Traitor (Rebel Stars Book 2)

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Deja vu," a voice said. "Except the last time we did this, you were about half the size."

  Ced's eyes snapped open. "Benson?"

  The man smiled; now in his early thirties, wrinkles appeared around the corners of his eyes. Though it was years out of fashion, and he was starting to recede around the temples, he still kept his hair slicked back. This stuff didn't make him look old or worn down, though. More like a guy who's run the first few miles of a race but knows he's got plenty left in the tank.

  "Back like Gandalf," Benson said. "They tell me you were in prison. Should I be disappointed in you? Or proud?"

  "I helped free some people Kansas was keeping captive. She decided to let me take their place."

  His eyebrows shot up. "You're the one who smuggled the Hive's people out of here? Why am I not surprised?"

  "You heard about that?"

  "It was rather difficult to miss the civil war it provoked."

  "Civil war?" Ced sat upright from his pillows. "What's going on out there?"

  Benson scanned him for signs of sarcasm, then thumped down into a chair, settling in for a long stay. "How much do you know about what the Hive knows?"

  "Valiant Enterprises is behind the modern care debt. And they're the same ones who just put Kansas in charge—for the small fee of aiding them in obsoleting us."

  "You are remarkably well-informed for a guy who spent this entire news cycle in solitary. Well, once word of that got out, Kansas' new status quo went belly up. A third of the crews backing her withdrew their support. The Blackwings declared open war to depose her. This isn't posturing over corners, either. The body count's rising every hour."

  "How is this even a fight? She's in the pockets of our enemies. How can anyone support that?"

  He sighed lengthily. "Because Valiant Enterprises, and their new partner FinnTech, have declared System-wide war on piracy. They're gathering a fleet to strike the Hive if they don't turn over the people you sprung from the hoosegow. They have made it not-so-subtly known that if Kansas is deposed, they will treat it as an act of treason, and come for us next."

  "So who's winning?"

  "Difficult to say. This isn't some orderly campaign of front lines and uniforms. Some of the crews are seizing the opportunity to settle old scores or grab new streets. Some are hanging back, either to see who comes out ahead, or to preserve themselves while the others exhaust their strength. For now, the poles have established a designated Conflict Zone and pulled out the civilians. But if things get nasty, the crews won't respect the Zone. They'll consume the entire station."

  Ced rubbed his face. "Is Kansas still alive?"

  "Do you ask because you're concerned for her? Or because you want to be the one to make her not alive?"

  "I honestly don't know." He tore his gaze away from the wall. "What are you doing here? Where have you been?"

  "When Garnes transferred me to the ships, he tried to have me killed. To stop me from coming back and reforming the jukes. I managed to keep my ass intact through the first attempt, but if you're crewing on the ship of a man who wants you dead, it's only a matter of time before he succeeds. I spent everything I had to smuggle myself out. I went into hiding." His eyes got bright. "I'm sorry I didn't come back for you."

  "If you had come back, they would've killed you and your wife. There's no shame in surviving."

  Benson laughed, voice thick. "That's where you're wrong, Ced. If all you do is survive, there's nothing but shame."

  "You came back, though. You're here now."

  "Kansas dealt with my Garnes problem. I have to give her that much. In fact, I'm so grateful that I have elected to offer myself to her mortal enemy the Blackwings, as an advisor on how they can best combat the Dragons."

  "I want to help you."

  "I'm sure you do. The problem, however, is that you're currently about as fit to fight as my dirty laundry. Which, despite its protective crust—"

  "Get me to Kansas," he said. "I'm the only one who can convince her to throw off Valiant's chains."

  Benson's face pinched together. "You were the only real friend she ever had. But that girl's long gone. If she knows you're working with us, she will kill you."

  "Then don't send me in unarmed."

  "You'd be willing to do that?"

  "The path she's going down will lead to the end of the Locker." He touched the tube in his arm, stopping himself from pulling it out. "If I can't talk her out of it, there's only one thing left to do."

  "I'll speak to the people who enjoy making these decisions. Get some rest. If this goes forward, you'll need it." He stood, gave Ced a small nod, and left the room.

  Ced was able to sleep for a few more hours. When he got up, he called for the attendant, who brought him more mush and a device. As he ate, he paged through the net, scrolling through pictures of vacant streets, watching a video of crews shooting at each other inside a park, of a Blackwings outpost burning, the smoke coiling up and gathering against the underside of the dome. Forty crewmen had died so far. There was no sign of a slowdown. The latest videos were just minutes old.

  Growing restless, he swung out of bed. His legs felt shaky, but they held out. His fluid bag had a plastic sling so he could wear it to the bathroom. He looped it over his shoulder and headed into the hall.

  This was dimmed for the night. Many of the patients' rooms stood with their doors open. Inside, men and women slept, or blinked down at their devices, faces blued by the displays. Most of the people were young, angry-looking. One face looked familiar. As he reached the end of the hall, he remembered: the man was an Orc crewman. They were all crewmen. Casualties of whatever was going on outside.

  He took the elevator to the top floor and found a window with a view of the streets. Below, a single pedestrian hurried on their way. Down the street, an entire apartment block was blacked out. A light haze made the night dream-like, indistinct. Did he smell smoke? As a fish tank for humans, the station had hellaciously potent scrubbers to keep the air pure. If something else was burning, it was doing so now.

  Maybe it would be best to end the crewing system as a whole. Renounce piracy. Let the Locker become a station no different than the dozens of others scattered through the void around the sun. Stop making it so hard on themselves. Join normal society.

  There was a reason the System was vying for control of the Locker, though. It was powerful. An outsider. A wild card. And it had been—and would be again—free. When the rest of the planets and habitats fell in behind the govs and corps, the Locker remained its own. Unafraid to stand up.

  Or to throw down.

  * * *

  Benson returned first thing in the morning. He was smiling, but it wasn't entirely happy. "They're in. They'll give us anything we need. We have a problem, though. Kansas doesn't go anywhere without an armed security detail. We can lure her out, but you won't have a chance to speak to her alone. Admiral Frank thinks we should use you to eliminate her and her team."

  "I'm sure he'd love that," Ced said. "But we don't have to draw her out. Not if I can get into the office."

  "Won't work. She keeps security on her there, too. Never without it."

  "I know how to get her alone. Can we fake a message to her?"

  "Simple text? Probably. Anything more elaborate, and the forgery will be obvious."

  Ced rolled out of bed and walked around the room, getting his blood flowing. "Text is all we need. Send her a message from Iggi Daniels. Arranging a call."

  Benson rolled his lips together. "How can you be sure she'll take it in private?"

  "You know her well enough to answer that."

  "Because Iggi Daniels is her master. And Kansas will never let anyone else see her bowing down to another person." He laughed, shaking his head. "I'm convinced."

  "Sounds like you have sources on the inside. Can you get me in?"

  "That will not be a problem."

  "A minute ago, you acted like her security was invincible," Ced said. "You're awfully confident abou
t your ability to crack it."

  Benson smiled airily. "Kansas has fear on her side. I've got something much stronger: loyalty."

  * * *

  36 hours later, Ced waited in the darkness of a shoe store. Like everything on the block, it had been closed down, windows sealed behind plastic shutters. The back room was perfectly still. It smelled like rubber and faux leather. He heard no sounds from the street—they were within Dragon territory, blocks removed from the front lines.

  In time, footsteps scraped outside. Multiple sets. He drew his pistol. Plastic, gray, and highly compact, the weapon looked more like a vague sketch than something capable of taking lives. He'd put in enough practice over the last day and a half to see what it could do.

  The front door squealed open. His body tensed. He breathed through his nose. Two sets of hard shoes clicked across the floor. One set stopped; the other continued toward the back room. The door opened. Dim streetlights silhouetted a figure in hardshell armor holding a wicked-looking rifle. The soldier turned its visored gaze on Ced—the helmet was equipped with full night vision—and stepped forward. Ced kept the pistol tight to his hip.

  "Ced?" The soldier flipped up the visor. A small light within the helmet revealed Heddy's grinning face. "Gonna give me a hug? Or are you married to that pistol you're trying to crush?"

  He laughed and walked toward her, pocketing the weapon. They embraced. Her armor was hard and cold.

  "Everything's lined up on our end," he said. "Yours?"

  "All set." She unscrewed her helmet and began to rapidly disassemble her armor, the parts of which could be clicked on and off like children's blocks. As soon as she got the chest pieces off, he looped them over his shoulders, sealing them around his body. The interior padding adjusted automatically to the differences in his build. With her last piece off, she moved to help him clip on his legs.

  "Your partner," he said. "You're sure you can trust him?"

  "If not, then I'm dead, too." She winked. "Lee knows what's at stake here. He's got your back. Once you're inside, though, you'll have to change out in a hurry. I have to be there for the squad's debriefing."

  He snapped the helmet into place. "Got it." Modified by the helmet, his voice was no longer his own—it was Heddy's. Another part of the ruse. "Thank you, Heddy."

  "We should be thanking you. If someone doesn't throw some water on this fire, it'll burn down the whole station."

  Ced closed his visor and exited to the store's front room. Between two shoulder-high racks of shoes, a figure in armor watched him from behind a mirrored visor.

  "All clear?" the man said, voice carrying over radio.

  "Nothing but foot holsters."

  The response was code. Inside his armor, Lee nodded. They headed out into the street. Ten armored troopers awaited them. Lee let the others know the building was empty. Apartment blocks towered above them, dark and silent. On their way to the head office, they checked several other storefronts, finding nothing. Before Ced knew it, they were filing through the rear entrance of the office. There, they scanned the devices on their wrists, passing through a second door. This opened into an empty hallway.

  Ced hung back. Lee moved beside him, speaking on a private channel. "This way."

  The man broke from the others at the next intersection. They made their way to the elevators and headed up, exiting on the twelfth floor where Garnes had kept his simpler, more private office. Anonymous in their suits of hardshell, Lee and Ced continued to the floor's large, unisex bathroom. Ced headed into a stall and disassembled his armor as fast as he could. He was already wearing nondescript technician clothing. While Ced worked on the last bits of armor, Lee walked out of the bathroom.

  Ced waited. A minute later, the door creaked open. A woman cleared her throat. Ced did the same. He unlocked the stall. Heddy entered and started clipping on her armor. Ced lent a hand, but halfway through, his device beeped.

  "Good luck," she whispered.

  He put a hand on her shoulder and walked out of the bathroom. The hall was vacant—and so, according to Lee's ping, was the office. Ced walked to it as fast as he dared. Reception was empty. Heart thudding, he coded his way into the interior office.

  It was as dark and silent as the shoe store. A private bathroom extended from one side. He entered and let out a long breath.

  He checked his device. Almost forty minutes until the call was scheduled. They'd built the plan to make sure he had time to get in position, but now that he was here, he wished they'd cut it closer. After twenty minutes, a door opened, distant; someone clunked around in reception. He'd come here for Kansas. What would he do if someone else found him in the bathroom first?

  He pressed his back to the wall beside the bathroom entrance. The inner office door opened with a questioning squeak Garnes had never bothered to have oiled. The door clicked shut. A light came on, spilling into the bathroom. Steps whispered; chair wheels rumbled on the muffling carpet.

  "Keep pushing me," he heard Kansas say. "See how much longer you stay above ground."

  For one hair-raising moment, Ced thought she was talking to him. Then he understood she was muttering to herself, anticipating Iggi Daniels' call.

  He lifted his pistol, switched off the safety, and rolled around the door into the office.

  19

  Rada lurched backwards, stumbling against the step down to the recessed strip at the front of the bridge. She plunked on her rear. On the screen, the Swimmer stared down at her, its two bulging eyes unblinking, expressionless. She had seen a living alien before on the FinnTech vid, but this one was looking at her. Talking to her. She couldn't move.

  Webber lifted one hand. "Thanks. Uh. Congratulations for what?"

  "You have survived." The alien's claws and tentacles swooped and flicked, but its mouth stayed closed. Its voice was non-gendered and eerily flat. Computer-generated. "We did not expect such for far longer." It clacked its small claws; a flicker of amusement or excitement entered its voice. "Again, humans show much devotion to the Way."

  "Yeah, we're real Way-Heads, all right." Eyes bulging, Webber glanced at Rada, who was still seated. "Would you mind explaining…everything?"

  The Swimmer drew back slightly. "Such as such?"

  Rada found her feet. "That ship we fought. Was it one of yours?"

  "No."

  "Was it human?"

  "No." The alien spun its claws. "What it is is hard to say."

  "Because you haven't seen it before?"

  "Because we do not know what you would call it. For us, we call it—" The creature's tentacles continued to gesture. The automated voice halted a moment, then caught up. "Those with Words of Friends and Hearts of Treason."

  "This is a third species?" Webber said.

  "You. Us. And Those."

  A wave of lightness swept over Rada's head. She put her hand on the back of a chair in case her knees gave out. "Are they the ones who've been attacking us? When we've tried to leave the System?"

  The Swimmer rocked its long head forward. "Yes."

  "But why?"

  "Because they cannot kill you all. Because they are watched."

  "By you?"

  "And such as others."

  "You're watching us?" Webber said. "Like, to help us?"

  The Swimmer nodded again, even more exaggerated than the first time. "We help, but as we are watched as well, there is only so much help to help. So we do as we can."

  Rada pressed a fist to her forehead, which swam with more questions than there were stars in the void. "Why do Those want us dead?"

  "Fear. Fear of us and also of such as you might become."

  MacAdams folded his arms and laughed. "Why in hell would they fear us? We're nothing. Nobody."

  "It is much to say and too much for me to tell," the alien said. "But you prove today you are ready to climb out of the sea and onto the land. So this proves you are also ready to learn that Those await you."

  "You talk like you're our friend," Rada said. "But we kn
ow what you're doing. The vaccine you gave to Horton/Kolt. It was never meant to help us. It was meant to make us vulnerable to a new virus. So you could finish what you started a thousand years ago."

  The Swimmer straightened its chitinous, crab-like legs, raising itself to a height greater than any human. With its blank eyes, and a face composed of hard plates and thick rubbery skin, it was impossible to get a foolproof read on its emotions, but there was no mistaking the anger and aggression in its posture.

  "That was done as to help," it said, pitch rising with each word. "To strengthen you against Those. As with the gift of gravity. It was your people who took that which is good and did that which is bad."

  "Remind me to send a thank-you card." Webber stepped toward the screens, eyes flashing. "How can we trust you? First you tried to kill us, now you're out here lurking in the darkness? How do we know these 'Those' aren't another one of your tricks?"

  "Because if your death was our desire, we would have sent that death a thousand times. Our people who attacked you long ago, they were traitors to the Way. We could not undo what was done. But we promised ourselves and to all others that humans would have the chance our traitors almost denied you. That no power would be allowed to destroy you besides those of the stars and of yourselves."

  Webber snorted. "Funny you say that. Thanks to that little gift you gave Thor Finn, we're on the brink of destroying ourselves right now."

  "He's using your tech to seize control of our solar system," Rada added. "We need your help to stop him."

  The Swimmer wagged its head side to side. "It is not our place to help."

  "But it's your fault it's happening!"

  "We give to help. To undo that which was wrong. If you use such to do more wrong, then you fail the Way—and prove unworthy of help."

  "So you're just going to wash your tentacles and walk away?" Webber said.

  "This struggle is your own," the alien said. "We will not interfere. If you prevail in it, we will speak more."