Damned If You Don't (Chaos of the Covenant Book 5)

by M. R. Forbes

  “Roger,” Bastion replied.

  He took hold of the Faust’s control yoke and started adding thrust. The ship slid along the floor of the hangar on its skids, building speed while it moved toward the open bay.

  “You know,” Bastion said as they approached the black beyond. “Davlyn could frag us the minute you’re off this ride. He’s been on his best behavior because he’s terrified of you.”

  “He won’t. He’s more afraid of the Republic falling to Thraven. Do you think I’m frightening?”

  Bastion glanced over. “Nah. I think you’re perfect.”

  “Even with this?” she held up her hands. The small ridges were obvious on the back, running up toward her wrists.

  “Especially with that. It makes you unique. Exotic.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Not this time.”

  The Faust reached the edge of the battleship, slipping through the momentary lapse in shields and blasting out into space. Bastion guided her around, shooting her past the bridge before tapping on the FTL controls.

  “Good hunting, Queenie,” Davlyn said.

  “Roger,” Abbey replied. “We’ll see you soon.”

  The Faust continued to drift perpendicular to the High Noon while the computer calculated the FTL positioning. A green light on the dashboard indicated it was ready, and Bastion leaned over and tapped the control. The disterium cloud expanded around them, sending them on their way.

  Abbey unbuckled herself and stood, circling toward the back. “How long to Avalon?” she asked.

  “About six hours,” Bastion replied.

  “Call an all-hands in the CIC.”

  “Aye, Queenie.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problemo.”

  Abbey left the cockpit. The CIC was immediately behind it, the main open area in the center of the ship. None of the Rejects were currently present, each of them busy finishing up the preparations for the journey. Pik and Benhil were loading up the weapons and equipment they had taken from the High Noon, while Gant was in the Construct module, using the server to integrate his subnet design. Phlenel and her bot were down in the medical module, doing something to the bot there, Jequn was in the living quarters stocking the kitchen, and Trin was… Where was Trin?

  “Attention all you losers,” Bastion said. “Queenie wants an all-hands in five minutes. Last one there has to kiss Gant.”

  “Like that’s such a bad thing,” she heard Gant shout from below.

  She couldn’t help but smile. It was good to be back with her family. It was good to have their support in this. She was doing her best to stay focused and not worry about Hayley, and she didn’t know if she could have without their presence.

  “She’s okay,” she told herself.

  She had heard that mothers always seemed to know when something bad happened to their children, even when they weren’t with them, and she had never had that feeling. What good was the Light of the Shard? What good was the Shard’s Gift if it couldn’t do the same?

  Of course, that didn’t mean she wasn’t in Thraven’s hands, ready to be used against her. She had to be prepared for that possibility. She had to be prepared to make the impossible choice. Would she let the entire galaxy burn to save her child?

  If it came to it, she knew she would. But she would be damned if it would come to that. She would save them both, and that was the end of it.

  “Queenie,” Jequn said, coming down the ladder into the CIC. Bastion arrived at the same time, moving in from the cockpit. “I’ve got about three boxes of food bars left to unpack and then we’re all set.

  “Queenie,” Benhil said, his head peeking up from the ladder as he ascended. He scanned the room. “I’m not last.”

  “Me neither,” Pik said, following Benhil. “Gant is behind me.”

  “It doesn’t matter if I’m last,” Gant said. “I can’t kiss myself.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” Abbey said.

  They spread out inside the CIC.

  “We’re missing Phlenel and Trin,” Benhil said.

  Phlenel’s bot climbed the ladder. “Does it count if I’m not physically present?” it asked.

  “Debatable,” Bastion said.

  “I’ll give it to you,” Abbey said.

  “Thank you, Queenie.”

  “Where is Trin?” Pik asked.

  “Probably planting a bomb or something,” Bastion said. “Did you check the engine room?”

  “She can’t kiss Gant either,” Pik said. “She doesn’t have a mouth.”

  “She can hear you,” Trin said, her feet appearing on the ladder, leading down from the upper level. “And she doesn’t appreciate the comments.”

  She dropped to the floor, turning to face Abbey.

  “My apologies, Queenie. I just wanted some time alone. I am not fully adjusted to this yet. My mind has the capability of feeling sadness, but the lack of a physical response is unsettling.”

  “Now I feel like an ass,” Pik said. “I’m sorry, Trin. Well, not completely sorry because you were working for Thraven and you did try to kill us, but maybe we can call it even?”

  “I’m glad you mentioned that,” Abbey said. “It’s one of the reasons I wanted you all together. Most of us here know who Trinity was and our history with one another. If any of you have any grievances to air or any hard feelings to get out, I want you to do it now. I don’t need any bullshit when things get serious.”

  “Things aren’t serious yet?” Benhil asked.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Do you trust her, Queenie?” Bastion said.

  “Yes,” Abbey replied without hesitation.

  “Good enough for me,” Benhil said.

  “Me, too,” Pik agreed.

  “Welcome to the Rejects,” Bastion said. “Any shit we give you from here on out is because you’re one of us.”

  “Thank you,” Trin said. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I tried to kill you all. I’m not the same person I was before.”

  “You need a nick,” Bastion said. “So does Phlenel.”

  “Phlenel has one,” Abbey said.

  “Pudding,” Phlenel said.

  “Hah! That’s mine,” Bastion replied. “Let me think.” He put his hand on his chin. “Ironwoman? No. Terminator? No. That’s stupid. Robotrin? Ugh. Knight? No.”

  “Brain-in-the-box?” Pik offered.

  “That’s worse than mine,” Bastion said.

  “How about Void?” Benhil suggested. “Since you can’t show emotions, and because it’s fragging cool and frightening at the same time.”

  “I like it,” Pik said.

  “Me, too,” Abbey agreed.

  “It will do,” Trin said.

  “Deposit it,” Bastion said.

  “Deposited,” Abbey said. “Void it is. Now let’s move on to more important business. I would normally turn to Ruby for this, but she isn’t here. So, who can tell us about Avalon?”

  “I can,” Benhil said. “It’s your fairly standard Republic world. Terraformed about two hundred years ago, population of a few million. If Tridium has a factory there, I never heard about it.”

  “I don’t expect their skunkworks to be orbiting the planet itself,” Abbey said. “But it’s probably somewhere nearby, within a few thousand AU. Close enough to use the planet as a drop point, far enough that they can keep it somewhat secret.”

  “The Gate would have to be further out than that,” Gant said. “If they want to keep it completely secret.”

  “There’s a huge gas nebula a couple of light years from the planet,” Benhil said. “I’d be willing to bet the factory is hiding there.”

  “It could be in any direction,” Gant said. “Without coordinates, it’ll take weeks to find it.”

  “If someone is making deliveries to it from Avalon, then someone on Avalon knows where it is,” Abbey said.

  “We just need to find that special someone,” Bastion said.

  “Sounds ro
mantic,” Benhil said.

  “Odds that the someone in question is a Tridium employee?” Jequn asked.

  “Too obvious,” Gant said. “But I’m sure we’ll be able to connect them to Tridium one way or another.”

  “How are recent developments going to be affecting the planet?” Phlenel asked.

  “You mean the potential civil war?” Abbey said.

  “Yes.”

  “Avalon is pretty far removed. Hopefully, it won’t be a problem.”

  “This is us, Queenie,” Bastion said. “I’m willing to take bets that there will be some kind of problem.”

  “And not the one we’re expecting,” Pik said. “Deposit that.”

  “Personally, I think we can handle any complications that come our way,” Trin said.

  “I like your attitude,” Abbey said. “Let’s go with that. We’ll gear up for a civilian excursion in the planet’s capital. Cherub, Okay, Joker, you’re with me. The rest of you will provide backup.”

  “Queenie, you don’t want me to come?” Gant asked.

  “Gant are still relatively rare outside of Ganemant,” Abbey said. “Thraven is bound to have a heavy presence on a world so close to his pet project, and I don’t want your existence making them suspicious.”

  “Like you won’t?” Bastion said. “You’re going to have to do something about your hair, at least.”

  Abbey put her hand to the thick, sharp locks. “I think I can get away with it as a neo-classical-chic-post-modern cut.”

  “Whatever the frag you just said. What about your hands? I think it’s exotic, but that’s not always a good thing.”

  Abbey looked at her hands. She spread her fingers, feeling a sense of calm as she directed the naniates to cover them over. At first, they were the same color as the shardsuit, but they adjusted to refract the light so that they blended in with her skin, smoothing her out.

  “Nice,” Pik said. “I bet you could make yourself invisible like that.”

  Abbey glanced over at him and smiled. “You know, I probably could. We’ve got six hours until we reach Avalon. Gant, I need you to finish your work on the subnet and then figure out how to change the Faust’s identifier to something that doesn’t make us easy to pick out in a crowd. The rest of you, when you’re finished with whatever you’re doing, the rest of the time is yours.”

  “Aye, Queenie,” Gant said.

  “Good. I’m going to get something to eat. I’m fragging starving. Dismissed.”

  14

  “We’ve got clearance to land, Queenie,” Bastion said, “Seems like it’s still business as usual out here, at least for the time being.”

  “I figured as much when we weren’t attacked the moment we came out of FTL,” Abbey replied.

  She checked the fit of her clothes before sliding a long overcoat above them, making sure the edges of the shardsuit remained hidden beneath the sleeves. She didn’t need the individuals on the surface staring at her because she had dressed like a soldier.

  She supposed she could have withdrawn the naniates back into her body, but that would have left her naked, and she was so accustomed to the feeling of the pressure on her flesh that she felt like she would be less confident without it. When you were entering hostile territory undercover, confidence was paramount.

  They had arrived ten minutes earlier, dropping from FTL in a travel lane a few AU from Avalon’s orbit. The planet had seemed busy from the position, with a number of shuttles and transports making their way in and out of the atmosphere, and a smaller ring station providing a rest and refuel for the ships and their crews that didn’t want to make landfall. Bringing a loaded cargo vessel to the surface was a massive drain on reactor power that most captains avoided whenever they could.

  While there was plenty of shipping activity, there wasn’t any sense of a galaxy ready to fall apart and fall to war. Either word hadn’t reached Avalon, which Abbey doubted, or the government managing the planet had decided to keep it quiet, and was handling it internally. While the Council’s vote was big news to those interested in politics, the number of civilians glued to the streams to see the outcome was likely minuscule. That included freighter captains and merchant vessels.

  The fact that there were no Republic fleet assets in the area didn’t hurt either. Avalon was close to the Fringe, but far enough from any of the hotspots that it was protected by standard Planetary Defense, most of it ground-based except when under attack. Those were local governmental forces, not national military, who were probably too damn loyal to their world for Thraven to get to turn against it.

  Of course, that hadn’t meant they were inherently safe. The Faust was an older model star hopper, a kind not that common anywhere in the galaxy. One that had been tagged and listed, her supposedly unchangeable identifier placed into a database of ships to be on the lookout for. Abbey was certain that if they had come out of FTL under their original identification, they would have been met with a much harsher greeting.

  “I wish we had more time to grab stuff,” Pik said, looking down at himself.

  While Olus had left them a wardrobe to use for these kinds of missions, the Trover selection had been relatively slim, forcing Pik to cobble stuff together and hope he could make it work. A pair of tight pants, a surprisingly too-big shirt, and a dark jacket gave him the look of a cheap pusher or a pimp.

  “There’s no planet in the universe where that looks good,” Benhil agreed, laughing.

  “Queenie, do we have time to stop and do some shopping?” Pik asked.

  “What do you think?” Abbey replied.

  Pik shrugged. “You never know unless you ask.”

  “No shopping. We’re here on business. Gant, do you have anything for me?”

  “Aye, Queenie,” Gant replied. “Tridium has an office on the planet. I’m passing the coordinates to you now.”

  “Roger.”

  “I still want to come along, you know,” he continued. “I could hang behind you, stay out of sight.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s too risky. You don’t need to worry about me, Gant. I’ve got the Gift to protect me.”

  “The Gift has conditions. I don’t.”

  Abbey shivered at the thought. He was right, of course. Even after being cleansed by the Shard, the Gift still didn’t work for free. Nothing that powerful did.

  “Just follow the orders, okay?”

  “You’re the Queen.”

  “Imp, how long to touch down?”

  “Five minutes.”

  The Faust began to shake softly the moment he said it, the ship entering the planet’s atmosphere.

  “Cherub, are you geared up and ready to go?”

  “Affirmative, Queenie,” Jequn replied. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  The rest of the ride was uneventful. Jequn had joined them by the time the ship made its landing, touching down onto the spaceport’s tarmac.

  “Yeah, I can do easy landings too,” Bastion said. “It’s nice to have a chance every once in a while.”

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” Abbey replied. “Keep your eyes and ears open. We don’t have Ruby to watch our asses for us.”

  “Roger. I’ll be here. Sitting in the cockpit. Watching the sensors. Trying to stay awake.”

  “Imp.”

  “I’m just fragging with you, Queenie. I’ve got it.”

  “Open her up.”

  The hatch on the side of the Faust slid open, the short ramp extending to the surface. They made their way to the ground. The air was thick and humid, and the nearby suns were beating down through cloudless skies. They had been directed to the personal landing section, leaving them surrounded by other smaller, privately-owned spacecraft. She could see a cargo ship coming down in the distance, dropping slowly, its reactors pushing out massive amounts of power to the anti-gravity generators that enabled the descent. It would reach the nearby loading station in a few minutes, one of a dozen she could see to the east. Most of the stations were already occ
upied, suggesting a lot of goods were coming and going today. More than usual? Knowing Thraven was building a Gate nearby made her more curious about the movements.

  “The worst thing about ala carte parking is having to walk to the transfer terminal,” Benhil said, wiping at his head. “It feels like Hell out here.”

  “High summer,” Abbey said. “It gets equally cold in the winter. You can’t say that about Hell.”

  “At least we’re outside,” Pik said. “Maybe you’ll get a tan.”

  “Do I look like I need a tan?” Benhil replied, holding up his already dark hand.

  Pik laughed.

  Abbey blinked a few times, feeling the Gift shifting around and within her. Naniates flooded over her eyes, creating an invisible sheath above them, which became an augmented overlay a moment later. When the Shard had upgraded and cleansed her, it had integrated the technology of the demonsuit into the network of the machines, giving the aggregated instance of them all of the informational capabilities of the hardware embedded into it. In essence, the symbiotes had become an alternate version of the system on a chip, albeit with a massively improved level of responsiveness and redundancy.

  The coordinates Gant had transferred to her appeared in the left corner of her eyes. As she looked at the city skyline in the distance, the building in question became outlined in red.

  “It isn’t that bad out here,” she said. “And you should be more accustomed to the heat.”

  “Are you kidding? I lost my tolerance about three seconds after Captain Mann brought us to the Faust. Give me climate control any day.”

  “Suck it up, soldier,” Abbey replied, smiling. “Tridium’s office is that way. Considering the location of the factory was being held in an unnetworked data vault, I’m willing to bet that the existence of it isn’t common company knowledge, and isn’t mentioned anywhere on their networks, either.”

  “So then what are we doing here?” Benhil asked.

  “Didn’t you used to be a spy?”

  “More like a saboteur. Those were the days.”

  “What’s the weakest link in any secure operation?”

  Benhil grinned. “The idiots running it. Okay, I get you. But how do we figure out which idiot it is?”