The Boundary Zone

by A. B. Keuser

  "I thought you'd like it."

  Mack turned to the voice she knew too well, and thought she'd never hear again.

  "Aaron?" She stared at the man garbed in the ragged Ka outfit she'd seen in the blurry vid feed. His face still obscured by the twisting cowl that wrapped around his neck and over his head. "You're behind all this?"

  His head canted to the side, "That's what you have to say? You thought I was dead for over six months... and the first thing you say when you find out I'm alive is... that? I hoped for the flick-style reunion. You run into my arms, we're both ecstatic to see each other again.... But I suppose that was too much to ask, after all, you've had Cable to help you forget about me."

  "It's not like that,” Mack said, reflexively. “Cable was helping me. He—”

  “He was watching you. For them.”

  “Well someone had to. With you gone… mom and dad were a wreck… and I…” She didn’t say anything then, it was not a memory she wanted anyone to know about – she’d wipe it from Cable’s mind if she could.

  Aaron seemed not to hear her, and as he continued, she realized this was a speech he’d had planned for some time.

  "It's a funny thing, being dead when you're not. It was easier than I thought, too. You'd be amazed how many people forget you as soon as you're a paragraph in the obits file of the news dump.

  “I had three full conversations with Vinnita before she realized who I was, scared the piss out of her too - idiot thought I was a ghost come to haunt her."

  Mack wasn’t ready to let go of the fact her brother hadn’t died the way Cable claimed. "How did you survive?"

  "I suppose you know, then... that Cable was ordered to kill me for my so-called treasons."

  "I got the summary version."

  Unwrapping the cowl from his head, Aaron turned a lopsided grin on her. Besides his unkempt hair and an overgrown beard, he looked exactly the same.

  "We were on XT742... the word had just come down the wire. I didn't know it then, but the fleet had already marked me a dead man. Cable had received his orders. Field execution for traitorous acts against the government at large and the fleet. Our boy Whitney was supposed to put a bullet through my head and walk away. There would be no trial, no public defamation... just a quick death. No funeral."

  “They did more than that,” Mack said, though she didn’t know why she was defending them. "They told us you were killed in the line of duty. Mom and Dad think you're a hero."

  He laughed bitterly, "Mom and Dad? Oh Kenzie... I'm getting to them, just you wait."

  "So Cable didn't kill you. I'll have to thank him for that." Though Mack didn’t know why he’d lie to her about that.

  "Don't expect to see Cable any time soon. He might be looking for you, but there are a lot of people between us and him who want him dead... I've seen to that."

  “He’s your best friend,” Kenzie said, unable to believe the man in front of her truly was her brother. "He spared your life."

  "HE ABANDONED ME!"

  Mack stepped back. Aaron had only yelled at her once before, and her jaw tingled with the memory of what came after. Even if he’d sworn it would never happen again.

  “Cable was your friend. He is still your friend. If you let him help you, I know we can figure this out.”

  “Cable was never my friend. No one was.” He took her hand and squeezed gently, his smile sad, eyes slicked over with a sheen that could have been unshed tears. “It’s just you and me. They are never going to understand what we are, what it’s like to be us. All but alone in this vast galaxy.”

  “We’re not alone.” She would have argued further, but his face snapped toward her, his expression murderous.

  “We are. They used us as an experiment and now. NOW? Now they want to kill us to hide their mistakes.” He dragged her through the room. “They’ve already tried with me. I had to get you away from there before they succeeded with you.”

  “Nothing was going to happen to me.”

  Cable would have gotten her out of her conscription. It was just a matter of time.

  The look Aaron shot her was one of a man to a child, whatever he thought, it was not complementary.

  “And nothing was going to happen to you. Cable didn’t kill you. He is still your friend.”

  "He didn't carry out my sentence, no. He sent the others back to the ship, we set out for one final recon sweep--like always... and then, I'm in the middle of a joke, and turn around to see him with his gun, leveled at my eyes." He held his hand out as though he had a gun. "Do you know what it's like to know that your best friend... My best and only friend, Kenzie… to know he actually considered going through with it."

  She could imagine. Imagine what both of them felt in that moment. Neither was pleasant. "You were soldiers. He was trained to follow orders. That's not something you shake lightly."

  His hand cut through the air as though he was slapping down her words. "I would have NEVER even considered it Kenzie. That's like asking me to kill you. I would shoot the bastard in the head that told me you had to die."

  "So Cable thought about it, but didn't do it."

  A bitter laugh echoed through the cavernous room. "No. He didn't. He left me to die of XT724. Something that would have surely happened if I hadn't had my… nefarious connections. I believe that was what Admiral Buchanan called them."

  "The connections that brought about the order for your termination? They sound like a lovely lot."

  "You don't know what you're talking about, Kenzie... but then, how could you? You've been so sheltered. Hell, I'm to blame in part for that as well."

  “Can’t you feel the ship’s power?” He grabbed her hand and pressed it to the wall.

  The ship hummed with shallow life… a weak, fleeting pulse. She shivered as she yanked her hand away.

  He turned to look out at the darkness. "Do you see it, Kenzie? My empire? It took me months to find them all, to assemble them. It was a miracle in its own right, but they're here. And soon, my wrath will rain down on those who sought to snuff me before my wick was barely spent."

  He sounded like the child she’d grown up with. The boy glued to vid screens of melodrama.

  "What are you talking about?" Mack looked beyond him and saw only the dark blanket pocked with stars.

  "Look more closely, they're powered down now, but you'll help me with that."

  Mack's eyes probed the darkness and just as she was going to give up, turn to him and voice her concerns for his sanity, she saw them. Outlines in the darkness... barely visible with the reflection of the system’s star from Inanna.

  Ships. Dozens of them.

  "Witness my fleet, my power. With these at my back, anyone who would oppose me will cower."

  “The fleet wiped out the Kas a century ago... even if you convert all of those ships the way you did this one...." The thought of that threatened to break her heart. "They won’t be afraid of you."

  "But they are. I don't begrudge you for your disbelief, I myself might have thought someone was crazy if they'd told me this... but then, you think all the Kas are dead."

  Kenzie stared at the amassed fleet in disbelief. "They were wiped out."

  "We weren’t'."

  Mack turned, certain of what he meant, but unsure whether she trusted it enough to consider the implications. "Aaron…."

  "Hasn't it ever bothered you that we look nothing like our parents?" hair

  "No. Mom explained that. They had trouble conceiving, so they went to a specialist—“

  "Who implanted our mother with embryos from a Ka research lab that had been in stasis for nearly one hundred and fifty years.” Aaron was so strong in his convictions, it scared her. “The government has owned us for a century before we were born. Didn't you ever wonder why we have mandatory health screenings when no one else does? It had to bother you. The way we can play with fleet tech like it is a toy? How many times have you been electrocuted, Kenz? How many times was the charge high enough it should have kill
ed you?"

  Mack tried not to accept the illogical conclusion in her mind. "We have an erratic genetic trait due to the—"

  "NO! We're an experiment. They have a facility storing thousands of Ka waiting to be born. They are denying our people the right to exist.” He stepped to the balcony taking the railing in a stranglehold. “How else do you explain that the Ka tech on the asteroid? Kenzie, it only works if you’ve got the right Genetic coding. The only way you could have turned it off is the same reason I was able to turn it on. We are not what we were led to believe. They have used us like guinea pigs. Kept us like pets. No more.”

  Aaron left his place at the railing and moved to stroke her hair. It was a soothing gesture he’d done since childhood, but there was something off in it now, something foreign. A tremor in his hand.

  “It’s a lot to take, I know. I’m not trying to disturb you, honestly. But you need to know what you are. What they’ve done to you… to us. They owe us more than they have the ability to repay.” He pulled her back to where he’d stood. “And I’ll make Cable fulfil his debt as well, he deserves nothing less.”

  Mack stiffened as a chill ran through her at her brother’s words. "What you're going to do to him?"

  "I haven't decided how he'll die just yet." The smile, held affixed on his armada, was not a comfort to Mack.

  He was lying. She’d always been able to tell. Whatever Aaron had planned, it would be messy.

  "You said you had people on the lookout for him."

  "I do. They know not to kill him. I haven't given them any instructions as to his care, mind you, but no one who's smart enough to catch him, is dumb enough to kill him and risk my wrath."

  "He spared your life... and this is how you're going to repay him?"

  "I offered him the chance to come with me. It would have been easy enough, all he had to do was radio for back up and then, as the others were heading for our last known... we'd circle around, stun Peezus, dump his body and leave. Forget about the Fleet entirely."

  "And he wouldn't." Mack didn’t need to ask it as a question. She knew Cable better than Aaron ever had if he’d thought for a moment his best friend would so quickly leave his life behind.

  A bitter scowl covered Aaron’s face. "No. He tried to make it sound as though he was worried about the family... claimed they'd come after you and our parents if we disappeared."

  "They would have."

  "I would have come to find you before that happened. Cable might think he loves you - he might think I never noticed – but I do love you. You're my sister. And not just because the same human woman carried us in her womb, I had the blood strands checked as soon as I had the opportunity. We are genetic siblings. And we are Ka. The humans tried to make us like them, tried to bend us to their will. Do you have any idea? They wanted to see if they could raise us to be subservient like the crassicau. To take every order given. They wanted to put together ranks of Ka soldiers, led by a human commander. We would have been their war fodder. And what do they care. They have a reserve bottled and packaged in a genetic lab on the outskirts of Kendar."

  Kendar was the perfect planet to hide something that dangerous. Gaseous and guarded at all times. But no….

  "I’ve never been ordered to do anything."

  “All light casts shadows. Every good intention spawns the possibility of darkness. They haven't destroyed who you really are, Kenzie... but they've tried, and you've almost let them succeed. And that breaks my heart."

  "If what you say is true, they'll know this is you."

  "They think I'm dead. Cable won't tell them otherwise, it would get him hanged... and we both know Cable wouldn’t lie to the fleet.” His smile was a crooked, dangerous thing. “Why do you think they pulled you into the fleet so quickly? They wanted to keep an eye on you, to make sure you weren't the one behind it. Cable is our unknowing keeper--at least I assume he’s unknowing. I don’t think he’s that good of an actor. He's not our friend, we were assigned to him, though he might not realize it, and he's trained better than a champion show dog. They say shoot, he pulls the trigger. It won't matter if the bullet's marked for me or you. In the end, it's us against them."

  Mack didn't unclench her jaw. She wanted to refute his claims, to tell him he was being stupid- childish even - but she didn't. She knew the smoldering darkness in his eyes. She'd seen it before. And as much as she loved her brother, she knew when to fear him.

  "He'll come for you."

  She nodded because she knew he was right, but she didn’t look at him, letting her eyes fall on the shadowy ships in the distance, lest her face betray her.

  "He doesn't love, you. Not really," Aaron said, his voice devoid of emotion.

  "You can’t possibly know that."

  "Of course I do, Cable loves the fleet. There isn't room enough in the human heart for you... or me."

  There was a sadness in Aaron's last words that Mack had only heard once before. When Bosco had died. When he'd locked himself in his room for a week, Mack had tried to make sense of it, but she couldn't. She never understood how her brother threw himself into hysterics when the lizard had died... but he'd laughed like a crazy person when they'd been evacuated past the bombings in Telav City... where dead soldiers had littered the streets.

  With one last appeal, Mack turned her eyes to Inanna, "Cable loves us both. You may not be able to see that, but he does."

  With a somber nod, Aaron moved away from her. "Not as much, I think, as he ought to."

  Twenty-Three

  Vinnita's desk was a cluster.

  Covered in grease stained paperwork, the desk looked like something out of an ancient history textbook. There wasn't a terminal in sight. Cable had to explain to the others: Vinnita never trusted personal computers, she barely used wireless communicators, and she had some very interesting theories on modern medicine. None in the group seemed to be comfortable in the luddite office.

  It wasn't big enough for the six of them - with or without the unconscious kid - and so Stacy and Bezzon agreed to stay outside and keep watch.

  "What exactly are we looking for, Peezus said as he opened a drawer in the desk and fished around the contents. “Unless you want to turn this into a reading party, I'm not sure going through his paperwork is going to get results."

  "He was told to deliver me to someone. I need to find out where he was supposed to make the drop."

  "Someone?" Raza said as she opened a cupboard and rifled through stacks of restaurant hardware and other flotsam. "That sounds eerily cryptic. Do you think this Someone is the same Someone who took Kenzie?"

  Cable was so unused to hearing someone else use the diminutive he and Aaron had for Kenzie that he had to pause a moment before answering her.

  "I know for a fact that's who has her. Chances are, he would have tried to grab me on that asteroid if he'd had the chance."

  "Old grudge?" Raza asked, and Cable noted her tone wasn't quite casual enough.

  "Something like that."

  "Found it!" Peezus held the wireless box aloft and shuffled it over to the desk. "It looks like an old unit, but I might be able to grab a frequency out of the outgoing log.... and once I have that, I can pinpoint it."

  "Do it." Cable said, leaning forward and trying not to stretch the skin on his back.

  Peezus worked diligently at the box, prying it open and pulling the logs... he paused, his fingers over the keypad on his suit comp. "Boss... is this what I think it is?"

  "It better not be." Cable gave his commo a hard glare. "If it is, you'd be court-martialed right alongside me."

  A frown covered his face, and Cable knew he'd figured it out. "Like you said sir. It can't be."

  “Let’s get this sorted out. I don’t want to spend any more time in this cesspool than I have to.” And he should probably adjust the mesh.

  Raza leaned over the desk, “Whatever we find when we get there is going to be a problem.”

  With the understanding on Peezus' face, Cable saw the same resigna
tion he felt to the fact that, this time, he really would have to kill Aaron.

  Cable felt as though he'd aged by two decades. Every part of him ached, and sitting for so long in Vinnita's office had only made matters worse. Sitting - unmoving - again felt divine, but Cable knew it wouldn’t be good for him in the long run.

  "Did you track down that boat for me?" As soon as they'd figured out where the drop was going to occur, Cable knew he'd have to get Vinnita's boat if he wanted to surprise Aaron.

  "He's got three registered on station, probably several more that aren’t. I'd take the yacht if it was me," Peezus said.

  He knew what sort of skiff Vinnita ran when she wanted to get some place fast and without any frills. "I'm taking the Flippancy." As he said the name he heard a chuckle from behind him. "The woman had a sense of humor, I’ll give her that."

  "We've got a soldier to find."

  Peezus leaned in from beside him with decidedly unpleasant scowl. "I've got the admiral on the horn."

  "Which one?"

  "I’m not smiling, am I?"

  "Put Buck on."

  The screen filled with the Admiral's angry face. "Cable you ass, what the hell are you doing on Bad Alley?"

  "I've got a soldier missing and I'm tracking them down."

  "By God you look like hell. Get your ass back here and get to medical. You need to debrief me."

  "I already debriefed Gunk. She's cleared this mission, so you get her to call me off and I'll come home. Until then, my orders hold."

  "You're a real idiot you know that, Cable. What do you think this is going to do for your career? You're willing to throw that chance away for some hack tech who happened to get captured her first mission out. This is a war, damn it. We don't hunt down every last soldier, especially when their brother was a known traitor. Hell, how do we know she didn't go AWOL. What if she shot Crioce and took off on her own? Hmm? Did you think of that?"

  "To be honest sir, no, I did not think of that. but perhaps it's because I saw her be taken myself, I had her capture be confirmed by known members of the Bad Alley crime syndicate, and thanks to a lengthy torture session interrupted by my team, I know where she is. And I'll be damned if you tell me I can't go after one of my men. They are my responsibility and if saving one of their lives means I'm busted down a few ranks so be it."