The Eternity War: Pariah

by Jamie Sawyer

  I stepped forward. Wings of anticipation fluttered in my chest. It was that smell, I decided. It always put me on edge, and while the Pariah was on the ship I was never going to feel at ease.

  “Hello?” I called again. My throat tightened. Angry that I was letting this stupid situation get the better of me, I swallowed it back and added, more angrily, “Report!”

  For no reason other than unbridled curiosity, I took a few steps closer to the shuttle door.

  I heard music. Something gentle and guitar-driven: the sort of shit my dad used to force me to listen to as I was growing up. He played it to Mom, and she insisted that it was romantic. A pang of homesickness welled up inside of me. I was tired and emotional. Today had been a long day.

  “Report! I’m not sure what this is supposed to be, but I’ve had enough already—”

  I reached the shuttle’s hatch.

  The warm light from inside was created by a handful of glow-globes, installed around the shuttle’s passenger cabin. The deck was padded out with some survival blankets, made almost cosy. In the middle of the nest was an upturned cargo crate: an improvised table filled with open ration-packs that had been arranged as though this was an actual dining table.

  Riggs stood just inside the cabin. Biting his lower lip, rubbing the back of his neck with one of his big hands.

  “I…” he started. Paused, like he was unable to read my reaction, and then began again. “Sort of wanted to see if you wanted some time on our own…” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped back nerves. “I hope it isn’t too much.”

  I glared at him through my eyebrows, scowled. “What the fuck is this, Corporal?”

  “It’s a stupid idea,” he said, taking a step back from me. “Sorry, ma’am. It’s just that you’ve been avoiding me, and what with North Star, and then the repair job—and, well, I don’t blame you, but…”

  “Are we in high school?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re not.”

  “Am I your date, and is this prom?”

  Riggs stared at the ground. The Warhawk’s cabin looked an awful lot like an oversexed teenager’s attempt at romance.

  “You are not, ma’am,” Riggs answered. “Negative to both.”

  But when he did manage to bring up his head and look at me, he was probably surprised to see that I was smiling.

  “It’s ridiculous,” I said. “And I hate it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “But I’m touched by the effort.”

  And just like that, my promise to let this thing with Riggs go—whatever was really happening between us—was broken.

  Riggs grasped me in his arms. Natural endorphins began to pour through my bloodstream, began to buzz in my head. Without even thinking, as our bodies entwined, I switched my wrist-comp to silent. Didn’t want what I knew would follow to be interrupted.

  “I wanted to do this for you, ma’am.”

  I went rigid and glared at Riggs again. “Call me Keira.”

  He nodded and I folded into him.

  What followed was sweaty, torrid, and animalistic.

  In short, it was very much like the night of my high school prom. The Warhawk’s cabin had a lot in common with the back seat of an aerocar, reinforced by the plethora of sharp corners and jagged edges, and the fact that there never seemed to be enough space. Eventually—exhausted and spent—we both collapsed in a heap on the deck.

  Riggs had scooped me into his arms—those big, muscled arms that promised everything was going to be okay—and instead of fighting him, I just let it happen. More than that, if I was being true to myself: I wanted it to happen. It felt good to give in, to surrender, if only for an hour or so. It was like I was parking First Lieutenant Jenkins at the door, and allowing myself to becoming Keira for just a little while. Which was the real me? One was the simulant: a battle-scarred body made for war. The other was the operator: soft and vulnerable. One could be hurt, the other was impervious.

  I lay back on Riggs’ chest and felt the throb of his heart against my head, the gentle rhythm of his breathing.

  “Have you been avoiding me?” he asked, quietly.

  “No talking.”

  “I’d like to know,” he said. Not confrontationally, but with a bit of insistence in his voice.

  I sighed. “Maybe. I’m not sure that this is right.”

  “But you do like it?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then it’s right. I know that it’s what I want, and if you enjoy something this much then it can’t be wrong.”

  “You’re infatuated, Riggs. You’re a Gaian, I’m an Earth-girl. You’re a corporal, I’m a lieutenant. Just because you like all of those things, doesn’t make it right.”

  “That’s pretty cold, Keira,” Riggs said. He sounded more disappointed than angry though, and his arms remained wrapped around me.

  “That’s how things have got to be,” I said. “That’s how things are. What do you think Captain Heinrich would do if he found out that I was sleeping with my first officer?”

  “He doesn’t need to know,” Riggs insisted.

  “Then what about the rest of the squad?” I thought of Lopez’s words, as we had been on Fe’s hull. “I think that they suspect.”

  “And does that matter either?” Riggs shrugged. “These things happen. You already know about Feng and Zero.”

  “This is different, Riggs. I don’t want them knowing about us.”

  The armour was coming back up. As though a maggot were eating at my insides, I could already feel remorse and regret beginning to gnaw away at me. I stirred beside Riggs. Despite the blanket on the deck, it was hardly a comfortable environment, and now that we were finished the air inside the cabin smelled stale with sweat and the odour of the uneaten ration-packs. The words EARTH PRODUCE: GAIA CULT APPROVED had been stamped across the lids. As a Gaia Cultist, Riggs wasn’t supposed to eat anything that wasn’t the produce of Old Earth—a pretty ridiculous religious stipulation if you asked me.

  “I should go,” I said. “The others will wonder where I am.”

  “Stay for a while,” Riggs said.

  “There’s too much to be done before we reach the coordinates—”

  “Nothing that can’t wait. One of the others will cover your watch.”

  He snaked an arm around my naked waist. Tenderly pulled me towards him. The private war going on in my head—between vulnerable and armoured—reached perfect equilibrium for a second, and I rolled on top of Riggs and let it happen. But instead of going for another round, Riggs dangling mod looked almost sad. His smile faltered.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “I know that this has been hard on you.”

  Don’t let him go there. Don’t let him in. You need that armour back.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “We can talk instead, if you want to. It might help.”

  “You’ve said that already.”

  “I just want you to know that I’m here for you.”

  “I thought that we covered this on the Bainbridge,” I said, icily.

  “You also said that was the last time, Keira. And there have been a couple since…”

  “Are you complaining?”

  “Of course not. It’s just that I’d like…”—he grimaced, chewing on the words, his brow creasing in frustration at not being able to express himself as he’d like—“well, in my head, I’d like this to be more than it is.”

  “And I’ve already told you: it is what it is. There’s no point in trying to change that.”

  I rolled off Riggs. Felt the prickle of cold air on my skin, and the endorphin crash that comes after good sex. Armoured Keira was definitely winning the war now, and I was mentally building up the list of tasks that needed to be done before we reached our destination.

  “All I wanted to say is that I’m here for you. After what has happened with the Krell, with North Star…”

  “Sure thing,” I said. “Talking Krell isn’t
exactly something I thought I’d experience on this mission.”

  Riggs laughed. “I hear that, but it wasn’t what I meant.”

  I started to dress. Pulled on my fatigues. Strapped on my wrist-comp. “Then what do you mean? Spit it out, Corporal.”

  Riggs sighed. “I’m not sure. The Pariah is freaky as all hell, but something else is niggling me.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, how did the Black Spiral know that we were going to be on North Star Station?”

  “Chance,” I said. Began to pull my deck-boots on. “They operate throughout the Drift. This is their country, not ours.”

  “You believe that?” Riggs said. “Space is pretty big. There are sixteen border stations along the FQZ. North Star might be the most remote, but why did they pick there?”

  Riggs stirred and, still naked, clambered through to the Warhawk’s cockpit. It was spacious enough to accommodate two simulants in combat-armour, and even Riggs’ muscular frame was dwarfed by the control console. He called up a holo of near-space, showing the entirety of the Maelstrom’s border.

  “Three of these border stations have access to Shard Gates,” he said, pointing to his research. “Two are closer to Daktar than North Star.”

  “What’s your point? There’s no way that the Spiral could’ve known that we would be on that station.”

  “Unless,” Riggs said, turning to me so that his face was half-concealed by the green glow of the holo, “someone tipped them off. The intel must’ve come from us. From the Santa Fe.”

  Scanning the imagery, I wondered if Riggs had a point. It did seem terribly coincidental that the Spiral had turned up at North Star. The more I thought about it, the less credible it seemed. The idea that the Black Spiral had chosen the same location as us by mere fluke…

  “This is a serious accusation.”

  “I’m not accusing anybody,” Riggs said. “But I wouldn’t even raise it with you unless I thought it was worth considering.”

  Now that the facts were laid out like this, it was pretty hard to argue with them. The Spiral turned up on North Star because someone had told them that was where we would be. They hadn’t gone after the Pariah until we had arrived, and even then…

  “They wanted us alive,” I whispered. “That, or they wanted our intel.”

  “Maybe,” Riggs said. “But they wouldn’t know that unless they had someone on the inside.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Feng is former Directorate. Novak is a lifer.”

  “They’re Jackals,” I said. But even as I said it, I realised that I wasn’t speaking with conviction. As terrible as it sounded, did Riggs have a point here? Something opened inside of me, and I felt myself standing on the edge of a precipice, the brink of an abyss. There would be no return from this point. I swallowed, said, “Feng isn’t Directorate.”

  Only this time, unlike when I’d had this same conversation with Lopez on the Fe’s outer hull, I didn’t feel so certain.

  “Like Carmine says: who knows what they put in his head?” Riggs replied, staring at the holo. “And back on North Star, I really thought that Novak was going to run.”

  “But he didn’t. He came back.”

  Riggs lifted his shoulders and held them there, as though undecided. “Yeah, but maybe that was only because he knew that he had no other choice. Like I said, I’m not making accusations. But can you really trust anyone on this ship?”

  I exhaled slowly. The urge to climb back into the simulator-tanks, to make everything all right again, was becoming more intense by the second.

  “Except for me, I mean,” Riggs added, giving me his best hangdog look.

  “Keep this tight,” I said to Riggs, patting his shoulder in what I hoped was a comradely manner. “Sub rosa. Don’t share it with anyone.”

  “Solid copy.”

  My mother used to have a phrase: everything changes, but nothing is ever different. Seemed about right from where I was standing. I’d fought against the Asiatic Directorate more times than most Sim Ops troopers, at least those who were still in one piece. Old rivalries sometimes died hard. Was whatever we were chasing in the Gyre worth upsetting galactic peace for?

  Riggs stood and reached for my waist, but I pushed his hand back.

  “I’ve got something else to tell you,” he said, haltingly. “About us. I’ve been meaning to say it for a while.”

  I finished dressing. The inside of the Warhawk was suddenly too small, claustrophobic even, brought on by the press of the decks, and the mingled smells in the small space. I needed out.

  “It can wait, Riggs,” I said.

  “It can’t, Keira. Who knows what we’re getting into out here?”

  “We’re executing the mission,” I said. All business now. I could tell where this was going, could see on Riggs’ handsome face that he wanted to open up. I just knew that it was going to be something emotional, something that I couldn’t handle right now.

  He started, “I want to tell you—”

  “No,” I said. “Don’t say anything. Don’t say another word.”

  “I need to say it.”

  “No, you don’t. This isn’t what you think it is.”

  Riggs’ face dropped: gave me that wounded puppy look that was disgusting and cute in equal measure.

  “Get dressed,” I said. “Get this place cleaned up, and don’t let anyone see you leave.”

  “Copy that,” Riggs said.

  Tomorrow, Carmine promised, we would be at the coordinates. Whatever happened to the Hannover, in less than eight hours we were going to get some results.

  That night passed fitfully. I had dreams, which was nothing new. I topped up on the sedatives—took double the dose that the medtechs had recommended, but knew that I could take it. Soon I’d be back in my simulant, and all of my blunt edges would be sharp again.

  But the drugs did little to help me this time. Though I slept, all I could think about was Riggs’ disclosure. Was there an infiltrator on the ship? Too many suspects, and too little intelligence on which to base a proper case. Surely not Captain Carmine: we had history together, and she was a good Alliance officer. But I knew nothing of her crew. Had they been vetted by Major Sergkov and Military Intelligence?

  And what of the shadowy major … I doubted that he would sabotage his own mission, but his methods had been suspect so far. The decision to lay over at North Star wasn’t beyond criticism: why couldn’t we make the collection of the Pariah somewhere less prone to infiltration?

  Worst of all was the suspicion that the one of the Jackals—Jenkins’ Jackals: my squad—might be a traitor.

  I saw each of their faces, and knew that none was above suspicion.

  Try as I might to defend Feng, how deep did his Directorate loyalty go? Perhaps Carmine was right about him. Perhaps his dedication to the cause ran deeper than we knew. Riggs had mentioned Novak too, and he was an obvious weak link. Whatever I’d said to Riggs, I had genuinely thought that the Russian would run on North Star. In a restless sleep, I replayed the incident in my head. Was his decision to come back for the squad just covering for something else?

  And what about Lopez? Not an obvious suspect, but a possibility nonetheless. She carried a potential streak of conflict as strong as Feng’s, but in a different way: Senator Lopez wanted Sim Ops shut down. What better way to do it than leave yet another destroyed space station in our wake?

  In the end, I gave up on sleep, and took an extra watch on the Pariah.

  Feng was on duty, sitting alone at a guard station that wasn’t much more than a console and a chair, one of the Santa Fe’s shockrifles laid across his lap. He’d been on watch for a while, but Feng didn’t seem any less frosty, and I noticed that his rifle was armed. No chances taken where the Krell were concerned. Still, Feng looked glad to see me when I arrived.

  “Evening, Private,” I said. “I’ll take this watch.”

  “Are you sure, ma’am?” said Feng, although obviously grateful
for the offer.

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Scram. Just stay away from the SOC.”

  “Zero still down there?” he asked.

  “Where else would she be?”

  “Good point,” Feng said.

  “How has our friend here been behaving?”

  “Take a look for yourself.”

  The brig was a small, confined space, with a single containment cell. A null-shield extended across the length of the chamber, allowing an unhindered view inside the cell. That had started small and featureless, but the Pariah had made the place its own. The Krell had nested inside the chamber. The walls ran with something like mucous, rivulets of moisture coalescing in an unnatural pattern. The Pariah sat in one corner, limbs folded around itself, battle equipment randomly scattered across the cell floor. Feng’s console was filled with multiple camera angles of the inside of the cell, ensuring that nothing the Pariah did would go unseen. Maybe spending so much time with Zero is beginning to have an effect on him, I thought.

  “Go get some shut-eye, Feng,” I ordered. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “Solid copy.”

  I took up the post. The Krell didn’t give any perceptible response to the change of guard. “You asleep in there?” I asked the Pariah.

  The alien didn’t move, but said, “We do not sleep like others.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “That would be too easy.”

  The cell lights had been dimmed, and the alien’s eyes were barely visible in the dark. It seemed to be watching me. Feng’s console had been set up so that some views of the cell were in infrared, and I noticed how little body heat the creature seemed to shed.

  “Do you know how many of your kind I’ve killed?” I asked the alien.

  “We do not know,” it said.

  “That’s probably best.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “So you’re some kind of XT philosopher now?”

  “We do not know ‘philosopher,’” the alien replied. “Or ‘XT.’”

  “It means extraterrestrial. Like outside of Earth.”

  “Understand ‘Earth.’ Is homeworld.”

  “That’s right,” I said. I didn’t feel entirely comfortable with the alien knowing about Earth, about what our homeworld meant, but I quickly decided that it didn’t really matter. Old Earth was a nuclear shithole. The Krell wanted to bomb it? They were welcome to try.