by Jamie Sawyer
“I’ve seen enough,” I decided.
Zero snapped the viewer off, and I was grateful for it.
“So, what’s next, ma’am?” she asked me.
“I finish this coffee.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t know what comes next, Zero,” I said.
“We’re ready.”
I laughed at that. “Ready for what?”
“For whatever we’re asked to do,” Feng said. There was a cool determination to his voice, and the same in his expression. “For whatever’s necessary.”
The Jackals were still young, and had bounced back faster than I could’ve hoped. The squad were dressed in shipboard fatigues, not a proper uniform among them. Does that matter? I asked myself. They were still soldiers. The uniform, the badge, the guns … That wasn’t what made a survivor. And that was what we were now: survivors.
“Harris wants our help,” I said. “He’s working with an intelligence agency, something that calls itself the Watch. They’re searching for an answer to this virus.”
There was no response to that. Whatever the Watch was, not even Zero had heard of it. That told its own story. Zero was usually prepped up on these things, which meant that the Watch must’ve been a very deep intelligence agency.
“What does he want us to do?” Feng asked.
“He needs a simulant squad,” I said. “And I guess we’re it.”
“But we don’t have any sims,” Lopez said.
I noticed that Lopez was fingering the data-ports on her forearms, unconsciously rubbing the metal plugs. I knew exactly how she felt. My own data-ports had started to throb again, desperate to be connected to a simulant.
“That might change,” I offered. “But he insists that we don’t report in. We’re not going back to Unity Base.”
“Then where are we going?” Novak asked.
“We’re going rogue,” I finally said. “Or at least, that’s what he’s asking us to do.”
To my surprise, the Jackals didn’t instantly baulk at that, not even Zero. Was it because they were blinded by the Lazarus legend? Quite possibly. I continued.
“We’re heading for a Science Division facility—a farm—for restock. Our eventual objective will be Mu-98, located in Russian Federal space.”
Novak nodded, satisfied with that. “Mu-98 is good.”
Did I feel good about bringing the Jackals in on this? No, I didn’t. They weren’t responsible for my decisions, but they would be affected by them.
“You don’t have to do this,” I explained, “not if you don’t want to. After the Gyre, after Jiog, I understand if any one of you wants out. If we’re operating outside of our orders, you have every right to—”
It was Lopez who spoke up first. She locked eyes with me.
“Apologies, ma’am, but are you fucking kidding me?” she said. “This is Colonel Conrad Harris asking for our help. This is fucking Lazarus.”
Zero nodded. “How could we say no?”
Lopez added, “Colonel Harris saved us, ma’am.”
“He’s just a man like any other,” I said, trying to rein the team back in. I wanted them to make an informed decision: to be lead by the head, not the heart. “There’s risk here. Serious risk. If Alliance forces come after us …”
Lopez didn’t back down. “We’re all in this, and in deep. We survived Jiog. We made it off a Directorate prison planet. We’re sticking with this, seeing it through.”
The response stirred pride in me. I’d assumed that Lopez, more than anyone, would want to jump the next ship Coreside, after everything that had happened.
Novak gave a smile of darkened, pointed teeth. “We are all Jackals.”
“Where one goes,” Feng said, “we all go.”
My squad looked hungry for action. Even Zero, to whom until recently field ops would’ve been anathema.
“Hey, some of us don’t have a home to go to anymore anyway,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “I’m in.”
“Just because your planet was blown up doesn’t make you special,” Lopez said. She threw a light punch into Zero’s arm, and Zero yelped in mock pain.
“I need payback,” Feng said solemnly. “And right now, whether that’s against the Directorate or the Spiral doesn’t much matter to me.”
Feng was already psyched up. He balled and unballed his fists, then made an effort not to do it when he saw that I was looking. His anger was the brightest, the hottest.
“So what are we doing in Mu-98?” Lopez asked.
“Harris has a mission,” I said, “although he hasn’t given me all the details yet. We’re going to steal some sims, then make contact with an asset—a former science officer—on Kronstadt, in the Mu-98 system. Other than that, I don’t know what we’re signing up to. We’re going to have to trust Harris.”
“He’s Lazarus,” Zero said, repeating Lopez’s words. She seemed reinvigorated. “Does he remember me?”
“Sure, Zero. He remembers you just fine.”
I knew that she would follow him into the fire, no matter what. That kind of zeal worried me almost as much as Feng’s need for revenge.
“We’ll help in whatever way we can,” Zero said. “I’ve already started tinkering with some of Nadi’s tech. She has a good thing going on the bridge, but I’m sure that I can upgrade some of her systems …”
“When do we get a briefing?” Lopez asked, all business now.
The squad bristled with energy. They were ready for it.
“Soon,” I said. “But there’s something we have to do first.”
“What?” she asked.
“Let’s remember that not everyone made it off Jiog.”
Captain Miriam Carmine, my old friend, had been executed.
Hey, Mom, I thought. I’m going to use the word, whether you like it or not.
Carmine had been murdered.
It was some small blessing that the Shadow Bureau had not broadcast the footage of Carmine’s execution. Her daughters deserved better than to learn of her death in that way.
We had to do something to mark her passing. To call the assembly that we held in the cargo bay a “ceremony” would be a vast overstatement. It wasn’t a funeral, because we had no body, and there was nothing remotely religious about it. But it was all we could do to remember her, and it would have to be enough.
“Where was she from?” Feng asked.
“Old Earth. She was Californian, like me.”
Feng nodded in agreement. “I thought so. Same disposition.”
“So I’m a grumpy old bitch, then?”
“Sometimes,” Feng replied.
“Did Captain Carmine have any particular beliefs?” Zero asked.
“She believed in lots of things. Swearing and tea, for starters.”
Zero gave a sad smile. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m fooling with you. Carmine never talked about anything except for her daughters. They were what kept her going.”
Novak nodded in agreement at that. “Is important. I bet she make good mother, yes?”
“She was mother to anyone who came under her radar,” I said. “I think that she regretted how rarely she saw her own children.”
I didn’t even know their names, I realised. Carmine had spoken of them often, during our deployments together. Always favourably, always proudly. I suspected that she had hated herself, just a little, for not going back to Old Earth, for not settling down in her old age. In spirit, she was a little like Harris. She couldn’t help but get involved, right up until the end.
Feng, Novak, Lopez and I held our peace in the cargo bay. Harris, Elena and Nadi attended too, although as far as I knew, neither of the latter had ever met Carmine. She would probably have been pleased with the turnout, nonetheless.
Captain Lestrade did his part too, calling “All hands bury the dead” over the ship’s PA, and an all-stop to the ship’s thrusters. Then, solemnly, he fired the flak cannons thr
ee times in quick succession. That was a nice touch. I appreciated it.
I thought of the promise that I had made to Carmine, aboard the Santa Fe. I’d sworn that I would tell her daughters that their mother loved them. Whatever happened out here, I would make sure that I honoured that promise. Carmine deserved that. But as I stood there in the cargo bay—without so much as a body to bury at sea—I made another promise, and this one was to myself.
Kwan might’ve pulled the trigger—fired the bullet—that killed Carmine, but the blood was on Riggs’ hands. Her murder: that was on him. Riggs had killed her.
My data-ports throbbed with new vitality. I needed sims, and I needed guns. I was going to make sure that I had both.
I swear that I’m going to find you, Riggs. I’m going to find you, and I’m going to kill you.
The ceremony finished, and the Jackals and crew dispersed.
One more member of the squad to visit before everything was in place.
“You in here?” I asked the dark.
At first, there was no answer. Only the gentle creak and groan of the Engineering deck, the hum of the Paladin’s energy core. If there had been any lights in the chamber in the first place, they had now been deactivated, swathing the chamber in shadow. It was hot, humid and more than a little creepy. It also stank to high heaven, the smell so intense that it was eye-watering.
“We are present,” came the electronic response.
I felt the xeno’s presence before it replied. The alien brushed the edge of my mind.
Pariah had folded itself between some pipework, and there was a clank as it withdrew, its clawed feet hitting the deck. It unfurled its massive body, filling the chamber with its six muscled limbs, and loomed over me, eyes glittering in the darkness.
“Hey, P,” I said, trying to sound more jovial than I actually felt. I hadn’t appreciated just how much the alien had grown while we were on Jiog. “Are you still hurting? Dr. Marceau says that you’re in good shape.”
“We are no longer injured,” it said. Pariah glanced at its own semi-wet body. “We are changing.”
And again, I felt that sensation in my head: knew the answer to my question before I’d actually heard it.
“You setting up a lair down here or something?” I asked, taking a step into the chamber. “It looks real homely, although I’m not sure Captain Lestrade will appreciate it.”
A sheen of resin had formed on the bulkheads. Mucus dripped from the exposed pipework.
“Others’ opinion does not matter.”
“What is this stuff?”
“We are acquiring materiel for manufacture,” the alien said. “We require a bio-suit and weaponry.” It paused, then went on: “The Kindred of Silver Talon are rotten. We must be ready.”
“They were your tribe, P,” I said. “Are they all gone?”
“The Silver Talon has fallen, but we are Pariah. We will always be Pariah. Silver Talon were of us …”
“Listen, there’s still a lot I need to explain to you. Riggs was a traitor. He sold us out, to the Directorate.”
“We know of this.”
“How come?”
Pariah observed me for a second, and I felt the feelers in my head again.
“When Jenkins-other made contact with the Silver Talon’s navigator-form,” the xeno said, “a connection was formed.”
“I remember.”
“Jenkins-other touched the Deep.”
I still hadn’t really got to the bottom of what the Deep was. I only knew that Clade Cooper, also known as Warlord, had once been immersed in it, and that the experience had irrevocably scarred him. Major Sergkov had likened the Deep to interrogation, but it was also so much more than that. It was being one with the Krell mind, being part of the ebb and flow of information …
“Are you part of the Deep, P?”
“We are of the Deep, but we are not part of it,” Pariah said. “To become part of it is to become Collective. We are Pariah.”
“You have to understand that, if the time comes, Riggs is no longer an ally.”
“We know this, because you know this,” Pariah said.
“He is an enemy. He jumped us into Directorate space.”
The alien showed a complete lack of surprise. “Affirmative. When we convene in the same location as Riggs-other, we will express our state of mind.”
“We have a new mission,” I said, trying to think how best to explain this. “We’re going to a new star system.”
“We know this also,” Pariah said. “The craft that sails stars is moving at full thrust. We will soon sail the quantum tides again. The Gates call to us.”
“I wanted to ask if you would come with us. You’re a Jackal now. We … we’re your Collective. Your Kindred.”
Many would probably argue that Pariah should have little say in where and when it went, given that it was technically Alliance property. But I thought that P was more than that. It wasn’t just a bio-form anymore. P was as much a Jackal as the rest of us.
Pariah cocked its head. “We will go with Jenkins-other.”
“Appreciate it, P.”
The XT abruptly grappled with an overhead pipe, and with a monkey-like motion hauled itself into the mass of conduits in the deckhead. The structures creaked precariously as they took the alien’s increased mass.
“We are changing, Jenkins-other,” Pariah said. “Something is … happening to us.”
“Maybe you’re growing,” I suggested. I was well out of my depth here, and drowning fast.
“It is not that. The not-Alliance activated something inside of us.”
I felt a stab of emotion, of raw, unfettered anger, and for a moment it was almost enough to floor me. It was a lot like when I thought of Riggs.
“You mean the Directorate? What exactly did they do to you?”
The alien peered at me from above. Its shelled body had contorted, somehow managed to squeeze into another tight space. How the alien could adapt its size according to requirement reminded me of a squid.
“The Directorate-others woke us up,” the alien said.
And we have not yet finished … echoed in my mind.
“You’re still on our side, I hope.”
“Yes,” Pariah confirmed. “We will inform Jenkins-other when the situation changes.”
“That’s reassuring, P. Real reassuring.”
“Do not be afraid,” Pariah said. “We require contact with two organic designations. The Directorate-others and the Riggs-other.”
I laughed. “You and me both, P. You and me both.”
P tilted its head again, fixing me with those alien eyes. “Provided Jenkins-other gives us access to those objectives; then we are in alignment.”
“We’re in alignment, all right,” I said.
I retreated through the hatch and left the alien to its work.
Harris and Elena were waiting for me outside.
“You see,” Harris said, nodding into the room. “What did I tell you? I knew that they would be willing to help.”
“You were listening in?” I said, annoyed. “They’re my team, Harris. You had no right to do that.”
“The fish is building weapons and armour in there. Why wouldn’t I keep eyes on it?”
Elena said, “The organism is extraordinary. It’s exhibiting a highly advanced rate of personal evolution. I … I’m not sure what it’s becoming.”
“It’s a Jackal.”
“It’s a lot more than that,” Elena said. “I’ve been running some tests on the Pariah’s blood samples. You should see the results.”
“I thought you said that I should be resting …”
“Resting can wait. This is too important.”
“So what’s our next move?”
“We move on Darkwater Farm,” Harris replied. “A planet called Thane.”
Farm: slang for the science stations that bred clones for the Simulant Operations Programme. Sims were farmed in industrial-sized depots. These were automated Science D
ivision facilities, ordinarily well guarded and in highly classified locations. By design, most such outposts were far from Shard Gates—the idea being that, in the event of a hostile takeover at least the sims would be safe.
“Does Darkwater carry copies of the Jackals?” I asked. “Sim Ops is still a big programme.”
Even if Harris and the Watch did know of the location of a farm—which, on the face of it, I was still struggling to accept, given how secret these facilities usually were—that was only half the problem. We could only use simulants derived from our own genetic material; we needed simulants based on the individual genotypes of each Jackal.
“You were out of Unity Base,” Harris said. “Trust me: you’ll find simulants you can use there. The outpost contains blueprints for every operator in the Eastern Sector. So, what do you say? Are you in, or are you out?”
“We’re in,” I answered. “But I’m fed up with being kept in the dark. You want my help, then I want to go into this with eyes open.”
“Fine,” Harris said. “That can be arranged later—”
I shook my head. “No. In your war room, you spoke about Daneb Riggs.”
“That’s right. He was a person of interest, on the Watch list.”
“Then tell me about him. I want to know who Riggs really is.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE HARBINGER
We met in the war room again.
“You sure that you want to do this?” Harris asked me. “You’ve been through a lot today.”
“If I’m ready to help you, and the Watch, raid a Christo-damned farm,” I replied, “then I’m ready for this. I want to know.”
It went further than that. I didn’t just want to know; I needed to know. My Jackals watched on silently. I’d summoned them, because they deserved the truth as well. If it came to it, we needed all the intel we could muster. Elena had joined us too.
“Riggs betrayed the Alliance,” Harris said. “It was nothing personal. Keep telling yourself that, or it’ll eat you up inside. Don’t let him do that to you.”
“He only did it because I let him,” I said forcefully. “I let him get close. I gave him the opportunity.”