Transmuted (Dark Landing Series Book 1)

by Robin Praytor

  “Mister Diak . . . ?” She laughed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe not, but now I know you do. Anyway, that part of it is the ETOC’s concern, and they’ll be here in a few days. You can not talk to them.”

  Curtis spoke to him over his com. “Now would be a good time, Chief.”

  “I am curious about one thing, though,” Drew continued smoothly. “Can you feel the nanoids crawling around inside you? Does your heart still beat like it used to, or does it clank? It’s got to be really creepy knowing you no longer have human organs. Especially knowing, by entering a single line of code, you can be turned off just like Fitz and the others.” He hoped throwing in “the others” would add a layer of uncertainty. Whatever the conspiracy was, it didn’t start and end with Fitz and Mattie. There had to be others.

  He could tell he’d struck a chord. While she didn’t respond, he noted a tightening around her eyes, and her lips parted slightly. Drew thought she looked scared, but he couldn’t be sure. He shrugged and left the room.

  Jones was waiting outside the door. “Leave her in there for another thirty minutes before you take her back to her cell.”

  “That was quick,” Curtis said when Drew returned.

  “She was ready for me. She’s not going to talk, but it surprised her when I packed it in so quickly after the question about Hernandez. I’m hoping she thinks I’m only interested in Hernandez’ murder and don’t really need to question her otherwise. Maybe that’ll give Rostenkowski an edge.”

  ~ ~ ∞ ~ ~

  Several hours later, his com beeped, slowly growing in speed and volume to wake him gently. Drew waited a few beeps until his grogginess subsided.

  “Time?” The beeping stopped and the time and caller was announced in a low, even tone: Two-thirty a.m., Mitchell Jones.

  “Yes, Jonesy.”

  “Sorry, Chief. I thought you’d want to know that Mattie . . . uh, Freelander, wants to talk to you.”

  “Now? She wants to speak with me now?”

  “Yeah, well, she seems a little beaten and I—”

  “That’s okay, Jonesy. You’re right. Tell her I’ll be there in twenty, and make sure the coffee’s fresh.”

  When he arrived at HQ, Drew poured two cups of coffee, one black and one with cream and headed to the cell block. Mattie sat on her cot, shoulders slumped. Jones is right, she looks beat. Why the sudden change?

  As soon as she saw him, she asked anxiously, “Is Fitz really dead?”

  Drew kept quiet as he juggled the coffees and opened her cell door. Handing her the one with cream, he decided to go with the truth, “Not as far as we know.”

  “I didn’t think so. So that bit about my organs . . . you just made that up too, right?”

  “No, Mattie, that’s true.”

  “Yeah, I thought so. I don’t really feel any different, but I knew they’d done something to me. I just didn’t know exactly what or how.”

  “They?”

  “The Diaks.”

  “The Diaks?” Drew leaned back against the cell wall and removed the lid from his coffee, blowing on it gently and then taking a sip. He replaced the lid. “Why don’t we go to my office where we’ll be more comfortable? Then you can start at the beginning.”

  “Drew . . . I, I just want you to know, I’m really sor—”

  “Don’t, Mattie, just don’t.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  In his office, Mattie chose the lounger instead of pulling the chair next to his desk as she normally would. Drew sat with his feet propped up, holding his coffee in both hands for warmth against a sudden chill. When they’d settled, Mattie started without prompting, reminding him how much he used to enjoy hearing her reports.

  “Fitz approached me the first of last year. He told me his sister, Governor Fitzwilliam-Bennett, had asked him to help her. Did you know the governor was Fitz’s sister?”

  Drew nodded. He wanted to keep her talking, and he wasn’t ready to admit he’d only recently learned about Fitz himself.

  “Huh?” She looked surprised. This was the type of station gossip they normally would have shared. “Anyway, he said there was a new alien race petitioning for Alliance membership. But they were technologically advanced beyond the existing members and, while Earth gov knew about them for a while, they kept that knowledge from the rest of the Alliance. So that created a problem.”

  She kept her eyes on her coffee cup as she talked. “By keeping the Diaks a secret, Earth had breached the accord and couldn’t just all of a sudden introduce them. That’s where we came in, Fitz and I. I forged records from the early days of the station, showing that we’d done business with the Diaks a long time ago. You know, the normal entries, acting as intermediary for trade goods and that kind of stuff. That way no one could accuse Earth of keeping their existence a secret. I even created old lease records showing the Diaks had rented office space for several months here. Fitz wanted a lot of detail to make it all seem real.

  As she talked, Mattie displayed an enthusiasm for her story that disturbed Drew.

  She went on. “In the meantime, Fitz and I also started auditing the station’s actual archived records and sending updated files to both CoachStop and Muck, asking them to copy over the old files. The first few we sent them were legitimate. We corrected accounting errors and miss-categorizations, minor things. After a few months, it became so routine neither CoachStop nor Muck thought anything about it.

  “Everything we created about the Diak predated Earth’s membership in the Alliance and the Coalition. Supposedly, the governor was going to slip an entry for them into the Known Races Concordance, but in the wrong category, as if it had been entered incorrectly. That way, if the other Alliance members made a fuss, Earth could say, ‘Sorry, we thought you knew.’”

  She cast a quick glance at Drew, then back to the coffee cup and continued. “This went on for about eight months, and then Fitz said the governor had stumbled on the fact that her predecessor—you know, the guy who died in office—continued conversations in secret with them long after first contact. Some of the advanced technology he described intrigued the governor, and she was negotiating a side deal with the Diak. Fitz hinted at an advancement that would make us wealthy beyond imagination. He couldn’t give me the particulars without the governor’s authorization. I know now most of what he told me was bullshit, but there was some truth to this part. He seemed genuinely excited—like he needed to talk to somebody about it.”

  Drew interrupted her. “Mattie, how could you be so stupid?”

  “It was Fitz, Drew. I mean, really, Fitz. And it felt special to work on a classified project for the Earth governor. I was being paid too. Not a lot, but enough. When I started to suspect something more was going on, I assumed it was on the part of the governor—that Fitz was the one being duped because she’s his sister and he’s such a milquetoast. Anyway . . . it was garbage from the beginning, and I was the sap.

  “I didn’t get really scared until Hernandez was killed. Fitz always approved each new batch of corrected records before I sent them. When I went back and looked more closely at my transmissions, I found encrypted attachments and that all sorts of people were being copied—some on Alliance planets. There was one attachment that Fitz must have miscoded. It contained a map of the Schwarzschild Cluster with coordinates for each wormhole. He’d been using me as a patsy to cover his ass. I realized then that I was a traitor—me, a traitor—and probably an accomplice to murder. When I confronted him, he told me about the big Diak tech advancement that was going to make us rich: immortality.”

  Drew interrupted her again. “That’s what Doc said. The nanoid transmutation might mean near immortality. At least freedom from disease and aging.”

  “Fitz never mentioned nanoids. But I knew for sure I was involved in something way beyond my understanding. He tried to sell me on the notion that he and the governor were heroes. They were saving millions of lives by collaborating with the Diak. That m
ay be true, but I don’t think saving lives was Fitz’s motivation. He and his sister are just greedy and power hungry. You think they were being duped too?”

  Drew ignored her question. “And Hernandez?”

  “Honestly, Drew, I don’t know. I figured after Hernandez’ death it was all connected with Taleen and Speller, but I never figured out how.”

  “We suspect it was Fitz’s head engineer, Justin Ruble, who killed Hernandez,” Drew said.

  She shrugged. “If you say so. So, that’s what you call it, huh? Transmutation?”

  Drew was sickened by how easily she was able to dismiss Hernandez’ murder. He kept it from showing. “That’s what Doc calls it. You didn’t know what was happening to you?”

  “Just before Fitz left for Miranda Station, he told me I was already on my way to immortality. I thought maybe something I ate—”

  “Have you met a Diak?”

  “Nope. And Fitz said he hadn’t either. All I’m sure of is they must be oxygen breathers. When I created the fake lease agreement, Fitz said it should specify that their quarters required a nitrogen-oxygen environment within human tolerance.”

  “Jesus, Mattie.”

  Mattie looked at her hands in her lap without saying anything further.

  After a few seconds of silence, Drew asked, “And the hooker monks?”

  “The what?!”

  The look on Mattie’s face convinced Drew she had no idea what he was talking about. He had a hundred more questions but decided to withhold his speculations about the connection between the Diaks, Letty, and the recent series of events. He’d leave that to the ETOC. He knew they’d have a hundred questions times a hundred more, but no way did Mattie know the full story of what the Diaks, or the governor, were really up to.

  Chapter 27: Reinforcements

  Two Bin TSF, light-armored, corvette-class cruisers arrived and began patrolling around the station and Spud. Drew felt somewhat secure knowing that, between the station’s shielding and the two cruisers, Dark Landing would enjoy short-term protection. So far, only similar light-armored ships had led the attacks. The morning after the Bin ships arrived, the ETOC’s Reagan docked, carrying Anne Rostenkowski and a much heavier armory. The new arrivals contributed to the station’s food and water stocks. Their local problems, at least, continued to improve.

  ~ ~ ∞ ~ ~

  Secretary Rostenkowski took notes while the Dark Landing command staff, along with Letty, filled her in on events over the last two weeks.

  When they finished, she looked up from her processor. “So, Speller . . . ” She paused and glanced at Letty, then started over, her voice softening. “When George connected the nanoid vial gel to the Praetorians, he suspected a wider-based conspiracy and broadened his investigation, literally following the clues to Dark Landing. He instructed Letty to join him here for her protection. George was carrying a sample of nitro. He either didn’t realize the danger or thought he’d neutralized it. For what it’s worth, I agree with your assessment. The airlock explosion was a tragic accident. The ETOC has since learned that infected data vials were shipped to every Alliance planet and Earth concerns beyond Taleen Industries. We’re rounding up members of the Praetorian sect for questioning, and to be scanned as well now, but it’s looking like they were infiltrated. Their membership had no knowledge that their data gel formula was tampered with.”

  She glanced back at her processor. “The Diaks learned of George’s investigation, possibly through his research on the Praetorian monks, which triggered an attempt on George’s life when he was on Mars. When George died, they needed to take out Letty in case he’d shared what he knew with her. They missed Letty but killed Hernandez. Hernandez’ killer was Chief Fitzwilliam’s engineer, Justin Ruble, who Fitzwilliam may have in turn dispatched before he left Dark Landing.”

  Drew interjected. “We’re guessing about Ruble and Fitz. It’s possible Fitz wasn’t the one in charge here.” Eyebrows raised around the room. “What? We don’t know for certain. Yeah, it looks that way, but . . . ” Drew’s face scrunched in frustration and he waived at Anne to continue. Why am I defending Fitz? He promptly dismissed the thought. He wasn’t defending Fitz, he was defending himself for being an idiot. Anne was still watching him. Drew threw his hands up—what are you waiting for?

  Secretary Rostenkowski nodded. “The Diaks, or their co-conspirators, possibly Fitzwilliam himself, . . . ” she tossed a quick glance at Drew, then went on “ . . . contacted Muck impersonating an ETOC officer to further deflect inquiry. That’s an awful lot of speculation, but some version of it makes sense. With the Taleen research into the data breach, George’s personal investigation, and his and Letty’s arrival at the station, the bad guys—Diaks, co-conspirators, whoever—”

  A calmer Drew spoke up again. “We’re calling them “bogeymen.”

  Rostenkowski smiled. “Okay then, the Diaks and whoever is in bed with them, hereafter collectively known as the bogeymen, stepped-up attacks on outlying colonies and ships. Up to this point, we assume the bogeymen were operating on a less aggressive timeframe toward disrupting the Alliance, pitting us against one another and destroying our economies along the way. The ETOC believes, after studying vids recovered from several of the attacks, particularly the attack on the Temperance, that Diak nano-technology is sufficiently advanced to equip their ships with . . . I guess you’d call it shape-altering . . . capabilities to imitate Alliance member and Muck ships.

  “I’ve sent each of you a list of the attacks which we now attribute to the Diaks, along with fatality numbers. Of primary concern is that we’ve got survivors on several outposts cut off without supplies. Letty, I’d like to speak to you about that a little later.”

  Secretary Rostenkowski took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “So . . . we can guess that the Diak’s goal is to divide in the short term and ultimately conquer. About their race, we know only that they are aggressive, technologically advanced, have successfully recruited human and probably alien conspirators, most likely by promising immortality and riches—a heady inducement. They also displayed a cheeky conceit by disclosing their identity through Brother Diak and our informant, Mr. Diak. Perhaps they’re the same person. There are likely other instances of which we’re unaware. Oh, and we believe the Diaks are oxygen breathers, but we don’t have a clue what they look like. My men are questioning Mattie Freelander and the three, uh . . . monks? . . . but I doubt we’ll learn more. We haven’t had any luck decoding the attachments Fitzwilliam added to Freelander’s audit reports either.”

  She sat back in her chair and surveyed the group. For a second her facial features sagged, revealing acute levels of exhaustion and dread. She quickly regained composure and continued. “When it comes to the nanoids, the Alliance, and perhaps the entire K.U., was invaded to an extent still unknown. Spreading their nanoids through sex and technology might have been a fait accompli if we hadn’t caught on when we did. Though, it would have come to light soon. Medical communities across the Alliance, to larger and lesser extents, are discovering the nanoids presence—transmutation as you’re calling it—and reporting it. The growing consensus is that an Alliance member developed the technology and somehow accidentally released it. So far, no one’s enlightened them otherwise. And as far as I know, no one’s made the connection with cold/rash symptoms yet. The ETOC’s main concern is discovering the extent of the invasion and stopping its spread.”

  Her manner changed from monotone briefing mode to a more sobering delivery. “I received intelligence a few hours ago on the high probability the Diaks can remotely control the nanoids. Taleen researchers believe the ones infecting our technology serve as communications boosters for transmitting commands to infected biological subjects. Much like the superconducting communication relays we deploy. Smart. If their nanoids had spread undetected, they would have communication links in every corner of the K.U.”

  Rostenkowski paused a few moments to let the new information sink in, then continued. “Where d
oes that leave us? Bin, Camdu, Bahdane, and Earth are talking to one another. Fahdeen seems to be the hold out, but Earth is sharing information with them as we learn it, and they’ll come around soon. For all intents and purposes, Muck has disbanded except for roughly half of their security forces. Those remaining are operating independently to aid evacuees as much as they can with limited resources. Good for them. If . . . when . . . the Alliance re-alliances—is that a word?—the Coalition will probably be back in business as well.”

  As he listened to Rostenkowski, it occurred to Drew he needed to reassess his opinion of Muck, or at least their security division. They evidently weren’t the evil-doers he suspected. That’s one more example of poor judgment on my part. He refocused on her sum-up.

  “We’re reaching out to the unaligned planets to warn them. But due to the distances involved and our cultural and biological differences, we couldn’t come to each other’s aid regardless. We don’t know yet if, or to what extent, they may be suffering the same crises.

  “With internal chaos and distrust between members, all five aligned worlds are experiencing economic setbacks, and each has weak militaries and defensive capabilities. Every member is struggling to find resources to strengthen those capabilities, as well as to scan entire populations for nanoid infection. And we haven’t agreed on how to inform our populations. Plus we still need to deal with infected technology which, from my, the ETOC’s, official standpoint, is the easier task. Then there’s the biggie: How much time do we have to accomplish all of the above?

  “I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that Governor Fitzwilliam-Bennett is missing. Have I left anything out?”

  The room was silent.

  ~ ~ ∞ ~ ~

  Doc and Curtis excused themselves to return to their offices. Rostenkowski pulled Letty aside for a private conversation about continuing support from the TSF in aiding stranded colonists.

  Drew scanned the ETOC’s list of locations and ships attacked by the Diaks. One location jumped from the screen. Prosse! No survivors. Ah, Toby . . . poor kid. What are we going to do with you now? His thoughts dwelled on Toby’s misfortune for several minutes then wandered to Fitz and Mattie. Are the Diaks controlling them through the nanoids? Is that why Mattie was so callous about Hernandez’ murder? He hoped so. He wanted to believe neither had acted on their own volition.