allies and enemies 02 - rogues

by Amy J. Murphy

  “Meaning?” Tristic struggled to keep the defensive tone from Maynard’s voice.

  “The device you described has been removed from the engine compartment. There is no sign of it on the pirate ship. The Binait woman denies knowledge of it.”

  “Lies, of course,” Tristic blurted. It was a stumble. If she were not so distracted by the stryker, the promise of the girl so near.

  “What makes you so sure?” Snowden’s eyes narrowed. Her energies were tucking away. She was less likely to trust.

  Careful. Careful.

  “Binait are lying thieves. Untrustworthy as a race.”

  Tristic forced her full attention back on the two Humans. “If they have removed it, it still may be possible to track it, provided the field compression is active.”

  “Provided?” Snowden paced. She would need to be dealt with soon. Wren was next in the command structure, a far more willing puppet. “Miles. I think we’ve heard enough of this. It’s a goose chase.”

  Wren seemed to snap from his fog. “Sir, I—”

  “Enough, Major.” Snowden strode to the door. “I’m going to talk to this Binait prisoner. Get the real story.”

  The door shut. Wren’s stricken expression was nearly laughable. How he pined for that woman’s approval. Perhaps she would allow her new pet a taste before eliminating Snowden. A type of reward.

  He was vulnerable. There had been few other opportunities to be alone together. The guard remained outside the hatch. Another would be due any moment. It had to be now.

  Tristic gathered her strength, pushed out at him. She crossed the space between them quickly. Her bound wrists sought the exposed skin of his throat.

  “There’s still time, pet,” she crooned as she slipped into her new vessel.

  61

  Rachel paced the length of the tiny room. It did not take much time. The broom closet held one chair, a workstation desk (entirely decommissioned) and a slim bed that was barely more than a cot. A gray pimple the size of a marble nested in the corner where the wall met the ceiling, no doubt a surveillance camera.

  She flipped it off. Pricks.

  The thick glass door, no matter how firmly she affixed it with a glare, remained locked. The view of the room beyond had not changed: a single marine, her “escort.” No longer wearing the heavy deployment armor, but standing in a way that suggested he was well skilled in the distribution of ass-kickings.

  The young man refused to acknowledge her presence in any way. The nametape on his fatigues was too far away for her to read. She had decided to name him “Melvin” because a) he seemed nothing like a Melvin and b) a deeply seated antagonistic part of her really thought he would hate that.

  Her first few hours in the compound had been spent in an uneasy trance, as if this were all a fantasy and she’d wake up to find herself back on Ix’s defunct carrier, surrounded by Zenti. The food tasted real enough, though, and was surprisingly bland. The water was good old recycled stuff, something any colonist would know by the “trust us, the chlorinated aroma is way better than the alternative” taste.

  How long has it been since Tintown?

  Certainly, someone would come to tell her that they’d sent her message to Sasha. She was not expecting a welcome home party in her honor. Rachel had been officially listed as dead two years ago, but someone had to be curious. Instead, they were treating her like an inconvenience. There was something worrisome about that.

  The far door that led into the hallway beyond the cell opened and a tense-looking young woman appeared. Dressed in scrubs and wearing an expression that suggested she would rather be anywhere else, the medic spoke briefly to Melvin and then stepped up to the glass door.

  “Doctor Northway, I’m here to collect a blood sample.” The medic nodded at a plastic phlebotomy kit in her hand. The woman’s badge read: Hoffs

  “That’s nice.” Rachel folded her arms. “I gave at the office.”

  She blinked at her.

  “That means ‘no’.” Rachel stomped back to the cot and sat. “No blood, spit, pee…nada. Not until I talk to someone in charge.”

  Hoffs frowned. “Doctor, you of all people must know that isolation and sample testing are part of the protocol for unsupervised interaction with off-world—”

  “Unsupervised interaction,” Rachel scoffed. “You know. I’d been wondering what to call my experience of playing Dr. McCoy to the interstellar cast of the Pirates of Penzance for nearly two friggin’ years.”

  The tech gave an uneasy grin, attempting to change her tack. “Doctor, if you give me the specimen, I’ll be sure to convey your request to Captain Wren. He’s a very busy man.”

  “How ‘bout now?” Rachel shot back. “March on back and tell Wren that I demand my one phone call.”

  Hoffs exchanged a look at the marine. “It’s not that simple—”

  “It’s usually not. Here’s what I do know.” Rachel sprang up from the cot and stood before Hoffs. “Any foreign or threatening organism I might have contracted would have been detected by the ASC that we went through at the station airlock. It screens for over four thousand known infectious agents that affect Humans. That takes five fucking minutes. Not a day and a half. If something had been detected, I guarantee you I would be in a neg-pressure room, not someone’s old office. So you want my blood for something else. You gonna tell me what, sweetheart?”

  Hoff frowned. “Fine. Looks like it’s going to be the hard way.” She pivoted back to Melvin, who looked as if he very much liked the sound of “the hard way”. He stepped closer to the glass and reached for something she could not see. There was a string of soft clicks as he accessed the key pass. He was close enough for Rachel to read his nametape: Chapman.

  Huh. I would have never guessed that one.

  Rachel backed away as the door slid aside.

  Chapman entered the tiny room first. In his right hand was something that looked alarmingly like a Taser.

  The lab tech stepped in behind him. “Let’s get this over with.”

  62

  “You wished to see me, Doctor.” Wren stood beyond the glass. He was dressed in dark navy fatigues, impossibly neat, his hands folded in front of him.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Rachel raged. Her arm still throbbed from the forceful removal of her blood. “Why are you keeping me locked up like this?”

  Wren cocked his head to the side. The motion was spastic, not matching the calm purr of his tone. “Doctor Northway, there’s something that you’ve failed to realize. I took an enormous risk in bringing you back to this installation. I went off-book when I made that decision. Some show of appreciation would be in order.”

  “Thanks. A lot.”

  “Sarcasm. Typical.” Wren clucked his tongue. He twitched his head again. It was a jerking twist that looked involuntary.

  Rachel turned her face up at the ceiling. “Just please tell me that someone got a trans out—”

  “No such thing has been done.”

  Her head pivoted. “What do you mean?”

  “Roughbook is a classified installation. Transmissions back to the core systems are not a common activity and are reserved for emergencies. No one has been given clearance to contact your partner.” He consulted his tablet and raised an eyebrow. “Sasha Rolanski.”

  Icy panic squeezed her ribs. “Open this door. I’ll show you an emergency.”

  She could swear he was enjoying this. He patted the air. The gesture seemed patronizing. “Dr. Northway, that’s a far from constructive attitude. From all that I’ve read of you, you’re an intelligent, accomplished physician and geneticist. A scientist like yourself would certainly see the logic in keeping a hidden military asset…well, hidden. The energy required for laserlink access for coms would endanger the lives of the dedicated men and women of this facility. All for what? The peace of mind of someone whom you would not have been allowed to communicate with had you arrived two years ago.”

  “Oh my God.” Rachel folded her hands into f
ists. “Let me see someone above you. What’s her face?” Her memory seized the name. “Snowden?”

  “Major Snowden is dead. A female Binait from the pirate compound attacked her before taking her own life.”

  Rachel gaped. “Neesa.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You were familiar with the assailant?”

  “Yes. I mean…no. Sorta.”

  “Explain.”

  “There’s nothing to explain. She was a nut job that ran with Ix. If you ask me, she was more the brains of the operation. He was the neurotic muscle.”

  “Interesting.” It was said in a damning way. “How long were you in their service?”

  “Their service?” Rachel huffed. “It wasn’t like that. I was their prisoner. Don’t you get it?”

  “I see.” His tone suggested that he most certainly did not. “Doctor, the UEC has very specific rules about aiding terrorist activity.”

  “They weren’t terrorists. They were morons that went around stealing shit.”

  Wren consulted the tablet once more. Rachel promised herself she’d shove it up his ass if she ever had the opportunity. “These so-called ‘morons’ destroyed two major Guild installations in the past six months and have stolen considerable amounts of supplies destined for legitimate commerce outposts run by the same Guild. This suggests an organized criminal element. Why would you try to downplay their activities?”

  Oh God. They think I’ve gone native. Maybe I have. She swallowed. “It’s not what it looks like. I did what I had to do. It was survival.”

  “So you were coerced into providing medical services?”

  “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Major Snowden’s assailant stated you aided in the escape of two other captives from the pirate compound.” He angled the tablet to face the glass. On its screen was a video with the grainy quality of a surveillance camera. Korbyn half-dragging Erelah across the muddy pockmarked landing field of Tintown. “You are familiar with these two individuals? Yes?”

  Rachel stared as the image loop repeated then finally nodded. “You find them?”

  Wren’s posture changed. For the first time, he actually seemed interested in what she was saying. Interesting was the wrong word. Downright eager was more appropriate.

  “The male was identified as Asher Korbyn, known associate of these pirates. The crimes attributed to him are…impressive. The female, however, is another matter entirely…”

  Wren’s gaze went distant. He swallowed. Then, as if remembering his whereabouts, his blue-eyed gaze drifted back to her with another jerky sideways twitch of his jaw.

  Rachel stepped back. The tiny hairs on her arms stood on end. And for once she was grateful for the barrier between them.

  “You attacked Ix’s place. And Neesa gave us up, told you where to find us in Tintown.”

  “Doctor, are you purposefully withholding vital information about a hostile?”

  “Hostile?” Rachel laughed. “That kid may be more of a danger to herself than anything.” Even as she said it, she realized that even she did not sound convinced. After all, she had seen Erelah use the Sight. That wasn’t something that you wanted used on you, and in the wrong hands, it could be a pretty dangerous thing. Was that why they wanted her?

  “She told me her name is Tilley. At first.”

  Wren chortled. Like it was an inside joke. He sobered once he realized Rachel’s scrutiny. “An alias. Her real name is Erelah Veradin and it is vitally important to this installation…probably to the entire UEC…that she be taken into custody.”

  Rachel frowned. “Why? What do you want with her?”

  At this, Wren folded the cover shut on his tablet and tucked it under his arm. He didn’t seem to notice her questions. “They escaped the mining facility in a vehicle equipped with an IS drive. Korbyn appeared injured. Where might they have fled?”

  Something told her holding back would be a smart idea. The rational part of her told her that she was helping people she’d just met over her own kind and her paranoia was the manifestation of PTSD after the shit show her life had been for the past two years.

  Yet her fellow Humans weren’t behaving in a humanitarian way, especially Wren.

  Why was he here questioning her? Didn’t he have a security officer, someone that questioned people for a living?

  There was something very wrong here. Watching this man move, and talk, she got the absurd sense that this wasn’t so much Wren, but someone pretending at being Wren.

  “We didn’t exactly sign each other’s yearbooks,” she heard herself say.

  This earned another odd head twitch from him.

  “I’ll let you consider your options, doctor.” He cast a look around the sealed door and Spartan interior of her (let’s face it) cell. “Perhaps some time to think will help you clear your thoughts. You’ve been through a considerable ordeal.”

  Maybe she should have told him what she knew about Erelah. Perhaps they would be more humane in their manhunt. Someone had experimented on her genetics, and twisted them into something new and frightening. It was also killing her. She could have also told him that Korbyn, in spite of his storied criminal past, would probably do anything to keep Erelah safe. Something else had solidified between them and it was bad news for anyone that got in the way of that.

  63

  “There are sixteen separate ion trails departing the mining facility. With the filters you devised, sir, we’ve been able to isolate the freshest. Ten of those lead to locations further away from Guild-held regions.”

  Tristic forced Wren’s face into a bland mask as the ensign droned on, telling her things she’d already surmised. The ineptitude, coupled with the primitive nature of their technology, was staggering at times. How had they managed to capture an entire Sceeloid outpost?

  She considered her patience formidable, one of her greatest attributes, but it was not limitless. When she finally found her chance to leave Maynard’s dying body in favor of Wren, she had anticipated little resistance. For one that appeared so delicate, the captain’s conscience was stubborn. Daily, he struggled to regain possession of his body. Moments like this one, surrounded by his fellow Humans, were the most difficult. He thought he could signal them somehow, like a trapped man attempting to call out for rescue. Eventually, he would tire and fall to silence. Today, he was especially active. Tristic blamed the trying interview with the Northway female.

  She hid her frustration with her host by pacing along the bank of archaic devices that they amusingly called their “long array.” Its range was paltry compared to even the most simple of Regime tech. At this rate, she would have burned through the entire command crew before they claimed the Veradin girl.

  “That leaves six.” Tristic rubbed a thick, primate hand over the base of her skull. Wren’s struggle against her evoked a new fierce pain there. It dug in with scythe-cat claws.

  “Those are the ones we’re considering as candidates, sir.” His eyes narrowed. The pitch to his voice was wary.

  Was he suspicious?

  His nametape indicated his surname was Childs. She made a note of it. They all started to look the same to her. Each one as idiotic as the last.

  How had they made it this far in their graceless plodding?

  “How long?” She forced the language they called English from her throat, adding the drawl that grated her nerves, but one they seemed to expect from Wren.

  “Weeks, if we get lucky.”

  “You will make this a priority.”

  “Yes, sir, but—”

  “Place a bounty on Erelah Veradin. She must be captured undamaged.”

  “A bounty, sir?” Childs’s doubt was evident. “Major Snowden never would have—”

  “Snowden is dead.” Tristic bent over the young man. It was so difficult not to snarl. She felt her jaw twitch as the host fought.

  “The Reaches will not obey your rules and edicts. The resources are there. We need only harness them: bounty hunters, mercenaries. Life in those
dusty hardscrabble worlds is desperate.” She stretched Wren’s mouth into a smile. Childs folded back against his chair. “Where there is desperation, there is opportunity.”

  PART VIII

  64

  By the time they reached Narasmina, Erelah was bone-weary. She wanted nothing more than to sleep, but there was no safe place on the ship to lock herself away. Asher had earned her distrust. She refused to speak with him unless it was related to the flight of the Cassandra.

  As the hours progressed, he became paler. She watched his actions become slow and fumbling. Yet, he insisted on navigating.

  On the vids, she glimpsed a world covered by vast oceans, dotted in green clusters of islands. They flew into the night side of the planet, littered by strings of light. They landed in a port with few empty loading docks. Towering stacks of cargo containers circled the yard. Freighters occupied most of the slips. Only a few figures moved about. The local hour felt late.

  At the hatch, she tucked the pulse gun into the belt of her shipsuit.

  Asher noticed. “You won’t need that. Not here. Narasmina’s only a bad place to be if you’re a fish.”

  She kept the gun anyway.

  No more surprises from Asher Korbyn. Or anyone else.

  Speaking to him, even looking at him, freshened the deep-seated sting.

  Miri, granter of mercies, help me to forgive.

  In silence, they descended the cargo ramp. The warm night air bore the distinct tang of salt. Dark shapes of birds called against the deep purple sky.

  The elderly Eugenes man standing under the dock light seemed as though he had been there for centuries. As if his only purpose in life had been the wait there. Asher strode up to him. The two men regarded each other in silence. The man’s somber brown eyes flitted to Erelah.

  She sensed the curiosity he directed at her, but he said nothing as he gestured to a ground car idling nearby. Moves sluggish, Asher climbed inside. Erelah hesitated. The elderly man was dressed simply in a loose-fitting tunic decorated with an embroidered patch over the left breast: a sea demon grappling with a dragon. A Kindred crest.