by Jamie Sawyer
Zero scrolled through the equipment files. “The ship records the serial numbers from each charge.” She looked around the CIC. Her face was paler than usual, the scars on her temple appearing especially prominent. “He stole three further charges.”
“Phoenix Squad has identified a cache on Deck E,” Commander Dieter said. “The prisoner likely intended to detonate these at some later time.”
“At least the Jackals stopped him from doing that,” Zero said.
“Barely,” Captain Heinrich said, shaking his head. “Anyway, let’s move on. Clear heads are what’s required here. We’ll have to file a report when we get back to Sanctuary.”
“A report is the least of our worries…” Lopez muttered.
Captain Heinrich ignored her. “In the meantime, we’re still some distance from the Ghost Maker Nebula. We’re going to use that time to find out how, and why, Corporal Riggs got onto the Valkyrie. Someone’s going to interrogate him. Phoenix Squad are already tasked with sweeping the ship. You have the duty, Lieutenant Jenkins.”
I shook my head. “Sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m strongly in favour of Captain Ving’s suggestion: that we terminate the prisoner.”
“And I’ve already indicated that isn’t going to happen,” Heinrich said. “I want you to find out whatever you can from him.”
My shoulders sagged. “Sir, Riggs is the worst sort of asshole. We won’t gain anything from—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Captain Heinrich said. “As I said, we will need to file a full report when we get back to Sanctuary. There’s an opportunity for intelligence gathering here. The suspect will come to no harm. Understood?”
I couldn’t bring myself to answer, but I nodded. If I didn’t say it aloud, then it didn’t count.
“Good,” Heinrich said. “Then you have your duty. Dismissed, all of you.”
Ving and I left the CIC together, neither of us happy with how that had gone.
“You want me to take this instead?” Ving offered. “The interrogation, I mean.”
“I don’t think that Captain Heinrich would allow it.”
“Well, don’t say I didn’t offer,” he muttered. “I want that fucker dead as much as you, Jenkins.”
“You have a way with words, Captain.”
Ving paused at the next hatch, hand on the control panel. “I have family on Proxima Colony.”
I stayed quiet, because I wasn’t sure how Ving expected or wanted me to react to that. I knew that he’d started as Proximan, although little of his muscle-bound body was original. He ricked his neck, rubbed a finger across his eyes.
“Ex-wife and kid. I never see them, but I write all the time. Kid’s eleven, standard. Wife left me when I joined Sim Ops.”
“That’s nothing new. Relationships and Sim Ops don’t exactly mix.”
Ving managed a half-smile of agreement, despite himself. “Yeah. I get that. She refused to renew our marriage contract when I came back from the last tour. Said I wasn’t myself any more. I got a million women out there, and probably just as many men, who want a piece of the Phoenixian. And this one woman who can’t stand the sight of me.”
“I like this woman already,” I said, playfully.
Ving’s smile kind of faltered. “After what happened on Sanctuary, I tried to call home. Tried to get an uplink with Alpha City.” He exhaled. “Their processing grid got hit, see? But I couldn’t get through to anyone. Not friends, not family.”
Was Ving expecting me to give him a shoulder to cry on or something? I wasn’t quite comfortable with that, but I was seeing Ving in a more sympathetic light. We’d never spoken about his background, or his life outside of the press promos and Psych Ops campaigns. To me, Ving was the Phoenixian, the thorn in my side. A constant reminder of what I could’ve been—what I should’ve been—after my time on the Lazarus Legion…
“I’m sure they’re fine,” I said, in my most reassuring tone of voice. “Proxima is likely the most secure territory in the whole Alliance. The Secretary is from there, for Gaia’s sake. If the grid got hit, they’ll repair it. You’ll see.”
Ving nodded. The expression of deep self-review on his brow didn’t look natural, and made him appear a bit confused.
“I hope so, Jenkins. I hope so. Because if that useless fuck Riggs has hurt one hair on my kid’s head, then I’m going to rain all hells down on him. You can promise him that, from me.”
“I will, Ving.”
Ving regained a little of his old cocksure attitude. “That’s ‘sir’, to you, Jenkins.”
“You’re an asshole, sir.”
“This doesn’t mean we’re friends or anything.”
“I hope not.”
“And you can tell that Chino trooper that he should stay away from me,” Ving said, the armour of contempt rising again. “I catch him out in the tunnels by that comms-blister again, he’s a dead clone.”
“Not if he catches you first,” I said.
We parted company, which was fine by me, and I made my way down to the brig.
The Jackals were waiting for me at the security station. All except for P, who was still restricted to the Medical Deck.
“What’s Riggs’ condition?” I asked Zero.
She strolled past the observation window, consulting a data-slate. “He’s suffering from borderline malnutrition, consistent with surviving on scavenged rations. He’s also indicating mild radiation sickness. He was probably hiding in restricted areas of the ship. I doubt Riggs knew that some of the crawlspaces aren’t rad-shielded.”
“My heart truly bleeds,” Lopez muttered. Her words carried real venom, real animosity. “It’s a shame he didn’t get a lethal dose of something.”
“Dr Saito pumped him with a dose of smart-meds,” Zero said. “He won’t be dying on us any time soon.”
“Not from rad sickness, anyway,” Feng added. He sat on an upturned crate in the corner of the brig.
“I don’t need the rest of you here,” I said. “Zero and I can take care of this.”
“We’re good,” Feng said. “When he dropped the Santa Fe into Directorate space, he fucked us all.”
“And let’s not even get started on what he did at Darkwater…” Lopez said. “Think of us as back-up, in case Riggs gets out of hand.”
Lopez had a Navy-issue sidearm on her lap, and was playing with the arming stud. The safety indicator intermittently turned from red to green, then back again. Armed, safe. Armed, safe. Armed.
“You want I should make him speak?” Novak asked. “I have knife. Now, if I go into stomach—with blade to bowel—this is not quick. This does not kill straight away, but is very painful…” He turned to the obs window. It was currently tuned so that we could see in, but Riggs couldn’t see out. “Should I start interrogation off?”
Lopez and Zero looked away. They were no doubt remembering when Novak had last undertaken an “interrogation”. That had resulted in a dead prisoner and a whole lot of unanswered questions.
“Not today,” I said. “You heard what Captain Heinrich said. Riggs isn’t to be harmed. Have you scanned him for covert tech, Zero?”
Zero continued to consult her slate, but nodded. “Yes, ma’am. He’s had a full bio-scan. I took the liberty of comparing the results with his Alliance Army service record.”
“And?”
“The only metal in him is his data-ports. Nothing new, nothing recently installed.”
“Good work.”
Zero’s words—“the only metal in him”—poignantly reminded me of what had happened to Feng. The tech installed in his head had foiled Alliance detection methods, and resulted in Feng’s deployment as an unwitting sleeper agent. Did the Black Spiral have more invasive techniques available than the Directorate?
“Riggs is to be kept under constant observation,” I said. “All eyes: visual, biological, psychic. He so much as pisses, I want to hear about it.”
“We get it,” said Lopez.
I finally turned
to look at the figure behind the observation-field. I’d dreamt of this moment, but I realised that I’d been doing everything possible to avoid actually seeing him. This was it. Not sim-on-sim. Mano a mano. Tête-à-tête. My skin prickled with anticipation. Through the obs-field, Riggs was caught in the spotlight glare of two glow-globes. Zero had turned the globes to maximum illumination: burning away any hint of deceit. They laid bare what Riggs had become.
We’d last met on Darkwater. Riggs had been using a simulant then, and it had made him look like the man I remembered. He’d been the old Riggs. Now, he was something else. Something darker. He was haggard and had lost muscle mass, as though the enormity of what he had done was a weight around his shoulders. Whiskers peppered his jaw, and his eyes were lined black, dark hair cut short. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a long time. His youthful vigour was gone, replaced by something tired and bitter. He wore a dull tan jumpsuit, the word PRISONER written across the chest in bold white letters. Electro-shackles manacled his arms.
So what had Riggs become? Pathetic. Some small part of me felt sympathy for him. I hated myself for that reaction. It was weakness, pure and simple.
“Turn on the intercom,” I ordered.
“Copy that.”
“Can you hear me in there, Riggs?” I said.
Despite myself, my voice quivered. In the cell, Riggs’ ears pricked up. He looked around as though he had only just recognised where he was.
“Is that you Keira?” Riggs asked.
“It’s Lieutenant Jenkins.”
“Thank Christo you came,” he said. “I—I hoped that they would send you.”
“Why is that?”
Riggs pulled a face, shrugged. “You know me. You know what I’m really like.”
“A treacherous, lying piece of shit? Yeah, I know you well enough.”
Riggs jumped up and began pacing the cell.
“Don’t be like that. I’d like to see you. Can you tune the field so that I can look out?”
“You just tried to kill me in Engineering. I think you saw me fine then.”
“You can’t treat me like this.” He plucked at the tan-coloured jumpsuit. “I haven’t been convicted of doing anything yet. I’m a POW—a prisoner of war.” Riggs enunciated each of those words slowly, and pointedly, like they were weapons. “I’m still an Alliance citizen, and an American at that.”
The room closed in around me. His sheer arrogance was blistering.
“Correction,” I roared. “You’re a terrorist combatant, not a POW. You have no entitlements, but let me tell you this: it wouldn’t matter if you did. You, and the Spiral, have killed innocents. So don’t you fucking dare talk to me about rights or citizenship.”
“It’s just collateral damage. We’re fighting a war out here. It’s nothing personal, Keira.”
“Nothing personal? Nothing personal? What about when you dropped us into Directorate space and left us for dead? Was that personal?”
I slammed a fist into the hatch frame, where the invisible obs-field met the bulkhead. The sharp pain that spread through my knuckles was nothing compared to the agony in my heart.
Riggs shook his head. “It wasn’t like that.”
I turned to Zero. She had been inanimate during the exchange, listening but not reacting. Now she jumped, as though I frightened her.
“Turn off the field,” I said.
“Are you sure about—”
“Turn off the damned field, Zero!”
She did as ordered, and the field dropped. Riggs grinned at me from inside the cell.
“Ah, that’s better,” he said. “Now I can see you properly.” He glanced me up and down. “You’re looking good, Keira. You’re looking damned good.”
“Fuck you,” I spat.
“And you too, Lopez. I’m sorry about what happened at Sanctuary. How’s your father?”
Lopez snarled from behind me. Her pistol went up, and the laser-dot targeting sight painted Riggs’ chest.
“You’re not supposed to have weapons in here,” he said.
“I authorised it,” I lied. “And believe me, Riggs: you put one foot out of place, I’ll put the bullet in you myself. You’re only here by the grace of Captain Heinrich. If I had my way, I’d leave you to Novak.”
“I don’t think you’ve got it in you,” Riggs muttered. “But I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, Keira. What you and I had: it was something special.”
My cheeks burnt. Not with embarrassment, but rage. The tactic was obvious. Riggs was trying to humiliate me in front of my squad. It wasn’t going to work.
“The Jackals already know,” I said, “so you can stop with the ‘I’ll reveal our secret’ bullshit. How did you get onto this ship?”
Riggs paused. The response was almost theatrical.
“I confess that I was part of an operation on Sanctuary Base. Warlord employed some of Novak’s buddies—the Sons of Balash—to do a job on the station. We used the Svetlana to get under your radar… Well, you know the rest.”
“Where did Vasnev go?” Novak queried.
I didn’t need a medi-suite to know that the Russian’s vitals were spiking. He wasn’t a complex man, that was for sure, and it was easy to push his buttons.
“I don’t know where Vasnev and her gang went,” said Riggs. “The Sons of Balash left me on Sanctuary, and I stowed away. I’ve been on the Valkyrie since the attack. Those Russians are crazy as all hell. This Vasnev; she frightens me. Warlord should never have asked for her help. She’s insane.”
Novak grunted, his eyes half hooded.
Lopez spoke next. “Was my father the target?” she said. There was a certain coldness to her voice, that seemed inconsistent with an accusation of murder of her own flesh and blood.
Riggs smiled. “Not everything is about your old man, Lopez.”
“Then what was the target?”
“Warlord thinks that the Alliance has a cure for this virus. He wanted it neutralised.”
“Figures,” Zero whispered, unable to contain herself.
“I’m surprised Poindexter didn’t figure that out for herself,” Riggs said, looking at Zero. “Are you losing your edge, Sergeant?”
“Of course I’m not,” Zero said. Her body language was tight, and I could tell that she wasn’t comfortable with the field being lowered. Riggs was standing only a few feet away from her.
“Don’t speak to Zero,” I ordered. “Don’t speak to any of them. I’ll ask the questions, and you’ll answer me. What happened at Sanctuary?”
“The operation didn’t go to plan. We failed to take out the source of the anti-virus.”
“But you destroyed the labs,” I said.
“That wasn’t the source.”
“Then what is?” Zero asked, despite my order that Riggs wasn’t to speak to her.
I was the smart girl this time. “Pariah. P is the source, right?”
“Listen to yourself!” Riggs said, throwing his cuffed hands up in the air. “You’re talking about that fish as though it’s an actual person.”
“It’s a Jackal. You were too, once.”
“It was the target.” Riggs breathed out slowly, dark clouds passing behind his eyes. He had started to rub the data-ports in his arms now, through his prison suit. “Warlord paid the Sons of Balash to do a job, but they’re hired guns and all they care about is the money. They’re not believers. I never agreed with Warlord’s policy on that. That Major Vasnev is as tough as nails, right, Novak?”
Novak said nothing. He seethed, and glared very intently at Riggs.
“Well, I’m sure the lifer agrees with me,” Riggs said. “I was supposed to infiltrate your ship. That was my job.”
“How did you know that the Valkyrie was assigned to this mission?” Zero asked. “To the Jackals?”
“The Spiral has people everywhere, Zero,” Riggs said. “We have manifests, tables of organisation. The whole deal.” He grinned, like this was all a big game. “My objective was to sabotage the missi
on. I almost did it, too. I would’ve killed the fish, but the Medical Deck has guards. The easiest way to stop you was to hole the ship.”
“It didn’t work,” Feng said. “The mission continues. We’ll find the Aeon.”
“Warlord will make sure that doesn’t happen,” Riggs said. “He’s a great man.”
“Seriously?” Lopez questioned.
Riggs became more animated and waved his hands around. “Warlord has a plan. He has a vision. He has visions.” The fervour I’d seen in his eyes during our past confrontations had returned, and burnt bright now. “He’s seen the Great Dark. He’s seen the Dominion. This virus is only the start. The fish heads are going to burn. He’s bringing the Shard back to this galaxy, and they’ll finish everything.”
“That’s no kind of a goal.”
“It is for someone who has nothing,” Riggs said. “You know what that feels like, don’t you, Zero?”
Zero avoided eye contact and looked at the deck.
“I lost everything when my father didn’t return,” he said. “Warlord and the Spiral: they were there for me. Warlord is more of a father than my real one ever was. You might think that you know about Warlord, but he likes to keep some things secret. There’s a lot more to learn.”
“You’re deluded,” I said.
“Warlord has seen the Deep,” Riggs said. He was talking louder, waving his hands around again. His electro-cuffs clattered. “He knows what the fishes know. He can sense their movements. He’s taking this to where it’ll end. The Reef Worlds will be his greatest victory. Nothing and no one can stop him.”
He was shouting now. Lopez had her gun up.
“Raise the field,” I ordered Zero.
“Wait!” Riggs said. “I want to talk to you about Warlord. You’re connected with him! You crossed into the Deep in the Gyre. You saw the Great Dark too!”
The field popped back into existence; a blue glow between the prisoner and us.
“Activate the silencer.”
“Solid copy.”
The brig fell silent, Riggs’ voice gone. Zero sighed. Lopez lowered her gun. I was physically exhausted, and I could tell that the Jackals were too.