Darius shook his head. “Assuming you’re right, then why isn’t he controlling us too? You were able to voice your doubts about him to his face, and I’m having some of those same doubts now, but Blake was the most skeptical of all of us, and you heard him—he’s team Tanik now. If Tanik can brainwash Blake, why not us?”
“I don’t know,” Dyara admitted. “Whatever the reason, we’re the only ones who can do something about it.” Dyara glanced around quickly, but there was still no one within earshot. “We have to find a way to bring Tanik down,” she said.
“How?”
“Maybe if we can confront the others with proof of who and what Tanik is, we can snap them out of it.”
“What proof?”
Dyara chewed her lower lip, thinking. Then she appeared to have an idea. “We have to find Gatticus. Whatever happened between him and Tanik, it’s bound to be incriminating. I still have Gatticus’s jump vector stored in my Vulture. We might be able to use that to find him.”
“But you can’t detect anything from inside a warp bubble,” Darius objected.
“No, but I don’t think Tanik had a specific destination in mind. I think he just pointed Gatticus in a random direction and had his Osprey fly until it ran out of fuel and the warp bubble collapsed. If I’m right, we’ll find his Osprey drifting along fifty light years from where it started.”
Darius nodded. “So when do we go?”
“We don’t. I need you to keep an eye on Tanik and keep him distracted so that he doesn’t notice I’m gone.”
“He’ll notice when you launch from the Deliverance.”
“Not necessarily. As the CAG you have the authority to authorize missions on your own. You can say the mission is a rescue and recovery drill, and submit it to flight ops on the bridge. They won’t give it a second look.”
“And what about fuel? If Gatticus ran out, then you will too.”
Dyara shook her head. “RR-3 Eagles have more than double the range of Ospreys.”
“Okay, and what if you don’t make it back before we jump to the Eye?” Darius asked.
“Blake mentioned you have two days to train the Vulture pilots, right?”
Darius nodded.
“That’s enough. Barely, but it’s enough.”
Darius frowned. “What do I say when you go rogue and jump to FTL instead of running drills?”
“Tell them you had no idea what I was planning.”
Darius nodded, watching as Dyara pushed a half-finished food pack away and left it drifting over the table. “Good luck,” he said.
“Thanks. I’ll need it.”
* * *
Tanik Gurhain floated in front of the desk in his quarters, watching the holo feed from KP-26 as the bot went about its business cleaning up after officers in the wardroom.
He rotated the bot’s surveillance camera to keep Darius and Dyara in view and dialed up the volume. He listened for a while to their conversation. They were talking about a dream they’d shared, and then realizing that it wasn’t a dream.
“He’s a real, living Revenant....” Dyara said.
Tanik smiled. So now they know. Except they didn’t know how he’d used his abilities to ensnare and steal the Deliverance. They also hadn’t figured out why just the two of them were immune to those abilities, out of all the one thousand plus crewmen now walking the corridors of the ship.
As Dyara and Darius concluded their conversation and left the wardroom, Tanik crossed his arms behind his head and gazed up at the ceiling, considering what he was going to do about this new development. They were planning to bring him down. He’d expected Dyara to betray him, but Darius couldn’t be allowed to join her. He was the key to everything. Fortunately, Tanik still had one trick up his sleeve to convince Darius to join him.
Chapter 49
Dyara went back to the amidships hangar to download the nav data from her Vulture. In order to gain access to the cockpit, she gave a flimsy excuse to the deck crew about having forgotten some personal effects in the cockpit. It worked. She downloaded the data to a data stick and then she left the amidships hangar and went to the forward hangar instead, hoping it would be less busy.
It wasn’t. The forward hangar was a hive of activity, too, with deck crew running around servicing the fighters and bombers inside. Dyara checked the mission board and found her rescue and recovery drill was already cleared. Darius hadn’t included enough details. Hopefully Flight Ops wouldn’t press for those details when she requested launch clearance.
Dyara strode up to the cockpit of the Eagle and shut the door behind her. She sat down in the pilot’s chair and was just about to strap in when she heard the cockpit door swish back open.
“Where are you going, Dya?”
She froze and slowly turned to see a familiar man stepping into the cockpit behind her.
“Tanik, what are you—”
He waved his hand to cut her off. “Save it.” He pointed to her and then stepped aside, and a pair of Marines in power armor stomped in. “Arrest her.”
“Lieutenant Eraya, you are under arrest on suspicion of treason,” one of them said in an amplified voice.
“What?” Dyara shook her head. “You don’t have any proof of that.”
Tanik gave a snarling smile. “Don’t I?”
He nodded to one of the Marines who’d spoken, and her voice came bubbling out of the speaker grilles in his helmet: “We have to find a way to bring Tanik down.”
“That was you, was it not?” Tanik asked.
Dyara was speechless. “You were listening in to our conversation? How? We weren’t talking loud enough for the ship’s surveillance system to overhear.”
“So you admit it,” Tanik said.
“Sure. I admit it, but play the rest of the grakking conversation. Go on. Tell these Marines why I want to bring you down.”
Tanik looked dismayed. “Unfortunately, I was unable to make a more substantial recording, but what I caught was more than incriminating enough.”
“Really. You expect me to believe you just happened to catch me saying something treasonous, but you missed everything else?”
Tanik shrugged. “As you say, you were speaking too softly for the surveillance systems to be of any use. I was lucky to catch what I did.”
“Ma’am, on your feet, please,” the Marine intoned, gesturing with the barrel of his laser rifle.
“He’s a Revenant,” Dyara said. “A real one. He’s controlling you and everyone else on board.”
The two Marines traded glances with one another.
“She’s having paranoid delusions,” Tanik said, looking and sounding confused. “Perhaps the med bay would be a more appropriate destination for the Lieutenant. Take her to the pysch ward and lock her up. Make sure the attending medic understands she’s a flight risk.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fek you!” Dyara said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“She’s not going to cooperate,” Tanik said. “Stun her, Corporal.”
A flash of blue light leapt out, and Dyara’s thoughts fell off a cliff into an electric blue abyss.
* * *
Darius stood before a room full of forty-eight recently assigned—conscripted?—Vulture fighter pilots, wondering what to say to them. He had as much experience as they did, with the exception of his brief engagement over Hades. How was he supposed to pretend to lead these grass green recruits into combat?
Darius’s eyes skipped over the group. All of them wore the single brass bar insignia of a recruit, with the exception of Blake, Lisa, Ra, and the others from Hades, who all wore the silver bar of a junior lieutenant. Darius wondered if that was because they all already had some experience fighting the Cygnians.
“Well,” Darius began. “Welcome to the Deliverance. This must be very new for most of you. I know it is for me.” He tried out an encouraging smile.
Murmurs of agreement followed his opening words, and Darius struggled to think of what to say next. He frowne
d, suddenly at a loss for words. He wasn’t cut out for this. He had no business leading anyone. All he wanted was revenge, and that left him ill-suited for leadership. Even Tanik seemed to realize that, because he’d chided Darius about letting his emotions drive him.
Tanik. That was a whole separate issue. A living Revenant was in command and somehow controlling everyone on board. Darius still wasn’t sure he believed it, but the dream that wasn’t a dream which Dyara had apparently shared was definitely evidence that something strange was going on. Not to mention the fact that Blake had gone from maverick to committed soldier overnight.
“Hey, Commander—vonkat got your tongue?” Blake jeered. “Aren’t you supposed to be training us? And where’s your number two—Lieutenant Hottie?”
Darius scowled. “You want to spend the next two days in the brig while everyone else trains? Show some respect for your superiors. Lieutenant Eraya is out running a rescue and recovery drill in one of the Eagles.”
Blake fell silent at that rebuke, and the rest of the room along with him. “That’s better,” Darius replied, nodding. But their eyes weren’t on him—they were all looking slightly to one side of him.
Darius turned to see what they were looking at, and found Tanik Gurhain standing there in the corner of the podium, leaning against the wall, with arms crossed over his chest, and a whisper of a crooked smile on his face.
Darius’s heart was instantly pounding. “Captain,” he said slowly. “I didn’t see you there.” That was an understatement. The door to the ready room was at the back, right in front of Darius. How had Tanik managed to slip in without Darius seeing him?
“Hello, Darius,” Tanik said. “I need to speak with you for a minute. Alone.”
Darius felt a chill come over him. “What about my pilots...”
Tanik nodded to one of them—Ikatosh, the white-furred Korothian. “Lieutenant Karosik,” he said. The Korothian rose to his feet, a towering white monster with ice blue eyes and blue-gray lips. “Yes, Captain?”
“Would you please take the other pilots to the simulators and get them started running through the simulation series entitled Crucible Attack Run?”
“This is my pleasure to do, Captain.”
“Good. Dismissed.”
People rose to their feet and began filing out. Darius did his best not to let his nervousness show, smiling and nodding as the pilots left the ready room, but when the last one left and the doors slid shut with an ominous thud, Darius was pretty sure that even Tanik could hear his heart thudding in his chest.
“So, what would you like to speak to me about?” Darius asked.
“Are you nervous, Commander?” Tanik asked through a twisted smile.
Darius’s guts clenched. “Nervous? No. Why would you say that?” An icy line of sweat trickled down his spine.
“It’s just that you look rather pale.”
“Must have been something I ate.”
“Must have. Where’s Dyara?” Tanik asked.
Darius didn’t like the look in Tanik’s eyes as he asked about her. “You were here when I answered the others. She’s running a recon and recovery drill.”
“No, no she isn’t. I just saw her in the med bay.”
“What?”
“Oh, yes. She seemed to be suffering from paranoid delusions that I have somehow taken over the minds of the entire crew, and that I am a... a Revenant. I had to have her locked up in the pysch ward.”
Darius was speechless for a long moment. He belatedly recovered to say, “That’s... it must be sleep deprivation. She’ll snap out of it after a good night’s sleep.”
“Sleep deprivation after twelve hours of induced sleep in the cockpit of a Vulture? I don’t think so, Commander. I also have her on charges of treason, but those will have to wait. You had an interesting conversation with Lieutenant Eraya in the wardroom.”
“I did?” Darius asked, still pretending ignorance.
“Yes, is there something you’d like to say to me, Darius?”
“No.” Darius’s entire body felt cold. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Tanik knew. Somehow he’d overheard them talking, and he knew that they were on to him. What was the point of pretending otherwise? Darius set his jaw and nodded once, stiffly. “Actually I do have something to say. Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Are you a Revenant?”
Tanik’s eyes glittered darkly and one side of his mouth curled up in a fresh smile. “Why, yes. I am.”
Chapter 50
“You’re a Revenant,” Darius repeated dryly. “You want to explain what that means?”
“I think you know what it means. You just don’t want to accept it.”
“Because it makes no sense. You can’t just control someone else’s mind with your own. There’s no scientific basis for that.”
“Actually, there is, but I won’t go into that now.”
“Let’s say I believe you—then why can’t you control me or Dya?”
Tanik shrugged. “You are immune. Some people are.”
Darius arched an eyebrow at him. “And why’s that?”
“Because they are also children of the light, and they can touch it too.”
“Okay, now you’ve lost me.”
“The divine light, Darius—the ether, the source field, the zero point field—Dark Energy—these are all just different names for the same thing.”
“Dark Energy,” Darius repeated. He recognized that one. “That’s how you’re controlling people? Hah. Nice try. I’m not that gullible.”
“It’s true, but it’s not precisely Dark Energy. That is just a name people gave to one effect of the source field. In reality, the field does a lot more than simply push the galaxies apart.
“In the past there have only been a few humans who discovered how to touch the light, and they were ruled out as madmen, or celebrated as religious figures. All of that changed after we met the Cygnians and began going to the Crucible, too.”
Darius didn’t know whether to laugh or run away. “So I’m immune because I’m like you? I can control people with my mind?”
“No, you can’t.”
“But you just said—”
“You have the same potential as I do, but you are untrained, and you haven’t been to the Crucible yet. If you had, they’d have turned you into a Revenant by now.”
“The Cygnians?”
“The other Revenants.”
“Aren’t the Cygnians in charge of them too?”
“No, they’re all equals, or rather, there’s no one species that dominates the others, like the Cygnians do in the USO. Far beyond the fringes of the Union and known space, the Revenants are fighting a war with a race of aliens that make the Cygnians look tame—the Keth.
“That is the real reason for the Crucible, the Seals of Life and Death, and the designated hunting grounds. It’s all an elaborate conscription program, mixed with eugenics to breed the perfect soldiers.”
Darius shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you? Think about it. The Seal of Life decides marks the ones who have the potential to touch the light, but no active affinity for it. They are left to live their lives and breed so that someday perhaps one of their children or grandchildren will become a Revenant. The Seal of Death, however, marks the ones who have neither active nor dormant potential. They are then isolated from the rest of the population and hunted to extinction. And as for the ones who never return, they are the ripe fruit, ready to be devoured by war.”
Darius slowly shook his head, unable to believe what he was hearing.
“Why do you think people are sent to the Crucible when they reach reproductive maturity? It is so that the Revenants can weed out the chaff and prevent unwanted dilution of the gene pool, though that is a misnomer, since sensitivity to the light is not passed on genetically.”
Darius didn’t know what to say to any of that, but it made a certain amount of sense when combined with what he’d already
been told about the seals and the Crucible.
“If it’s not passed on genetically, then what’s the point of a eugenics program?”
“Because it is passed on at birth. We don’t know how or why, but the light does run in families.”
There was still something that didn’t add up. “You said Dyara and I are immune to your influence because we’re like you. I haven’t been to the Crucible yet, so who knows, maybe that’s true—but what about Dyara? I’ve seen the Seals on her wrists. She has both the Seal of Life and the Seal of Death. She had to have gotten the Seal of Life from the Crucible. If she could have been turned into a Revenant, why would they send her back?”
“She didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“She never went to the Crucible. After both of her older siblings were taken and never returned, Dyara’s parents spent a fortune to buy a forgery for her. That is why she was never made into a Revenant.”
“And you? If you’re a Revenant, why aren’t you off fighting with the others?”
“I served my time. I fought the Keth for thirty years. I married, and had children, and watched my whole family die, one after another, in the war. Even then, I kept fighting, because like you I wanted revenge.
“But then I learned something horrible. The Keth don’t even know where the Union is. The Revenants are fighting a preemptive war over prophecies and visions of a future that may never even come to pass. We were following a madman into battle, and in the process we committed more than our fair share of atrocities, using the Cygnians as our scapegoat.”
Darius frowned. “Assuming I believe you, what does any of this have to do with me? Why tell me? Why don’t you just lock me up with Dyara?”
“Because you are important. I foresaw you before I ever even met you. How do you think I knew your name without having to be told?”
Darius shook his head.
“You are the key to everything, Darius.”
“What did you see?” Darius asked.
“I saw you leading a conquering army against the USO. I saw you bring the Cygnians to their knees, and I saw you on the throne of a new empire with them as our slaves.”
Broken Worlds: The Awakening (A Sci-Fi Mystery) Page 28