“Does it matter?”
She turned to Rico. “Can we stop them?”
“Not a chance in hell. There’s too many of them.”
“What are your lot doing?” she asked Callum.
“Nothing.”
“What they’re just going to sit back and let them do this?”
“Yes. I’d say they’re more than happy about this move.
I told you—the Meridian is finished. There’s nothing else on Trakis Seven that’s worth saving. Except maybe answers. And the Council don’t want answers.” He sipped his drink. This time he didn’t wince; he must be healing fast. “No, they’re probably rubbing their cowardly little hands in glee at this turn of events.”
“Damn. Damn. Damn.” Tannis kicked the table. She was so close. Trust the Church to try and blow her dream out of the sky.
“There must be something we can do.”
“I can help.”
At first, she didn’t realize who had spoken. Then the Trog raised his shaggy head.
“You can?” She didn’t mean to sound skeptical, but it came out that way. For a second, she thought she saw a glimmer of humor in his blue eyes, but it was gone before she could be sure.
“So, how can you help?”
“I think I can get someone to take the ship for you.”
“The Church’s ship. The really big Church’s ship that’s going to Trakis Seven?”
He nodded.
“The one guarded by a whole load of other ships?”
“Yes.”
Tannis glanced around the room, curious to see what the others would make of this.
“You mean the Rebels?” Rico asked the question, and the Trog nodded again.
Tannis flung herself into the nearest seat, while she tried to make sense of what was going on. She turned to Rico. “What do you know about the Rebels? And what have they got to do with the Trog?”
Rico shrugged. “That’s up to the Trog to tell you.”
“But you know something, and you didn’t tell me?” She’d thought Rico told her everything. Obviously not.
“Not my place,” he replied.
She sighed; he was right. It had always been her policy that peoples’ secrets were their own. As long as they didn’t endanger the rest of the crew. She presumed Rico must have suspected that the Trog’s secret might do just that and so questioned him.
“Tell me,” she said.
Rico nodded to the Trog, and the engineer stood up. He usually slumped and now, standing up straight, Tannis realized how tall he was, appearing even taller with his lanky build. He had dark blond hair, which looked as if it hadn’t been cut in a long time, and which usually fell over his features, hiding his expression. Now, he pushed it back revealing high cheekbones and blue-green eyes slanted like a cat.
“So,” Tannis said, “why would the rebels come and help us?”
“Because I’ll ask them to.”
“And why would they do what you ask?”
“Because the leader of the Rebel Coalition is my brother.”
Suddenly, Alex leaped to her feet. “Holy Meridian. I know who you are.”
The Trog turned his wary eyes on her. “Tell them then. They might as well know the worst.”
Alex was staring at him with something close to horror stamped on her expressive features. “Ten years ago, there was an attack on the Cathedral on Trakis Four. Some sort of explosive device went off. It was Christmas Eve and the place was packed.
Over two hundred people died, mostly children. For once, the Rebels didn’t try and crow about it—instead they claimed it was a mistake—that the explosives had gone off early.”
Tannis turned back to the Trog and frowned. “You did that?”
“I built the device. Someone tampered with the timing mechanism. It was supposed to explode later that night, when the priests were taking the Holy Communion.” The Trog’s tone was flat, expressionless. He put his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and paced the room. “I found out later that there had been a dispute among the leaders—some wanted to cause maximum causalities and didn’t really care who they were as long as they were church followers.”
“What happened?” Tannis asked.
“I killed the man who’d done it. Then I left. I’d lost my taste for rebelling. But the Church was after me—I was pretty well known, and the explosive device was my specialty. So I changed my identity.”
Tannis turned to Rico. “You knew all this?”
He nodded. “Pretty much.”
“Anyone else?”
“Me,” Janey said.
“Rico suggested I tell Janey. She helped me with my new identity, and she’s been keeping track on anyone who might be coming after me.”
Tannis rubbed a hand over her face, then pressed her eyes.
“We would have told you, if you needed to know,” Rico said.
“But you didn’t.”
It came back to her now; the news of the explosion had been splashed all over the comms at the time, but she hadn’t taken too much notice. She shook her head; she needed to forget that half her crew had kept a whopping secret from her and get on with the matter in hand. That’s what was important right now.
“So I take it your brother is still with the Coalition.”
The Trog nodded.
She had a thought. “Hey, what is your name?” She couldn’t remember from the news reports.
“Starke, but the Trog is fine.”
Skylar had been leaning on the back of Rico’s chair. Now she straightened. “So that would make your brother, Devlin Starke?”
He nodded, looking wary.
“Wow.” Skylar sounded impressed, and Tannis dug in her mind for anything she could remember about the name but came up blank.
“Wow?” she asked.
“Devlin Starke is about the most wanted man on the Corps’s most wanted men list. He’s a legend. Supposed to be a real hard bastard.”
“He’s had to be hard,” the Trog sounded defensive. “Our parents were killed by the Church—”
“They were GMs?” Tannis asked. She couldn’t see any sign of obvious genetic engineering in the Trog, but some just didn’t show and were able to hide what they were.
“Our mother was—that was enough for the bastards. Anyway, Dev was only fourteen. I was six. He looked after me.”
“He also apparently went after the Church’s extermination squad and killed very last one of them,” Skylar added. “My god— he was only fourteen—that wasn’t in the files.”
“They deserved to die,” The Trog said, his tone harsh.
“Hey, I doubt you’ll get anyone arguing with that here. What was your mother’s GM mix?”
“She was part Jaguar. It was obvious in her, and in Dev. Not so much in me though, which made it easier to hide. I don’t remember her that well, so I was never as bitter as Dev. Anyway, after he’d killed the Church’s people, he went in search of the Coalition and told them he wanted to join. He made it his whole life, dedicated himself to destroying the Church, and he rose quickly through the ranks.”
“And where did he stand on killing little children?” Alex asked.
“He was against it. He’s a good man.”
“Hmm.” Tannis knew you had to be ruthless to get to the top of an organization like the Coalition. Ruthless and dedicated.
“Have you been in touch with your brother?”
“Not for ten years. But that won’t matter. He told me to come back when I was ready.”
“And are you ready?” Tannis asked.
“I was never very interested in the fighting. It was always engines that interested me.” A smile flickered across his face.
“You know, Dev’s a brilliant engineer as well, but he got a little sidetracked—he taught me everything. Then I made the explosive device that blew up those children, and that act made us as bad as them. I couldn’t stay. But I do believe the Church has to be stopped.” The Trog glanced at Janey and shru
gged. “Am I ready to go back? The truth is—I don’t know.”
Janey crossed to him and laid a scarlet nailed hand on his arm.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was as much mine as anyone’s.”
The look that passed between the two of them was interesting, but Tannis decided she would think about it later. Right now she needed to work out if this was a legitimate plan, or whether it was likely to get them all killed.
“But your brother is still dedicated to the cause?”
“As far as I know. I doubt he’ll ever give it up—he hates the Church.” He cast a glance toward Callum. Tannis followed his gaze. Callum still appeared a little green, but he looked a lot better than when he’d first arrived. “Dev hates the Collective as well. He says they’re as responsible as the Church for the purge.”
“How does he figure that?” Tannis asked.
“The Collective allowed the GMs to be downgraded to non-human status which allowed the Church to kill us without legal repercussions, and they did nothing to stop the purge.”
Callum sat absolutely still in his seat, his expression blank, but he wasn’t defending himself or the Collective.
“Yeah well, their leader was probably too busy to know what was going on. No doubt, you weren’t important enough for his illustrious attentions, and he delegated. I’ve heard he does that a lot.”
“Anyway, Dev said one thing at a time, first the Church and then the Collective.”
“Hmm, so do you think he will help us? Maybe he’d like to see Trakis Seven destroyed.”
“Maybe. But he’d rather blow a few of the Church’s ships into space dust. Plus, if what he”—he waved a hand at Callum—“says is right and Meridian is finished then it doesn’t matter, does it?”
That was true. “Okay, so how do we do this?”
“I have a code we set up when I left. I need to send it out and hopefully he should get back to me straight away.” He sat at one of the consoles and Janey stood at his side one hand resting on his shoulder.
Tannis forced herself to relax. She sat down but couldn’t prevent her foot tapping on the floor, her fingers drumming on the arm of the chair, while she waited. She cast a sidelong glance at Callum, just as he leaned forward and picked up Rico’s bottle, topping off his glass. He caught her gaze and held out the bottle.
“Why not.”
He filled her glass and pushed it toward her.
“Anything yet?” she asked the Trog.
“It’s been less than a minute. I don’t even know where he is, whether they’ve been active.”
Tannis turned to Skylar. “What about you. You said this guy was on your most wanted lists—you must at least try and keep track of what the rebels are up to.”
“Small stuff, as far as I know,” Skylar said. “They’d been quiet for a while. The consensus within the intelligence section of the Corps was that they were building up to something big. But we had no clue what. That was before I left, but I haven’t heard anything on the comms about them since then.”
Tannis took a sip of her drink. “And how well do you know this Devlin guy?”
“Well, I’ve read the files. You know we nearly caught him once?”
The Trog turned around from where he was staring at the screen as though willing it to give him something. “No, I hadn’t heard.”
“About five years ago. We nearly killed him, but he somehow gave us the slip. We’re pretty sure he was injured though.”
“Maybe he’s dead,” Tannis said, peering around the Trog at the blank screen.
“No, I’d know if he were dead.”
“Hey, something is happening.”
The screen was blinking. Tannis jumped to her feet so she could see the words flashing up.
Welcome back. Where and when?
The Trog turned around so he could see her. “Well?”
“It needs to be soon, and we don’t know where your brother is. Can you ask him?”
“I’d rather not. They tend to be a little touchy about giving away their location. Give me a time and a place and we’ll see if he can make it.”
“Janey, can you bring up that intel on the Church’s ship—we don’t have much time and we need to work out where to intercept it.”
Janey flicked a few keys and a 3D screen came up in front of them. The planets of the Trakis system popped up one by one, the El Cazador appearing somewhere between Trakis Two and Seven.
A second group of ships showed up close to Trakis Four. Tannis studied the configuration and tried to work out where would be the best place to intercept. She didn’t want to leave it too late, but on the other hand, they needed time to plan.
They also had no clue where the rebels were based; they kept their location a closely guarded secret, so they might have to give a few locations before they hit on what that worked. “Janey, can you put in the variables and give us a few suggestions to start with.
Begin with the closest, and we’ll work our way out.”
…
Okay, so he was feeling like shit. Physically, the symptoms were fading, and he’d been starting to feel better when they hit him with the guilt thing again. He hadn’t thought he could experience guilt anymore. He’d actually believed it was part of the whole Meridian thing, a bit like the lack of sexual urges. But just like lust, the guilt had been in hiding, waiting for someone to wake it up with a few well pointed comments.
Like he was responsible for the near genocide of a whole species.
Though the GMs weren’t really a separate species. They were as much human as…well as he was. Maybe more so, because he was still changing. Who knew what he would end up in another five hundred years. The idea excited him more than it scared him.
Though it scared him a little, a bit like the fear he’d felt going into combat when he was a pilot back on earth. Fear of the unknown.
But back to the guilt. It was beginning to dawn on him, just how much he had to be guilty about. The GM thing had been wrong, but what had the Council called them—collateral damage that was acceptable to maintain their precarious hold on power.
The world thought they were all powerful, but it didn’t take much to sway the balance, and the Church had the masses behind them.
All those people who knew they would never have the means to obtain immortality through Meridian. And it wasn’t only money that was required—the selection process had become strict when it was obvious that even at the exorbitant prices, there were still many more people applying than there was Meridian available.
But the need to maintain power didn’t justify anything. Why should they be in charge anyway? What made them believe they should rule the world just because they were immortal? All that meant was they could make the same mistakes over and over again.
The truth was they had forgotten that people mattered. Half the time, he didn’t think of them as people at all, just pieces in game he was playing—the “let’s rule the universe” game. He’d become distanced from everyone. Even his own people.
Christ, he was a self-pitying bastard right now.
Or maybe he was just pissed. Back on Earth, he’d been able to drink everyone under the table. But it had been a long time, and he could feel the alcohol like a buzz in his brain. He liked the feeling. Relaxing back in his chair, he sipped his drink and watched them all through half-closed lashes.
Tannis was fizzing with energy; she was one of the most alive people he had ever encountered. At least, she hadn’t tried to kill him again, though the poison thing hadn’t been a serious effort— she’d just been letting him know that she was pissed off and very effectively.
He wasn’t sure about this whole Rebel thing. He’d always considered them an unorganized rabble and not capable of being a serious threat. Look at the Trog and the balls-up that had ended with him hiding away on El Cazador. They couldn’t even agree who to blow up.
But they didn’t have a lot of choices here.
“So,” Tannis said
, breaking into his thoughts, “while we’re waiting, what does everyone think about this? Anyone got any comments or concerns—vent them now.”
She stood in front of them, hands in her pockets, legs braced while she waited for answers. She was a good leader; she asked for advice and her crew would probably follow her anywhere, trusting her to do what was best for all of them. Unlike his Council, who hadn’t trusted him one little bit. And with good cause. For the first time, he realized he hadn’t actually given his Council’s wishes any thought. He’d merely disregarded them because their ideas weren’t in line with his own. Yes, they were scared and that had pissed him off. But only because they were disagreeing with him, and he’d gotten used to doing exactly what he wanted.
“I’ve always thought the Rebels were a load of undisciplined amateurs,” Jon said. “But if the Trog vouches for this guy, then I’ll trust him.”
“Janey?” Tannis asked. “What about you?”
She glanced up from where she was working on the console.
“I’m with Jon—if the Trog thinks they’re okay, that’s good enough for me.”
Callum was getting the distinct impression that there was something between Janey and the reclusive engineer. Maybe not consummated yet but simmering just under the surface.
“Alex?”
Callum waited to hear what the little priestess had to say— she’d been part of the Church all her life, they were her people, presumably people she had known well, she must have strong feeling about this.
“I think they need to be stopped. Temperance Hatcher is a fanatic. The current guy in charge might be an asshole—” she waved a hand at Callum, and he winced. “But if he makes mistakes, it’s through laziness and stupidity not through evil, which is what Temperance is.”
He winced again at the stupidity comment, but he reckoned he deserved it.
“Fair enough,” Tannis said. “Rico?”
“Let’s go for it. Any chance of blowing a few religious types into dust is my idea of fun, and we can’t do this alone.”
“Well, looks about unanimous. What about you?” She was looking straight at him, and he realized with surprise that she was actually asking his opinion He sat up straight and placed his glass on the table in front of him. “You mean I have a say in this? I’m just a lazy stupid asshole.”
Nina Croft Page 15