The Boundary Zone

by A. B. Keuser

  "Exactly. And I have found a Imadaha chamber within the belly of this very ship. With it, I will tear his mind to shreds."

  Mack said nothing as Maeltar nodded her approval of Aaron’s plan. Without a living Ka consciousness, it wouldn’t work. Or, it shouldn’t. She could only hope he'd used his piecemeal tech to get the chamber running and it would do nothing but sizzle and crack when he tried to operate it. Better yet, she hoped Cable would be clever enough to keep from falling into one of Aaron's traps--he never had when they were children.

  Maeltar had moved closer to her, though she only now realized it, and the woman’s fingers trailed down her arm as she continued on. "I suppose there's really nothing for it. When you can't trust the man behind you with a gun, it's best to remove him from that position. Even if it means you're completely alone."

  Mack couldn't tell if Maeltar was speaking to her, Aaron, or reminding herself of something. In the end she stopped petting her, and moved back toward the door, but her eyes lingered on Mack for a moment too long. "I will return for my payment when it is ready. Until then, take good care of her."

  When Maeltar was through the hatch door and they were left to the silence of the cavernous room, Mack turned to her brother. “Why do I feel like she was talking about me?”

  Aaron ignored her. “KaZie! I like that. Wherever did you come up with it? KaRapp was just a joke between Cable and me.... so long ago, I wasn't sure if he'd get my message. I like that... KaZie. So close to Kenzie, should be terribly easy to remember."

  "Aaron," she said, gritting her teeth. "What did you promise her in payment for her help?"

  "I tried to offer her a ship, but that wasn't enough, she said he wouldn't take a damn ship that she couldn't pilot, she wasn't in the market to start a museum, so I sweetened the pot, and threw you in too. She seems much more interested in you than the ship. I'd be flattered."

  "I'm not."

  "You don't have to be. I can't give you away, it's not like you're a crassicau bound by the leather--speaking of which, we have to get you into something more appropriate than that uni. I simply told her what she needed to hear in order to get the job done. If you must know, I plan to kill her when she's outlived her usefulness. I'd imagine she has the same thoughts toward me."

  "Was that the only reason you brought me here? To show off the chattel before she delivers her final payment?"

  "You act as though she demanded to inspect your teeth and gauge the width of your hips to see if you'd be good for birthing. Kenzie, my dear sister, I would never let someone as loathsome as that get her grubby hands on you."

  Somehow, Kenzie didn’t believe him.

  “Was there anything else, or is it time to toss me back at your ships.”

  “Our ships, why must you think everything is about me? I did this for us.”

  Mack didn’t bother to mention that kidnapping her, putting a guard on her, and pretending he was going to toss her to Maeltar like a bone to a dog, weren’t things she’d count as “Doing for her.”

  She held her tongue, because she needed him to believe she was on his side.

  “I want to see the case.”

  Aaron stopped, his cup hovering in front of his face. “Why would you need to see that?”

  “Because I believe you. I’ve always felt different. What you’ve said makes sense. But if I’m going to throw away everything else I’ve ever believed, I need proof that this doesn’t end with us.”

  The expression that molded across Aaron’s face was a mixture of relief, pride and suspicion. It was almost comical, but Mack couldn’t afford to laugh.

  “I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking, once you saw the empire I’ve built.” He set the glass down heavily and spun out of his seated position and went quickly through a side hatch she hadn’t seen.

  She looked behind her for Nrog, but he too had disappeared. Alone, and not hungry enough to eat whatever the hell the purple prickly thing was on the plate in front of her, she moved to the long open viewport. Whatever help she could be to the Kas, she doubted it would ever be enough.

  Aaron returned with a victorious whoop, clearing off the table with a swipe of his hand and letting the leavings clatter to the floor without giving them a second glance.

  "You will love this, Kenzie."

  The case was sleek and silver. Its sides plated in a rigid alumasteel for protection. "There are hundreds more cases like these."

  "What, on the ship?"

  "God no! I couldn't steal all of them without notice. But this is a start."

  Unlatching the case, he turned it toward her and for the first time in her life, Mack was actually scared of her brother.

  She barely looked at the case - it was the maniacal smile that covered his face. The round caps poking out of the thick black cryonic pads were proof enough for her that he had exactly what he claimed. Then again, she had no idea what cryonically frozen embryos would even look like.

  "How do we start?"

  He snapped the case closed and cast a quizzical glance toward her. "We must make a safe home for our people."

  "The two of us cannot win a war against the whole of the fleet. Even with these ships."

  "Of course not. But with Maeltar, and the support of other friends I have made.... we will prevail."

  Mack didn't like the way he'd said friends. She had a sinking suspicion he planned to murder them as well when they outlived their usefulness.

  "I suppose I should get back to work." She picked one of the strange fruits off the floor and tossed it back and forth between her hands. "Unless you've been lying to me all this time and have got the others figured out yourself."

  Aaron closed the case, standing, and made his way quickly to her. His hands curled around hers, catching the spiky fruit between her palms. "I can't do any of this without you, Kenz. It's me and you against the world. We've always been there for each other, right? Now we need each other more than ever." He squeezed her hands together more tightly, and the sting of the fruit's spikes prickled across her skin. "Don't ever think I've forgotten you're my sister. I never would have come after you if you weren't."

  She said the only thing she could think to say. "I know."

  "Good." He released her hands and the fruit fell to the ground, splattering in a blue pool of pith and black seeds.

  Nrog slipped in silently a tray at his hip, he cleaned the mess while Aaron reclosed the cases latches and returned it. This time, Kenzie followed him.

  He hadn't told her to stay, and if he thought they were to be partners in this venture, she might as well be able to know where they were kept. Sliding the case between the shelves of a storage locker, he secured the cabinet with a key and slipped it quickly into his pocket. "And now, my children, you must sleep a little longer." He rubbed a hand down the side of the case, and Kenzie realized he didn't know she was there.

  She snuck back toward the main room and found Nrog had gone, the remains of the cleared table and the dropped fruit, nothing more than memories.

  Aaron returned close behind her. Opening the hatch, he motioned for her to step out of the room before him, and she obliged. Memorizing the route they took and barely listening to his idle chatter about the Kindirans. Based on his treatment of their ship, he doubted very much that her brother was anything of an expert on their people.

  Shoved back in a shuttle, ferried across, her crassicau guard.

  When they were once again left alone--when she no longer had to play the part of a willing participant, she swore under her breath and headed for the bridge as quickly as she could.

  “KaZie? What is the matter?"

  Leave it to the crassicau to pick up her Ka Name quicker than spitting. "I'm afraid my brother is in worse condition than we first feared."

  Swallowing heavily, Mack let the door in front of her slide closed, leaving Nrog to ponder what she meant on his own, while she returned to the ship's brain and discussed her new found problems with them.

  She let out a l
ong breath before smoothing her hands onto the control console and closing her eyes voluntarily.

  Twenty-Seven

  The jump went smoothly enough. Vinnita had paid top dollar for her equipment. The woman was a mobster, but that hadn't meant she'd valued her life any less. She'd paid for the good stuff, and Cable could almost thank her for it.

  Instead, he set about the normal precautions when arriving at an unknown point where you suspected any manner of traps.

  Peezus jumped into range well behind him as Cable puzzled out what he was seeing.

  The commo crackled into his thoughts over the com. "I'd bet ten creds they're hiding in that asteroid belt."

  "Do you have my camera feed up?"

  "No, It didn't seem necessary."

  "Hack it and take a look at what I'm seeing. Those aren’t asteroids."

  Silence descended between both ships until he heard Bezzon in the background mutter a curse. "Is that what I think it is boss?"

  Cable was close enough now he didn't need the cameras.

  Each of the rocky ships flickered on one after the other and cable counted fourteen... but he knew others could be nearby.

  What he couldn't figure out, was how Aaron had managed to piece together an entire fleet of Ka 'roid runners.

  "You know what they're looking at. It's time for you to hightail it back to the Dendratic and get to work on keeping your careers."

  "As you say, Commander." Peezus cut the comm and they were gone in a blink.

  "Just the four of us and an entire cadre of 'roid runners to get through. Still happy you decided to join me on this fool's errand?"

  Raza shrugged. "There are too many ways to die in this universe, if I go out trying to rescue a fellow officer and friend, all the while under your command... I won't count that a wasted death, Sir."

  "We're not under orders right now, Raz. You can drop the sirs. Goddess knows we won’t have a rank to go back to."

  The cabin filled with the screeching of sirens as the electricals flickered in and out. Cable scrambled to make sense of it when Raz cleared it up.

  "One of them is pulling us in." There was a cool boredom to her tone - almost as though she'd expected it. She stood, cannon in hand, and made her way to the bridge's door. "No point in waiting up here. We might as well meet our greeting party where it counts."

  Cable agreed, pulling a gun from the rack mounted behind the captain's chair. It was no cannon, but it would do.

  The pain meds Stacy had shot him up with were doing their job, he barely felt the damage anymore.

  He followed Raza toward the loading hatch and stood beside her as they waited for the tell-tale thunk of the ships landing struts making an unscheduled landing.

  They 'thunked' and then, they waited. There was no spark of a cutting torch, no buckling hull plates from a boarding ram.... it was silent. And then came three knocks.

  "What sort of f-ed up trick is that?"

  "They think we’re Vinnita." Cable mashed the hatch release button with the side of his fist, raising the gun and prepping for a firefight.

  The hatch lowered slowly, and his gun dropped as well.

  "You have no idea how happy I am to see the two of you!" Kenzie raced up the boarding ramp and threw her arms around his neck. He gritted his teeth through the shock of pain it sent down his spine.

  When she let go, Raza gave her a long once over. "What the Hell are you wearing?"

  Kenzie looked down at the Ka dress uni she had on and shook her head as though laughing at some unheard joke.

  “Gotta look the part,” she said with an apologetic smile. "I will tell you all about it, but not here. We need to get you out of sight before my crassicau keeper gets here. Nrog does not like or trust humans."

  Cable followed her down the gangway wondering why it didn't sound like she included herself in her classification of 'humans'.

  Twenty-Eight

  Mack pulled them toward the nearest exit, checking the corridors quickly to make sure Nrog was nowhere in sight. She didn't have time to ask why Cable was hobbling, or why Raza was wearing hot pants. Or more importantly why the hell, Bezzon was there at all. Nrog may have technically come over to her side, but she did not trust him with her friends’ lives, and he was still cracking the proverbial whip when it came to getting the ships in order.

  She ushered them into what had once been a barracks hall. The doors fluttered shut behind them.

  "I don't have much time. Aaron's gone power mad and I'm barely keeping up with the random work he wants done."

  Cable shot her a worried glance while Raza looked at the chamber around them eyes, wide with awe. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm putting a fleet of Kazahans back in order... what does it look like?" Her frustration was warranted, but he didn’t deserve it.

  "But why?"

  Mack paused, she didn't know how to say what she was about to without sounding as though she'd gone off the deep end too.

  Raza leaned back against the wall. "Did he convince you to take up arms against the fleet? I know the conscription was a dick move an all, but really Kenzie, Aaron is bonkers."

  "I know that. I'm not doing this for him. I’m doing it for... the ships."

  Cable and Raza exchanged a glance before looking at her with questioning lilts to their brows.

  "It's difficult to explain. I wouldn't have believed it myself if it weren’t for the fact that I can control everything on these ships and I shouldn't be able to. No one alive today should... but I can.

  "KaZie!" the sound was muffled, but the crassicau’s voice carried. She had to get back.

  "KaZie?" Raza looked to Cable as though she was questioning whether or not the best choice would be to bop her over the head and drag her back to their ship.

  "It's too much to explain right now." She flinched as Nrog called out for her again.

  "You could try,” Cable said, holding her wrist.

  Gently.

  She could have pulled away and left, but he’d come after her. He at least deserved a cliff notes version.

  "Aaron and I are twins pulled from a frozen batch of Ka embryos stolen at the end of the war. We were an experiment of sorts to see how we would turn out when raised to think we're human."

  There was a beat of silence, and then Raza said, "I have so many questions right now."

  Cable's face was stony, but he only nodded. "Why do you need to fix the ships?"

  She quickly explained the existence of the captains, the case Aaron had, and her lack of a plan as to what to do about either of them.

  She was relieved to find Cable didn't bat an eye at any of it.

  "Is Maeltar still here?"

  "I think so. She’s got some strange ideas, and I’m at the center of half of them. I’m willing to bet she won’t stray far."

  "Then tell us where to find Aaron and we'll deal with him."

  She felt herself go pale at that. Aaron was despicable, he was - admittedly--a thief and murderer, but he was still her brother. And throughout all of this - even when he spoke of torturing Cable, there had never been a point when she'd considered that they might have to kill him. Until now.

  "He's on his own ship. He tore the poor thing apart, splicing in fleet tech. It's an abomination." She shivered at the memory supplanted by the ships’ captains.

  Raza squeezed her arm gently. "You really are one, aren’t you."

  “Ka is a title, not what they call themselves.”

  “So, what do you call yourselves.”

  “Kindira.” She took a deep breath and finally acknowledged the odd revelation the captains had given her. “I am a Kindiran woman… born from stolen embryos.”

  “Aaron too?”

  “Yeah… excepting the woman part.” She stretched out her shoulders. “According to the ship’s captains, we’re twins.”

  Raza looked at her skeptically. “This whole thing makes less and less sense the longer I’m on this ship.”

  Mack heard her name called out an
d she grimaced. “Bezzon. You’d better get back to sneaking around. I don’t want him to know that you know he’s on Aaron’s side yet.

  Bezzon rounded the corner and his scowl vanished. “There you are, darling.”

  If she never heard that word again, it would be too soon.

  “What do you want?” She asked, pressing her hand against the panel and following the energy flow without falling into it.

  If he got close enough… if he touched her… she could kill him.

  And my, how tempting that was.

  “I just wanted to make sure you’re safe.”

  “I have a crassicau bodyguard. I can’t get much safer.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Because he knows that interrupting my work is the quickest way to get on my bad side.”

  Bezzon leaned on the ship’s wall and it shuddered in disgust. A movement he wouldn’t feel, but coursed through her. “I was hoping you’d take a little break from that work. You have to eat, don’t you?”

  Actually, she didn’t. Strangely, she hadn’t been hungry since she started interfacing with the ship. She’d have to ask about that later.

  “Kenzie,” he grabbed her hand and immediately flinched away as a low voltage jolt skipped between them.

  He stared at his own hand and then looked up at her, blinking too rapidly. “So it was you who killed the man in the hive.”

  Stepping back, his expression fading from pensive into something darker. “I guess you don’t need a bodyguard at all.”

  She couldn’t pull current from thin air, but he didn’t know he was safe so long as she wasn’t touching an electrical conduit. The ship’s nerve clusters spun out in all directions, a protective web all around them. Their electrical impulses were always there, a few feet away. All she’d need to do if caught unprepared was lunge.

  And hope no one she wanted to keep in one piece was in the way.

  For half a second, she considered using Bezzon as target practice. But an arc flash here would hurt the ship. And that was the last thing she wanted to do.

  But it was the ship that had shocked him. It had an impulse to protect her too.