Shades of Allegiance

by Sandy Williams

  “Half the member planets have left the Coalition,” Katie said.

  “What?” he whispered.

  “We don’t know how the information leaked, but it’s out there now. Minister Prime Tersa had to acknowledge it. Almost immediately, senators began pointing fingers at other senators. Protests and riots have broken out across the KU. Citizens are demanding resignations and complete self-governance. If we weren’t at war with the Sariceans, more planets would have left.”

  “That…” He stared at the screen—at the montage of angry crowds, burning buildings, and graffitied spaceports—and shook his head. “No, that couldn’t be what they wanted.”

  The Dynasty wanted to destroy the Coalition, but they didn’t want knowledge of their existence to spread.

  “What who wanted?” Arek asked.

  Rykus rubbed his forehead. “I need to get a message to Tersa.”

  “Tersa has plans to capsule here,” Arek said. “The war chancellor and high magistrate will accompany her. Meryk is no longer safe.”

  “Caruth is hardly safe,” Katie muttered. “All loyalty-trained anomalies have been ordered to return.”

  Ash had warned this would happen. She’d believed from the beginning that the revelation of telepathy would destroy the Coalition.

  “How are they taking this?” He waved toward the monitor.

  “Some of them are okay,” Katie said. “Some of them haven’t responded to the summons. We’re getting in touch with their unit commanders, but with so many planets seceding from the Coalition, there’s massive disorder.”

  “You’ve tried contacting Ash?”

  “Every message has bounced,” Arek said.

  “Bounced?”

  “An immediate and direct return. She doesn’t want to be contacted. She doesn’t want to be found.”

  “You’ve leaked that I’m alive to the media?”

  “You’ve been mentioned,” Arek said. “Per the minister prime, your injuries and status were not reported.”

  “Why not?”

  Katie snorted. “You are supposedly helping the Javerians liberate their star system.”

  The nausea doubled. The Coalition was falling apart. They might not be able to help the Javerians oust the Sariceans.

  Rykus reached for his recovery drink. It wasn’t helping enough. There was too much to take in, too many conversations he needed to have, too much he needed to do. He needed a few millennia of rest to scrape up enough energy to comprehend it all, but he didn’t have that time. He could only focus on one thing, so he started with the most important.

  “Tell me about Ash’s movements.”

  There had been no sign of Ash in five days. Rykus had been conscious for the past two.

  He sat at a U-shaped table with Minister Prime Tersa, War Chancellor Bayis, a representative from I-Comm, and the remaining three instructors of Caruth. Javko had returned with his anomalies that morning. Their search of Prenek City’s industrial district hadn’t led to any new information on Ash or Rohn and Valt’s whereabouts.

  Rykus stared at the planetary map. Caruth wasn’t a small world. The continent the base occupied was the least populous but still hosted over a billion inhabitants. The three larger continents had even more, with multiple billion-person cities scattered across them. Ash could be in any one of them.

  She could also be dead.

  He tightened his grip on the cane resting across his lap. No. She was out there, finishing her mission to capture Rohn and Valt. He refused to believe she was gone.

  He refused to believe she had snapped.

  If he could just talk to her, he could bring her home. Take care of her. But she still wasn’t accepting messages.

  “Commander.”

  Rykus looked up. Minister Prime Tersa had been speaking.

  He loosened his grip on the cane. “Say that again.”

  Her mouth thinned. “We were discussing the possibility of using the psyche-masks to unlock more anomalies. Is that something you think can be done?”

  “Ash unlocked Hagan. She can unlock others. We should focus on finding her.”

  “We are focused on it—”

  “She’s probably left Caruth by now.”

  Tersa rested her arms on the table. “Every ship and shuttle that departs the planet is intercepted and searched.”

  “She knows how to fly dark.”

  “So do we,” Javko put in. “She’s not getting off this planet. Neither will Rohn or Valt.”

  Rykus looked at the other instructor. Both Javko and Keen had been giving him support, providing him with intel, exchanging ideas on Ash’s movements. Neither man gave him false assurances though. They thought she’d snapped, and with every day that passed, they believed more and more that she was dead. He couldn’t convince them otherwise.

  “The psyche-masks are a bad idea,” Rykus said, giving up the argument for now. “They always have been.”

  He turned back to the planetary map.

  What are you doing, Ash?

  Rykus set the flattened comm-cuff Tahn had given him on the desk so he wouldn’t throw it, then he braced his fists to either side.

  The cuff had been carefully removed from his wrist while he was unconscious. He wasn’t supposed to have it—it was supposed to remain in the isolation chamber—but I-Comm had given up on finding Ash. They thought she was somewhere rotting away in a ditch.

  It had been twenty-six standard days since her last booster. That was longer than when she’d been imprisoned aboard the Obsidian. She’d had withdrawals then. She’d be having them now. She’d need to report in just so her body didn’t go into shock.

  Unless she’d taken a booster off one of Rohn’s anomalies.

  In addition to the case Rykus had found on the man he’d restrained in the armory, they’d located two more on other deceased anomalies. I-Comm had questioned a couple of Rohn’s men who hadn’t yet been loyalty trained. They’d been less than helpful. Rohn, apparently, had been tinkering with their minds for the past year, and all they had been able to pry from them was that he had given them targets to kill after they graduated. The list of names included Ash and Rykus, so when one of the anomalies saw them enter the institute, he let his instructor know. That’s how Rohn knew he and Ash had been coming for him.

  Rykus fidgeted with the comm-cuff. He’d tried to contact Ash with it. His was the same model as hers. They had the same software installed and should recognize signals from the other, but he’d received the same immediate bounced message as all his other attempts.

  Had Ash found a way to remove hers?

  Out of desperation, he’d tried to contact Tahn. The telepathic crime lord hadn’t responded. He might not be in system anymore. It was crawling with Coalition ships and hired privateers.

  Rykus lowered himself into a chair. He was out of leads. Tersa wanted him to return to the Javery System. Intelligence reports said his family hadn’t been captured, and someone was mounting a good resistance against the Sariceans. He wasn’t needed, and even if he went, he wouldn’t be very useful. His mind would be too focused on what was happening back here.

  He slid the comm-cuff back into its signal-blocking case. No. He couldn’t leave. Not without closure.

  He was staring at the center of his room’s narrow table, trying to gather the energy to get up and return the cuff to the isolation chamber, when his new, Coalition-issued comm-cuff vibrated. A capsule had arrived in-system a few hours ago. The public data upload had finished, and now private messages were being pushed out. He had several to read through. Only one caught his attention: an encrypted message from Glory.

  He flicked the message to his room’s screen, hope and nausea churning in his gut.

  A somber, weary-looking Bian appeared.

  That physical ache, the one that hurt more than his leg and hip, returned to stab at his chest. Of course it wouldn’t be Ash. It made no sense for her to sneak away from Caruth to return to her home world halfway across the universe.
<
br />   Bian adjusted his patriarch robes and sat in front of the vid for a few long minutes. Rykus almost forwarded the message, but when he reached to tap the button, Bian finally spoke.

  “Emmit gave me a comm-cuff. Apparently, Ash insisted I have it if she didn’t report in. She’s most likely dead—again—and she’s still a rotting rhilda.” The patriarch grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’m sure she’s getting a laugh out of this.”

  Bian rubbed his forehead. “I’m supposed to contact you for help. She said you have enough influence to get something done. Knowing who you are now, I suppose that’s true.” He held up Ash’s cuff, his knuckles white around its strap. “She left me the code to the causeway. I could pretend I didn’t have it if she hadn’t also set up an account to pay close to a hundred Gloridians a livable wage to protect the House. We have a target painted on us now. Chace is… Surprisingly, he’s okay with the situation. He’s trying to help. A few other unexpected individuals are as well. Chace has them convinced it’s what Ash would want. Maybe that’s true.”

  Bian set the cuff down in front of him and stared at it. After a moment, he said, “It’s humbling knowing someone like Ash can change. I should have seen it, but…” He gave a grim smile and raised his shoulders.

  Ash hadn’t wanted Bian to see. She hid who she was from everyone but him.

  Rykus’s fists tightened in his lap. It felt like he had one wedged against his heart.

  Bian drew in a breath. “We need help. When the bosses organize, a hundred Gloridians won’t be enough protection. I don’t want them to protect us. They’ll die. Others will too. We’re here to seek out the God-touched planet, not to bring harm to his people. We need a show of force and technology that will dissuade the bosses and their dregs from attacking. We need medication and an uncorrupted government. And this planet needs infrastructure and not to be treated as a wasteland.”

  “I don’t know how much you can do, but bringing Glory to the attention of the right people should help. It’s a member of the Coalition. That’s unstable right now. With it losing planets, they might want to strengthen ties with others. If the people here are given hope, food, shelter, and jobs that don’t have a high chance of maiming or killing them, they can become good citizens. I sincerely believe that.” Bian rubbed a hand over his face, then looked at the vid again. “She loved you, Commander. I am sorry for your loss.”

  The vid clicked off.

  Rykus stared at the black screen. His chest felt hollow. It was a sensation that threatened to spread to the rest of his body, but he fought it. He fought against the emptiness, the numbness, the resignation that would mean he accepted Ash’s death. He wouldn’t.

  Ash was immortal. She didn’t know how to die.

  30

  Rykus’s cane hit the ground in a louder-than-necessary rhythm, echoing off the detention center’s walls. He hoped the force of the cane’s impact cracked the fucking floor.

  Two days. They’d had Rohn for two damn days and Bayis had just now called to let him know.

  He spotted the war chancellor at the end of the hall, alone except for two almost invisible security guards stationed outside the cell.

  Bayis stopped him with an upraised hand. “If I let you in, you can’t kill him.”

  “You’ve been interrogating him for two days. You have what you need.” He was going in that fucking door even if he had to take down both guards.

  “You can’t kill him,” Bayis repeated. “The minister prime doesn’t want you here. I’m going out on a tether for you. Don’t make me regret it.”

  Rykus’s jaw clenched. He respected Bayis. They’d served together on the Obsidian, an old presentient ship they’d intended to use against the Sariceans’ advanced warships. Bayis might be in government now, but calling Rykus in the middle of the night wasn’t going to win him favors from the other politicians. Rykus owed him.

  “Understood,” he forced himself to say.

  Bayis remained blocking the door. Rykus kept his face impassive, his cane gripped loosely in his hand.

  “When the light turns red,” Bayis finally said, “the neurologists believe he’s using his telepathy.” He held out a remote. “This will trigger a nerve disk attached to his arm. The light will go back to green. See if you can get him to talk about the Sariceans.”

  Bayis stepped aside.

  Rykus took the remote, then set his cane beside the door. His regen cast had been removed the day before. He still needed the cane, but hell if he’d use it in front of an enemy.

  Ignoring the agony flaring along his entire right side, he entered the cell.

  Rohn looked up. The doctors had shaved his head and attached over two hundred sensors to his scalp. They came together in a thick cord at his neck, then traveled to an outlet on the back wall. Beside it, a light glowed a steady green.

  “Commander Rykus,” Rohn said. “I didn’t think they’d let you in.”

  Rykus set the remote on the table, then lowered himself into the chair. He’d met Rohn briefly when he’d been on-planet loyalty training Ash for the second time. Rohn had been pleasant then, and he’d seemed competent enough. The man had lost weight and muscle mass though, and he’d taken a beating at the hands of Ash.

  That’s how they’d found him. An anonymous tip to the police force in a city on the other side of the planet.

  Rohn stared at the remote on the table, then lifted his gaze. “You want to know if she’s snapped.”

  “Where’s Valt?” Rykus asked. If he found Valt, he’d find Ash. That’s all that mattered.

  “I offered to fix her,” Rohn said. “I-Comm wasn’t interested.”

  “She doesn’t need to be fixed.”

  The cables attached to Rohn’s scalp shifted when he tilted his head. “The anomaly I saw wasn’t sane.”

  “She was sane enough to track and capture you.”

  His mouth twisted. “She didn’t take my bait. Thought for sure she would go after Valt, not me. He’s the one you should be talking to.”

  “You’re in control of your quality of life,” Rykus said. “You can spend the next few decades in a cold, empty cell, or you can have a bed and a bucket to piss in.”

  Rohn glanced at the remote again. “I won’t be in Coalition custody forever. This”—he shook his head, moving the attached cables—“won’t tell you when a telepath comes near. You don’t know how far we’ve infiltrated. You don’t know how high up our influence goes.”

  “When we get Valt,” Rykus said, “you won’t be needed anymore.”

  “You need me to find him. You need me to find her.”

  “Was it his idea to feed us false information about the Sariceans, or was it yours?”

  Rohn let out a laugh that turned into a phlegm-rattling cough. “I heard Ysbar Station didn’t go well. Your minister prime was so certain that it would.”

  Rykus had studied the vids of Valt’s loyalty training and subsequent interviews. He’d made a good show of resisting Rohn’s questions, but there had been a whole other conversation going on outside their spoken words. When you looked for it, the long pauses, the flashes of frustration, and the almost imperceptible tilts of their heads made it obvious.

  “I think it was Valt’s,” Rykus said. “He’s more cunning, while you’re brute strength. You might have loyalty trained him, but he knows how to manipulate you. It sounds like he’s been manipulating all the New Guard.”

  The last part was a guess on Rykus’s part, but Valt had come off defensive in the vids, like all his actions had been justified. Rykus had seen that attitude before in soldiers facing reprimand. He would bet money Valt had gone outside the New Guard’s chain of command.

  Rohn’s eyes narrowed. The light behind him flashed from green to red, then quickly back to green.

  “How did you learn about us?” Rohn asked.

  “Where did you send Valt?”

  Rohn’s smile stretched his lips, opening a cut on his bottom lip. “You first, Commander.”

  Ryku
s’s gaze didn’t waver.

  Rohn’s smile fell. “You should answer. Ash won’t survive long. She’s injured. I’m surprised she was still standing upright.”

  The bastard had ten seconds. Then Rykus would choke the life out of him.

  Rohn’s gaze dropped to the remote. The light flickered to red again, then back to green.

  Rohn sat back. “How about a gesture of good faith then? You want to know why we fed you false information about the Sariceans. It’s because they’re immune to our telepathy. That makes it extremely difficult to invade their power structures. It wasn’t a problem until they developed the tachyon drive. We wanted it. Valt found a way to get it.” He sniffed. “Or he thought he’d found a way. Now.” Rohn licked his lips. “Tell me where you acquired your information.”

  The light turned red. Rykus didn’t bother to fill his thoughts with anything but the truth.

  Rohn sat back like he’d been shoved. He started to say something, then changed his mind.

  The light went green.

  “Interesting reaction,” Rykus said. “You’re more afraid of Tahn than you are of us. Why?”

  Rohn’s face shaded red. “Your Coalition is falling apart. You’re losing planets. You lost your woman. I can help you get one of those back. You—” The light turned red. Rohn glanced at the remote again then to the observation window behind Rykus.

  Rykus swiped a hand across the table, hitting the remote. It spun off the edge and smashed into the wall.

  “Where is she!”

  “Get me out of here and—”

  Rykus flung the table in his face. It knocked Rohn backward, pulled wires loose from the panel, then crashed on top of the asshole’s chest.

  Rykus knelt on top of it. Blood gushed from a reopened wound on Rohn’s head. He laughed and wheezed, trying to suck in air. “I wish I’d been here when she was a cadet. If she was one of my anomalies, I would have fucked her t—”

  Rykus’s fist broke teeth. He hit him again, then pulled back his fist for a third blow.