Oath Breaker (Death of Empire Book 1)

by A. B. Keuser

  “You don’t need it.” They all turned to Dani in unison. Si was the only one smiling as she continued. “After my incarceration, I managed to pull large amounts of data from their system. Data they never intended for the public to see.”

  “Death tolls too gruesome for even the quiet minded to let pass unaccounted for.” Si moved his hand around her back, a gentle touch urging her on.

  “Among those files I later found the truth of it all. And I know exactly how to get it out to the masses.”

  “The Pääom Central Network?” Jordan Krace looked positively thrilled at the idea.

  “The PCN accesses every linked terminal in the system and transmits the data packages to any ship within range, overriding comm clearances. It really is a marvel of distribution.”

  “But how did you get this information… if it’s so sensitive?” Stapleton was suspicious, and Dani didn’t fault him for it.

  “My father taught me a lot before they killed him. Mostly that no one expects you to have a plan when you’re caged up inside a mental asylum.” She smiled, baring her teeth. “As for the technical aspect. Lyz has taught me a thing or two.”

  “Remind me never to cross you.” Mr. Blue’s face was resolute, but his finger tapped against his belly in a nervous pattern.

  “I shouldn’t have to by now.”

  The smile that sprouted on Mr. Blue’s face wasn’t what she’d expected. “I should have known you’d be the one to find him. We wasted all that time searching… how long did it take you?”

  She swallowed heavily, the sound echoing through her ear drums. “The Mandalls contracted me to find the ship just shy of three months ago. Obviously I’ve broken that contract. Finding Si was a game changer.”

  “Did anyone else survive?” Stapleton didn’t seem to care about how she’d found Si, only that he was here now, and by the sour look on the man’s face, he wasn’t wholeheartedly for the plan.

  Si answered the question for her. “Adilyn and Richter, though Richter didn’t make it after he came out of cryo. His brain was fried and he had to be put down.”

  Dani shot a look at Si, but didn’t call him out on the lie. Obie had turned the poor guy into a walking reactor… there was no reason to defame him in death.

  “Damned shame. Never would have happened in one of today’s units.” Mr. Blue seemed lost in that thought. Dani wanted to jar him out of it.

  “Oh, it would have. There’s nothing you can do when a bad feed’s giving you false information.”

  They ignored her comment, and she didn’t really feel like bringing up the fact that their fleet's finest was a serial killer. By the ashamed look that overtook Jordan Krace’s face for a brief moment, she knew they’d undoubtedly connected those dots long ago.

  “I won’t lie… this new course of action is troubling. I don’t know how you plan to tap into the PNC, but I know the sort of chaos this is going to lead to… it will be brutal. More people will die.”

  Si turned to him with a cruel smile. “People are already dying or worse. You can’t have missed what happens in the med clinics, the way they force you to live here, the flight restrictions. And for what? Because you spoke out against them? More than anything, the redactions are unconscionable.”

  Dani flinched at the word, and hoped they hadn’t noticed.

  “Death might have been kinder.” Jordan Krace met her gaze briefly, and Dani wanted to spit at his pity.

  “Death is an easy solution. You could have chosen it long ago, but you didn’t, so perhaps it is not the kinder choice.” She turned to Mr. Blue. “People will die. It’s the way of war. But if you don’t fight back, if you don’t at least try this one last time, you’re saying that none of those who laid down their lives mattered. What would your brother have said if Heinrich hadn’t publicly beheaded him?”

  Mr. Blue stiffened at the memory. “I see your point. We’ve all lost something in this war, heaven knows you have. But what you want to do seems impossible without a trained team.”

  “It wouldn’t be, but we have a team. We aren’t asking for your help. Not in this matter. This is a courtesy visit.” Si leaned into her as he pulled a small book from his back pocket. “Like you said, when this broadcasts… chaos will ensue. Make sure your people are ready for it. I don’t want any meaningless casualties due to oversight.”

  Stapleton glowered at them. “Oath Breaker still belongs to the Abolitionists…. you can’t just run off with her and not expect us to care.”

  “She can’t belong to a group that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said with a tight smile as he tossed them the book with some brief entries he’d transposed. “Dissolution of the Abolitionist movement meant Oath Breaker was open to salvage. I believe that makes her and all her contents the property of one Danielle Cholla. If you’re nice, she may decide to join your cause once we see how this chaos shifts the balance.”

  “You wouldn’t get three steps out the door if we wanted you dead, Osiris.” Mr. Blue’s threat rang hollow.

  “Of course not, but you don’t want me dead. Remember boys, you’re the ones who decided to make the ship loyal to me. I die, she turns into a flying death trap.”

  “He’s not joking. She killed José because she was worried he’d sway my loyalty. Truth be told, boys, I don’t own that ship… not any more than you could. You gave her sentience, you gave her a man to put all her faith in. You probably thought it would make her a better machine. What it did was make her more human. And as with humans, she’s now fallible. Luckily we all know her weak spot. Touch him, and she will find any way possible to destroy your lives.”

  “I gather we could expect the same from you, could we not, Miss Cholla?”

  Before she found Si in that cryo tube, she would have said no. She’d found herself in a limbo that kept her vacillating between uncaring and depressed. But now… Si, and two misplaced shots had reminded her of what she loved and why. And she wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from her again. Damn it feels good to feel. She decided she was never going to dose herself again and a smile crept to her lips.

  “That’s the difference between me and Obie. I have more than one person I’d kill for.” She let her smile deepen as Mr. Blue’s mouth twisted down in a frown. “You’ve already said you don’t want to cross me. So don’t. We are going to start another war for you. Don’t ask too much more until you’ve shown you deserve it.”

  She pulled open the door and stepped back into the hallway, the three men let them go silently. She hoped she’d scared them with her final words, but you never could tell, deep down, all of them were politicians... even if they were getting rusty.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if they put a hit out on you as soon as the chaos dies down,” Osiris said as they stepped back out into the alley.

  “Lucky for me I have you and Obie watching my back.” Si gave her a quick smile.

  She felt the hard nose of a gun press firmly into her rib cage. “Oh! That was sooner than expected.”

  “Shut up, Dani.” Stugg said from behind her as Osiris turned to face them.

  “Stugg? what are you doing?” Dani didn’t turn to look back at him.

  “The Misters Mandall would like to have a word. And seeing as how that gets her away from you, I’m happy to comply.”

  “I’ll handle this, Si. Just finish what we started.”

  Si stepped forward. “I will come after you, you little punk…”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  “If she’s hurt in any way, I will beat you to a bloody pulp.”

  Dani heard the heavy gulp behind him as she glared at Si. “Go. I can deal with the Mandalls.”

  “Sorry. But orders are orders.” Stugg pulled her away, the gun still digging into her spine.

  “Funny, I thought you took orders from me,” Dani said.

  “You take them from the Mandalls, I take them from you. I’m skipping a step.”

  “I hope you understand they’re going to kill one or both of us v
ery soon. Probably me, but I don’t give you a long life expectancy.” Dani looked for help from any of the people around them. Every pair of shaded eyes was averted… as if they knew and didn’t want to see.

  “All Franklin wants is to talk. He’s already told me.”

  “Never trust a Mandall, Stugg. If you don’t remember anything else I’ve said to this point or hereafter, remember that. They’re an ambitious family willing to claw their way up the ranks any way they can.” Stugg stayed silent then, and a realization dawned on her. “Holy shit… you killed Gill….”

  Stugg’s silence was an admission all its own.

  “And you tried to kill Mopeña?”

  “He got in the way.”

  “So you really were aiming for Lyz.” She understood the jab of the gun to her ribs, he didn’t want her to forget he was packing. “I’ve changed my mind. You get as close to the Mandalls as you want. Trust them with your life and your firstborn son. You’ll be dead, and your family penniless. That is… if you live long enough to father any children at all.”

  He pushed her through the hatch of a waiting ship and she watched the door close on the bleak desolation of Kosz.

  NINTEEN

  Osiris pulled Obie’s hatch door closed behind him and took off for the bridge at a run.

  “Tag all departing ships. Backtrack for ships that have taken off in the last ten minutes.” He yelled at Obie as he pressed through the opening lift doors.

  The lift moved too slowly, and though he knew Obie could speed it up… he had a feeling he might end up pancaked on the ceiling or floor. The bridge echoed his boot steps as he entered and Obie pulled up everything she had.

  “These are the trajectories you asked for.”

  Si looked at the ship courses, outlined in blue from the planet to the ship and then a faint green to show their estimated destinations. “Have any of them disregarded their logged flight plan?”

  “None that I can see.”

  “Bastard’s not even trying to hide where he’s headed.” He tried to twist the tension out of his neck, to no avail. “Give me a list of all the ships. One of them belongs to the Mandalls.”

  “I checked thoroughly before you disembarked. None of the ships in this hemisphere flagged with a Mandall ID.”

  “Hemisphere? You were being a bit overcautious.” He shook away that train of thought. “They wouldn’t have wanted us to see it… they wanted us to get off the ship, so that little weasel— There!”

  He tapped on the ship designation, the Fluff ‘n Stuff registered to Teddy Sniper. “Track them.”

  “Of course captain. Adilyn and Kiori await you in the mission staging room. I cannot get a lock on Danielle’s location.”

  “You can actually. I just asked you to track it. She’s on that damned ship.” He turned away from the thin line trailing to the spherical representation of a planet.

  He had enough experience with Torjunta to know it wasn’t a place he’d ever want Yella to be alone. And even without her imploring him to finish the mission, deep down, he was a soldier. The greater good took precedence.

  Stalking down the hallway, he steeled himself to the decision. They’d have to work fast and clean, but they would get the job done and then he’d pull Stugg’s spine out through the scrawny kid’s throat.

  He stepped over the hatch tread and into the mission staging room to find Adilyn and Kiori adjusting the suits. One of them had already lain his out for him. It sat in the chair like a deflated dark gray body.

  Kiori was busy flattening a second suit next to hers and he nodded to it when she looked up at him. “Might as well put that away. Yella’s not coming with us.”

  Kiori stopped fussing with the suit and turned to him with a curious glare. “Why not?”

  “Because Stugg kidnapped her and is taking her to the Mandalls.” He filled them both in on what happened planetside and that he had Obie tracking the ship.

  “So we scrap this and go after her then?” Adi asked.

  Osiris looked at Adi and tried to determine what was more surprising, that she’d said it in the first place, or that she’d done so straight-faced and without the slightest hint of a mocking tone.

  “No, we carry on as planned, but I’m going to need you on my back, and if you’re up to it Kiori, I’ll need you to tackle the diversion on your own.”

  “It’s handled.” Kiori returned to checking the power pack on her suit.

  “I don’t want Willy and Lyz to know what happened to Yella, or about Stugg’s involvement just yet. They might get in the way. We need to get in, get the parameters planted and get out, and I don’t need them mucking that up—even if it is on accident. We’ll leave at dark fall.”

  He received two curt nods and turned for the door.

  Adi caught him in the hallway, blocking his escape into the ladderway. “Si, I know you well enough to say this to your face. That and since the war’s not technically on right now, this can’t be called insubordination. Frag this mission. Get us off planet and go after her.”

  “I can’t do that and you know it. Besides, Yella told me to finish this.”

  “Look, the information is still going to be there once we’ve got her. We can come back and finish it.”

  “No. Once Stugg gets her to them and he confirms I’m alive, something I’m sure they’ve suspected all along, then our lives get harder. Without the information Yella risked her life to get… No one’s going to believe me over them if they say I’m a fraud, some tall kid with a face job the Abolitionists are using to force them to fight again. These numbers don’t lie, but they’re more than numbers. At first I thought they’d be a spark, but we’re not kindling an ember with this… we’re dropping napalm in their laps. Everyone is going to come out of this burned, it’s those of us prepared to fight the blaze that are going to sustain the least damage.”

  “And what about Yella? You know the Mandalls as well as I do, if not better. You know what they’ll do to her before they kill her. Are you going to gamble on how long they’ll keep her alive?”

  The knot in his stomach coiled tighter as he stared back at her. “I know all of that.”

  “You’re throwing her to the wolves.”

  As Adi said it, he realized she actually did care.

  “Yella survived hell while we slept; she can hold her own until we work this problem out. They may not torture her, but they will beat her. As you said, I know them better than you. She’ll stay alive as long as they think she’ll lure me to them. That is why we’re going to get this operation over with as quickly as we can. Because it will start the Pääom’s end. They’ve done more to her than you could ever imagine, more than the Mandalls could ever threaten her with, and she’s come out on top against greater odds.”

  Her jaw clenched, but Adi nodded. “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am, and when I find them, the Mandalls are going to pay fourfold for any injury she’s sustained. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. You’re right, the war’s on pause, so you have options, you can disagree with my choice. Get off the ship and find some of our old Abolitionist buddies to hole up with. Or, you can stow it and get back to prepping.”

  “We’ve lost a lot of people in this godforsaken fight, sir. Each one of them tore a hole in you, I saw that, I watched the deaths eat away at you, but I knew you’d get past all of them.”

  “And you think if Yella dies, it’ll be different.”

  “There was a time I hoped you’d love me half as much as you do her.” She said with a stony glare. “To be frank, yes, I think losing her would kill you. Maybe not a total death, you’d walk among us like an commanding-officer-corpse, but Osiris Bowlin would die. I don’t want you to be replaced by some autonomous, order-giving blowhard. Also, I was starting to like her.”

  She turned on her heel and stalked down the hall, shoulders hunched as she stuffed her hands in her pockets. Part of him wanted to acknowledge she was right, but he knew she was wrong, and that was the h
ardest part.

  When she disappeared through the hatch, he sagged against the bulkhead and ran a hand down his face, letting out a long breath.

  He’d been born to be a soldier. The love of one woman might change that, but only superficially. Adilyn saw a startling change because it was what she expected.

  He looked at the panel on the far wall—two hours until darkfall on Kosz. Two hours for his mind to dredge up the horrible things the Mandalls could and would do to Yella. Two hours to keep him from throwing away everything he’d worked for and having Obie break their ground lock. He closed his eyes and saw her, determined look on her face, ordering him to finish the task. That much he could do. He was trained for it after all.

  *

  At darkfall the streets of the concrete jungle fell silent. Security drones enforced the curfew. Obie’s maintenance hatch opened to a dark interior as three shadows slipped out and made their way through the city’s dead arteries.

  Clad in light-eating skin-suits, and helmets coated in the same material, Adi and Kiori followed him through the streets. Sticking close to walls in the odd event a drone spotted them and tried to investigate, Si led them through the city following the path instructed by the guide he’d programmed into his matte visor.

  He stopped them at a blind corner and peered around it. No human guards to contend with. He’d count that as a good thing. He only had to hope they hadn’t added dogs to the compound since the last update from his friends.

  The Pääom outpost complex looked like an overgrown bunker, sloping cement walls with thin, horizontal slats for windows. The energy fence surrounding the complex was luckily third rate. Much more sophistication and the pre-programmed hack Lyz had stored in the tablet wouldn’t have done much more than get them caught. Si guessed they didn’t expect anyone to bother with a remote outpost on a planet they renamed for junk.

  He turned to the two behind him. Kiori was shorter, but she’d pulled out her brother’s suit, so his visor registered her as TENGU, while Adi stood next to him, taller than the weapons savant and his visor read her as BOWLIN. She’d taken his last name and when they’d divorced, she’d kept it, though he only remembered that fact at times like this. When he received a nod of acknowledgment from both, he pressed Kill Code One on the tablet.