty bad by itself. Lucien flagged that memory, thinking it must contain even more incriminating thoughts—but just one memory wasn’t enough. Ellis could claim they’d planted or altered it. Lucien skipped by it, choosing a more recent memory this time.
It was even more incriminating than the last. It depicted Ellis sitting in the dark, in a hotel room in District One, thinking about a power blackout he’d arranged. His thoughts identified him clearly as Abaddon, and the memory went on to reveal a message he’d sent to someone named Katawa via a Faro communicator that General Graves had stolen from one of the captured alien shuttles.
“Well, well...” Fizk said. “Looks like you were right.”
Dark Space Universe (Books 1-3): The Third Dark Space Trilogy (Dark Space Trilogies) Page 59