“But . . . I knew they would shoot at us. I wanted to protect Burns.”
“You did what anyone with the capacity to lead would have done. You knew there would be casualties, and you tried to minimalize the risk.”
He talked to me so calmly, so sure of himself. Was it because he thought I was going to die and wanted me to be at peace?
We reached the roof’s door long before the soldiers caught up to us, but we had no idea if anything waited on the other side. There was no turning back. Burns put her hands on the door’s handle.
“Wait,” Trent said. “Larson, you go first, make sure there aren’t any soldiers waiting for us.”
Larson looked from Trent to Burns, then nodded. Were they thinking the same thing I was—that Burns was too valuable to lose?
He pushed open the door and white light filled the narrow stairwell. No attacks came.
The roof was enormous. Pipelines and platforms had been built into its structure. I heard gunshots again and cries for help below us. Accompanying that were loud engines flying by the buildings, but not high enough for us to see. The fight had evolved to air as well as ground.
“Over there,” someone said. “We can hold them off behind those sections of wall.”
I looked across the platform, and there were high walls, possibly a housing area for electrical equipment or something of that nature. We stepped toward it and the sound of an engine grew louder from behind us. We turned to see a circular vessel with short wings and turret guns on the dorsal side rise over the building. A ramp lowered to reveal a dozen men holding rifles, their uniform reminiscent of the kind I saw when I landed. Gaian military uniforms.
“Oh . . . oh . . .” Greene panicked.
“Run!” Burns screamed. We ran across the platform as the ship opened fire. Weapon fire exploded on the roof and concrete flew up toward us. Then multiple rounds of plasma burned into Larson’s back. He fell. Another shot hit Trent in the leg and he fell, taking me with him. He screamed and I forced my head to turn toward the other council members. They made it safely to the walls. Not that it mattered now. The ship could alter its direction and fire on them at point blank range.
The weapons on the ship stopped and the soldiers on the ramp jumped to the ground. Beside them, from the stairwell door, another dozen men walked onto the roof. The fight was over.
The sound of a second engine roared its way behind us, in front of the council. We were trapped with nowhere to go. The only question was, would they take us as prisoners or kill us here and be done with it?
I saw a moment’s hesitation from the soldiers on the roof before multiple plasma rounds shot and destroyed the Gaian vessel. Another round shot toward the ground, taking down a number of soldiers. I turned, expecting to see a Terran ship.
And there was the Kestrel Belle.
How? When? The ship spin on its axis as the cargo bay door opened. Terran soldiers leapt out, led by Commander Reynold Scott. The men hit the ground and opened fire on the enemy who scattered and took shelter in the stairwell and against the platform.
“Advance on the enemy!” Scott ordered, stepping over me. “The two of you get Quinn and the council out of here!”
Arms grabbed me and pulled me up, and I heard a familiar voice.
“Ni ja ti-oh?”
Tress.
Then I heard another voice that warmed my heart, despite my pain and discomfort.
“Daniel,” Autumn said. “Daniel, oh my . . . We need to get him out of here now. Take him.”
Tress dragged me toward my ship where the council had already jumped onboard. I looked back to see Autumn grab Frank Trent and help him. We all piled in the cargo bay as Scott’s men and the enemy exchanged shots.
“Come on!” Autumn screamed.
“Just go! Just go now!” Scott waved violently and turned back to the enemy, covering our retreat. Tress ran to the side of the room and threw up the lever. The doors started to close as he pressed the communicator and said something. Whatever he said, the ship turned and soared away from the firefight.
“Daniel . . . please say something,” Autumn pleaded. My vision grew darker.
“Who the flux . . . is flying my ship?”
Seventeen
I awoke in my bed and felt like someone dragged me through muck and grime and filled my head with sludge. Foggy light filled the room, or was my sight blurry? Any attempt to get up failed, as if my body didn’t want to continue.
What happened? I tried to drag memories through the thickness inside my mind.
“Captain.”
The voice was the last thing I expected to hear. A wave of emotion rolled its way through my body, up my chest, and into my eyes. Tears fell as easily as turning on a tap.
“Al . . . Al, is it really you?” My throat burned as I said the words with a terrible rasp.
“It is agreeable to see that you are well, Captain,” Al said. He was okay. I couldn’t believe it.
“Al, oh flux, Al. I can’t . . . was it the engineers? The engineers repaired you?”
“In a manner of speaking, sir. During the attack by the Leondren vessel, the computer console was damaged, and as such, my database was placed in a secure environment to prevent data loss.”
I couldn’t describe the relief I felt from hearing his voice again, like an old friend had come home. I never knew his mainframe kept a secure backup storage when the computer was damaged. What else didn’t I know about him?
Without thinking, I leaned over to my left and pain shot up my arm. I turned to the other side quickly to relieve the pressure and saw Autumn. I didn’t even know she was in the room. She was lying down a couple of feet away from me, not on my bed, but on a stack of mattresses that must have come from the crew quarters. When our eyes met, her lips lifted into a wide grin.
“Hey, you,” she said, her voice music to my ears. I returned the smile. I forced my left arm forward, through the pain, to see the damage. A line of binding staples ran down my upper arm. My shirt’s sleeve was torn at the shoulder and the fabric was stained ruddy red. Dried blood crusted my skin.
“I don’t want to offend you or anything, but you really . . . really need a shower.”
I laughed. My arm and leg pulsed with pain as I did, but it felt good. My ship, Al, Tress, and Autumn were all okay. We survived the attack.
“The council?” I asked.
“Amanda Burns, Samantha Greene, Loral Rider, Frank Trent, and Eric Townsend are all that remain,” she said and diverted her gaze to the wall.
I sighed. Six dead members. The council had been cut in half.
“How is Trent?”
“Better than you,” she replied, looking up at me again. “His leg took a nasty hit, but you had enough medical supplies on the ship to stabilize him. As for you, we didn’t know if you were going to make it.”
She held up her left arm, which had an IV line hooked into it. Red filled the tubing, which connected her to me.
“You saved me,” I whispered.
“Yeah, well, there’s still a war going on, and you seem to be doing a good job of keeping people alive,” she said with a small smile.
Except for Smith, Larson, and your father, I thought. There was still something I had to admit to her. Despite my feelings when we were together, a small wall of guilt stood between the two of us, only she didn’t yet realize it. There was no better time than now to break that wall. “I threatened your father.”
Her smile faltered and lifted her head up slightly. “When he found me, I was afraid,” I continued before she could stop me, “Afraid of why another human would want to see me. So much happened in my life. When he found me, I pulled out my gun and pointed it at him. When he was shot, his last cognitive thought could have been that I was the one who pulled the trigger.”
She looked away toward the bare, steel ceiling of my quarters and pursed her lips. I didn’t see any tears or trembles. I couldn’t tell if she was upset or sad, but I expected her to pull out the IV and leave
, or scold me for being an ignorant, selfish man. Instead, she took a deep breath and looked into my eyes again.
“Would you have killed my father if Granak hadn’t?”
“What? No . . . it was a bluff. I just wanted to stay away from everything.”
“Thank you for telling me. I wish he died under better circumstances, but he knew the risk he was taking by leaving Terra. Instead of dwelling on what happened between you and my father, try to focus on how you reacted, and what you did for him.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What did you do after my father died? Did you leave his body? Escape the planet and go live your life in isolation elsewhere?”
“No, but—”
“There is no but, Daniel. You brought him home, tried to protect the council, looked after me. Stop trying to destroy yourself by focusing on the negative. Don’t live in the past. Live in the here and now.”
She was right. I did everything I could to honor Damon’s memory. It would have cost me my life if the Belle hadn’t flown in to save the day . . . which reminded me.
“Who was flying my ship?” I asked. She looked away.
“I don’t feel I’m the person to tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Listen, you’ve been through a lot. I never even realized some of the things you lived through, but you need to take it slow. Let yourself get a little better before we start to unravel this . . . whatever this is.”
There were things that frustrated me more than others. For example, being lied to or being betrayed. Another thing was being kept in the dark. I wanted to frown, narrow my eyes and demand to know what was going on, whether Autumn knew the answer or not, but I forced my lips into a pleasant grin.
“Autumn. I want to know who had control of my ship.”
She didn’t argue.
“Al, is it?” she asked as she looked up at the ceiling. “Could you send him to Daniel’s room, please?”
“Acknowledged, Ms. Derringer.”
I almost smiled again hearing Al’s voice, but I didn’t. I wanted answers.
And I got them. With one look to the man who saved me and the council, I got answers to the biggest questions. Who had my ship, and who told Damon Derringer where to find me? I almost didn’t recognize him through the thick grey beard and long salt-and-pepper hair. The engineer I met walking off the Belle, the one who awkwardly kept his hand on my shoulder a moment longer than I expected, the one who knew enough about Al to fix him.
In the doorway of my quarters stood the first captain I’d served under, the captain whom Sarah King mutinied.
Gregory Smithson.
He wore a dull gray uniform with black stripes along the collar and down his chest. He held his hands behind his back. The corner of his mouth showed the slightest of smiles.
“C-c-c,” I tried to speak, but words failed. The last time I saw Captain Smithson was the first day I flew into space on the Kestrel Belle, after he finished installing Al.
“Hello, Daniel,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”
“C-c-c . . . How?” I finally blurted out.
“We have a little time,” he said. “You need to rest, and then we’ll talk.”
Before I could answer he left, and for a second I was sure the image had been nothing more than a ghost. But Autumn slowly stood and knelt beside my bed, brushing her fingers through my hair.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Why is it every time a question gets answered, it just brings up more questions?”
She laughed and reached for a glass of water waiting on a bedside table. She handed it to me and told me to drink slowly, which of course, I didn’t. I turned the glass upside down and half of it splashed onto my face. It felt good, both in my mouth and on my skin. I returned the glass and let my arm fall to the ground to press it against the deck. No vibration whatsoever.
“Where are we?”
“Gaia,” she said.
“Gaia?”
“A lot’s happened. Terra and Gaia are going to declare full-scale war in a matter of days.”
Eighteen
Twelve hours passed before I managed to push myself out of bed. Tress took Autumn’s place by my side, and when I asked him where she was, he told me the blood transfer made her tired and she was resting in the crew quarters. I tried to stand up by myself, but despite me telling Tress to stay back, he insisted on helping me.
He told me about the day I left him with the engineers. After Autumn and I cleared the docking platform, the men got to work on the ship. Gregory Smithson revealed himself and told Tress who he was and how he fit into the equation. He proved his story by accessing data from the computer’s records, and before long, Tress helped Smithson and the other engineers repair the Belle.
I wanted to tell Tress to be more careful, to always have his guard up and watch who he trusted, but it felt like scolding a child who was responsible for saving my life. We walked down the corridor toward the docking bay. I wanted to see Gaia for myself, and find Smithson to ask him questions.
For all the technology Terra had, Gaia compensated in natural economic growth. The Gaians were farmers, first and foremost, and carried only enough technology for defense. What waited for me outside the cargo bay doors?
In short, nothing. I expected to see a field of green, maybe a lush forest or a thriving farming community. Instead, I saw death. Dark clouds covered the sky. The grass and trees in the distance were gray and wasting away. I stepped off the ramp and everything beneath my feet crunched to ash.
“What happened here?” I asked.
“The Gaians would tell you that the Terrans committed this act of terrorism,” Smithson said. I turned to find him walking toward me. Behind him stood a small off-white house, bright against all the decay. “Two days ago, the fields and plants all began to die, and soon after, Gaia’s rich resources were destroyed.”
Stars above. All data on Gaia and its culture told me how much Gaians depended on their economics and harvesting. How many years did it take to build and grow all the vegetables and grain, only to have it reduced to waste in two days?
“Terra was attacked, lives lost . . . and Gaia’s ecosystem was destroyed?”
“Doesn’t seem fair, does it?” Smithson crossed his arms and stared into the distance. “Each planet was hit where it would hurt the most. Terra was always the boiling pot, ready to overflow if heated too much.”
I was still unable to believe that my old commanding officer was here, and had saved my life. The way he talked, so sure of himself and confident, made me feel like a Lieutenant again. I wanted to salute him, shout out, “yes sir!” as he spoke to me, but I reminded myself that years had passed since we were last together. I had changed, and I could only assume at the time that he did, too. I was a captain now and I had to force myself to act like one.
“Why is this happening? What’s to gain from Terra and Gaia killing each other?”
Smithson stood there a moment, mulling over my question. He took in a deep breath and turned back toward what I assumed was his home.
“Come with me, Daniel.”
Smithson’s house appeared to be small on the outside, but it was more than spacious inside. A short hall branched into multiple rooms. The farthest room in the back held the most commotion. I recognized the voices of the council.
“They’re all safe?” I asked.
“You saved them, Daniel.” He gave me a small smile and led me to an enclosed room on the right. The technology that welcomed me inside was more advanced than any computer I had on the Belle. Except for Al, of course. A touch screen desk, much like the one I saw in Scott’s office, sat in the middle. A large video screen hung on the wall behind it. Every corner of the room had some kind of electronic equipment. One looked like a map of Gaia, another showed a tactical display of the surrounding area, and the others I couldn’t tell, but their bright lights and countless buttons looked impressive. Smithson walked behind his desk and sat
in his chair.
“So, I’m sure you have questions,” he said, folding his hands together.
That was an understatement. I had an entire log of questions, though looking at the room, my former superior officer, and reeling from all that happened left me a little speechless. I forced my mind to come up with something to say.
“Are you a native Gaian?”
“No, they would have found me long ago if that was the case. I was born on Earth, grew up there, but I had family on Terra. When Sarah King came looking for me, they went there first.”
“I noticed you used the word ‘had,’” I said.
His eyes focused on the ground. “Two of my cousins and their families were on the planet. King thought that she could lure me out by threatening their lives. When I refused . . . she followed through with her plan.”
By his own admission, his failure to act caused the death of his family. Frozen in the moment, I wondered how anyone could let their family die, no matter the cost.
“What do you know about Sarah King, Daniel?”
The abrupt question pulled me out of my trance and my memories focused on moments of agony and pain. Sarah King imprisoned me and blamed me for the murder of an ESA officer, Ashley. In truth she was behind it all—a plot to take over the ESA’s flagship Echelon and take control of the artificial intelligence program. Al.
“Except for the memories . . . I know a little. She is determined, a seasoned strategist, and a cold-hearted bitch.”
“And her group? Do you know anything about the people she works with?” I shook my head. “Have you ever heard the term ‘Infinity’ before?”
My mind flashed to recent moments, the infinity symbol on the mercenaries’ outfits, the ones who attacked in the docking tower after I landed, and then later during the parade when a man dressed as a Sentinel muttered the words, “The path to Infinity is endless.” At the time, the phrase confused me.
“I’ve searched hundreds of databases, maybe close to thousands,” Smithson continued. “And I only came across the name Infinity five times. They are a rogue faction of humans and one of their top operatives, maybe even their leader, is—”
Antagonize (From the Logs of Daniel Quinn Book 2) Page 16