by S. J. Higbee
“Everyone knows you’ve got something of a fixation about your brother…”
What!
She rushed on, “To be honest, it’s become something of a joke amongst some of the journos. As I warned you in my coms-text—ˮ
“What coms-text? I don’t recall receiving any such communication. And I would have remembered that.” It was an effort keeping my temper.
Her eyes widened. “I did get a reply from your Number Two. He said you were very fragile about your brother and I shouldn’t mention him to you.”
Chris dropped a pile of parches on the floor.
While I clenched my fist under the table, swept with the need to smash something. Ideally George’s sour, double-dealing face. “So you gave it a mench because…?” I raised my eyebrow.
She leaned forward, clearly throwing caution out of the airlock. “Because you don’t seem to be the obsessed bot-brain described to me.”
And this is what you get when you start being cosy with the hired help, Lizzy. This woman is on the edge of being insubordinate.
But for once, Jessica had got it wrong. What Blayse had to say was uncomfortable to hear, but that didn’t mean she was out of order bringing it to my attention. I’d been increasingly frustrated that my warnings about Eddy were ignored. And now, thanks to Blayse, I’d learnt why.
I resisted the urge to plunge my hand into a pocket and shred a handy nosewipe. Tomas had warned me it was a tell that gave my opponents too much leverage. Not that I’m going to think about him at all right now… “And?”
Blayse’s words came out in a rush, “Now, everyone knows that Eddy Wright is the most dangerous individual in Sector Two and you were the only person who continually warned us about him. Even your Number Two dismissed your fears.” Her eyes sparkled. “Don’t you see? While this is a solid catastrophe, you’re now no longer a PR liability…”
What!
“…instead, you’re the golden girl who foretold this disaster. All the journos are panting to talk to you. And we’re not just talking about the jobbing hacks scraping around for fillers and spot-stories, because Earth is shipping out their established anchormen and women, who want indepth interviews. About all of it. How it was like growing up alongside such a monster… What you think he’ll do next… That kind’ve thing.”
My mouth dried at the prospect. I did deal with journos, but so far, after the first slightly hysterical blare of publicity when I’d been elected as the Leader of the Peace and Prosperity Corps, it tended to be routine and sporadic. And now I know why. The journos had all written me off as some deranged wetbrain with brother issues.
“Only if you’re skinwelded to my side. I’m… not good at this stuff,” I muttered.
“For sure, Bo— Elizabeth. I wouldn’t consider letting them loose without being alongside.”
“What we’re doing here – it’s snagged some attention, has it?”
Blayse stared at me, the surprise on her face almost comical. “Attention? Elizabeth, with the current death toll at over a two thousand and counting on Hawking alone; and the William Shakespeare blasted out of the sky – this story is headlining right across Sector Two. And is garnering serious primetime as far away as Homespace and Earth. Like it or not, the P’s are in the spotlight. Every move we make here is being watched right across the galaxy.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Blayse Farmer went off to deliver her press release, while I made my way back to the Ops Room, my head spinning. I hadn’t appreciated just how much George was undermining my leadership outside the organisation – though it made sense, if he wanted to lever me out, sooner rather than later.
Just when what we’re doing here on Hawking is being watched by the rest of humanity… A dizzying thought. And one that needed to be put on hold as I slipped back into the dimly lit room, flickering with the heartrending scenes being played out on the bank of vu-screens as the rescue teams were tending to the injured.
As I sat down, David leaned towards me. “They’ve retrieved the bomb disposal team. Norma Girdwell will survive, although she’ll need a significant amount of time in the regen unit.” He paused, evidently expecting me to enquire as to the exact nature of her injuries, but I couldn’t face it. Not yet.
“And the bloke?” I asked.
David shook his head. “We now know why the bomb went off, though. Those Dreggers had been instructed by Eddy to wait until they heard activity on the other side of the barricade. Then they were to tell the fugees trapped alongside them that help was coming. That we’d disarmed the bombs and it was safe. Which was why they all massed on the other side.” His eyes were bleak. “In truth, the folks stuck in there were all set to bust through anyway. They were desperate with thirst and hunger. And while the bomb went off, triggered by all the fugees herded towards the barricades by the Dregger gang, they stood well back to escape the effects of the blast.”
Murdering scum! And talking of scum… “Any sign of Norby or Eddy?”
David shook his head, again. “Everyone says they escaped in a fast cruiser well before the end of the riot. Though they left strict instructions with the dross they stranded.”
I frowned. “Why would anyone go on following Eddy’s instructions, once they’d been deserted?”
“Your brother promised to come back for them. Bring along a squadron of captured ships and scoop them up, apparently. All they had to do was to sit tight in Basement Level for as long as they could. Then blow up the barricade taking as many as our troops as possible, using the poor flooders trapped alongside them to trigger the bomb.” It was an indication of David’s distress that he’d cursed.
“Presumably, we’ve checked all the approach routes to Hawking to ensure that Eddy isn’t doing any such thing.” I was nearly sure he wouldn’t – that it was all some shoddy lie to buy him and his nasty friends time to escape. But it was never smart to under-estimate Eddy.
“The Admiral instructed us to check all the approaches and keep monitoring any movements out of Erato – as much as we can – until further notice.” David’s tone slid from efficient underling into exasperated equal, “But think Lizzy! He didn’t take sufficient ships to be able to mount any sort of rescue. We both know this is so much sense-vac’d drivel to keep those sorry remnants from co-operating with us while he and his companions flit away air-free.”
I jumped up, shaking with fury. “Don’t you take that tone with me! If the lot of you had put half the energy you expended in laughing behind my back over my obsession with Eddy into finding the evil prodder in the first place, we wouldn’t be here right now!”
And Tomas wouldn’t be under arrest back in Restormel. And I’d still have a funny, sexy lover to lighten my load and keep the nightmares at bay.
I swept out of the Ops Room with Chris, Teresa and Peter trailing in my wake and marched along to the ship’s gym where there was a BalanceJoust pad installed for me. Yeah, there were definite advantages to being Chief. I was able to pound my very own fight avatar when it all got too much. Storming into the gym, I skidded to a halt. There were a dozen or so mercs using the gym equipment, although my BalanceJoust pad was unoccupied.
Chris stepped ahead. “Right. Everyone out. Quick as you like.”
I put a hand on his arm. “So long as you can still watch my back, these people need exercise, too.”
The three of them looked at each other, before Chris slowly nodded. “Yeah, we’ll be able to keep you safe in here.” He glared at the mercs still standing around, unsure whether they’d have to leave. “So long as these people get back to minding their own business.”
Meantime, I was warming up and breathing deeply. Getting into the zone. To be able to react sufficiently quickly on level ten, I needed to be pin-sharp and hyperaware. Oxygenating my blood was always a good start. Although once I activated the programme, I took several hits in quick succession. It was something of a surprise to realise how disorientating the different surroundings were. However, the pain focused my concentration
.
As ever, everything else rolled away. No matter what else was going on in my life, I had no choice but to completely inhabit each second on BalanceJoust. No trancing off to worry about anything, or I got roundly thumped around the ribs. I reckon I’d have gone crazy within the first six months of becoming Chief if I hadn’t had this piece of kit in the corner of my gym. It also kept me fit, given that other than slogging around the cross-country track two or three times a week if I could manage it, this and the sparring matches I did with my combat trainer was my main exercise, so long as I didn’t mind the odd cracked rib.
After four intense rounds, I was dripping with sweat and only just keeping pace. Time to call a halt before I got hurt. I’d done that to myself a few times – used the BalanceJoust to take a beating. But these days, I couldn’t afford such over-emotional, childish gestures. As Jessica never tired of pointing out – it wasn’t a suitable way for the Chief to behave. No matter how much I was tempted… “Power down!” I called.
And surfaced from the virtual fightpad to hear Chris’s roar, “What’re you sorry lot wearing your eyes out on, then?”
Teresa handed me a Wetwipe and a towel, which was when I recalled that I’d only have a powdered water shower.
That vile stuff. Brings you up in hives if you don’t fully Wetwipe it off, remember. Jessica sounded insufferably smug. Teach you to lose your temper. And sometime in the next few hours, you’ll also need to apologise to David, who has never disrespected or laughed at you about your concerns regarding Eddy, for the record.
Shove it out the airlock, Jessica! You lost your temper a dozen times a day when you were alive, so don’t think you’ve the right to start lecturing me now. I’d love to report I sensed her chagrin because I’d bested her in this particular exchange, but as usual whenever I got the upper hand in any of our squabbles, she simply disappeared.
I mopped my face and wondered if I could get away without using the powdered water, when one of the mercs approached and snapped off a salute. “Chief!”
“Soldier,” I responded, conscious of sweat running down my neck in icy trickles and hoping this wasn’t going to take too long. I was already starting to stiffen.
“We’d all like to volunteer if you’re looking for firing squad teams to off those Dreggers.”
A low chorus of agreement echoed through the gym.
“Thank you for your interest,” I said. “I’ll bear it in mind.” While a prickle of apprehension joined the sweat crawling down my back. With the P’s in the spotlight, the last thing we needed was a bunch of our own people figuring to even up the odds using their own version of rough justice.
*
I walked into the Control Room for the Interrogation Suite. All the brigs on board Predominant, the other troop carriers and on Space Station Hawking were full as we’d rounded up close on 230 people involved in the riots. These were the hardcore perpetrators, not the casual looters, or opportunistic thieves. We were dealing with them differently. Scanning the screens, I tried to work out which one he was.
Chris scowled, pointing at one of the screens sited on the far right of the bank, in the high-security section of the flagship. “There. That’s him.”
“Right.” I stared at him, trying to see if he looked particularly vicious or depraved. But the truth is, he looked just like the rest of them. Thin and pale with a sneer pasted across his face like it had grown there. Which it probably had, given where he’d been brought up.
I sat down in the chair set up in front of the cam and flicked a switch. “I hear you have a message for me that you were instructed to deliver. Hurry up. I haven’t much time.”
He jerked round, facing me. The screen was set up too high for the prisoners to be able to easily reach, although there wasn’t any chance of him so much as standing up, as he was shackled to the chair.
“Prodding hells!” he yelped.
“I didn’t come here to hear your sorry cursing.” I leant forward, intending to cut the link.
“This in’t the deal! You’re s’posed to meet face to face. That’s wot he said,” snapped the Dregger.
“Journo-flash. He doesn’t run things around here. I do. I was told you had a message for me. And if you, or Eddy, ever imagined my security team would permit us to share the same air for so much as a nanosec, you’re tripping over an event horizon of your own imagining. Now. This message – make it snappy. I’m busy.”
His sunken eyes glittered as he made a show of checking me out on the screen.
I leaned forward again, ready to cut the link, only partly for effect. I’d no patience for these sorts of headgames on a good day. And this wasn’t remotely a good day. “I haven’t time for this bilgecrud. The medics can drug the message out’ve you. No one’s going to care if your brain gets fried in the process—ˮ
I’d expected more cursing. Or a gabbled version of this wretched message that Jasen seemed to think might be important enough for me to actually break my schedule to hear. What I hadn’t expected was this sorry article to throw his head back and start laughing. A howling cackle full of angry despair that made me shiver. And delay pressing the button that would blank the screen. No point in letting the Dregger realise he’d got to me, though.
“Care to share the joke? I could do with a laugh.”
The restraints chinked as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Lookin’ down yer pointy nose at me with yer ‘Don’ have time for this,’ business…’” He let out another hair-raising cackle. “There never was a ship comin’ back fer us, was there? He was just ʼnother Uppie drosser lookin’ to prod us comin’ an’ goin’. Yer aller same. Even got the look’ve him, you have…”
What! This loser’s lost his senses. Eddy and me don’t look the slightest bit alike – never did. He’s a bloated, toadlike specimen with a belly so swollen you’d think he was pregnant.
“You go on yowling like a space-spooked cat.” I stood up. “I still don’t have time for this.”
Don’t think he even noticed, as he was still rocking with hysterical laughter. “Reckoned you’d be pantin’ fer his message. Would cut me some free air to get it, so yer would. That’s wot he said.”
I rolled my eyes at such a notion.
Abruptly he stopped his wit-vacc’d cackling and jabbed a finger at me. “There! He does that! ʼXactly the same… Can’t hardly believe I fell fer such a crock’ve cycler-sludge an’ that’s a fact.”
“If you’ve any information that could help nail his sorry carcass, it – maybe – could be taken into consideration…” I allowed my voice to tail off, knowing full well that after seeing the footage of what this sorry specimen got up to during the riot, no court in this galaxy would be cutting this scumsac any free air.
His stare bored holes in my skull, before his mouth peeled into a sneer that all but split his lips. “Yeah, right. An’ I’m shittin’ stardust.”
“You won’t walk away from this one unscathed. Surely you didn’t ever think that’d be the case?” I didn’t bother to hide my contempt for his witless expectation. “Not after what you and yours did to those poor people.”
He lunged forward in his seat, his face contorted in a snarl. “Wot ʼbout us? Why don’ we count? Stuffed in Basement Level with foul air, ratshit food an’ putrid water an’ no way out!”
Against my will, I recalled the vile stench, the rubbish, the skinny, snot-nosed kids who’d clustered around us, and above all the suffocating hopelessness down in Basement Level. “Which still isn’t an excuse for what you did!” I snapped back at the Dregger.
“Prod yer! Prod all’ve yer to Hell an’ back. I’ll tell yer anyways, seeing as he reckoned you’d be wettin’ yer sorry self.” No laughing now, as the words fell out of his mouth in a gabble, “He said to tell you that one way or ʼnuther, he’s gonna get you. An’ one’ve these days he’ll be standin’ over you an’ you’ll be beggin’ fer mercy. An’ he’s gonna spit in yer sorry eye.”
I rolled my eyes. Again. “Like Eddy
was ever anything other than a fat fool with a savage streak.”
The Dregger stared at me. “You’re not ʼfraid’ve him, are yer?”
“No, I’m not afraid of Eddy.”
The chains rattled as he leaned towards the screen, his expression oddly vulnerable as he dropped the sneer. “You should be. Down there…” He jerked his head towards the floor, presumably to denote Basement Level. “There’s some majorly mean prodders, but he’s the meanest, evilest son’ve Satan I ever had the shoddy luck ter cross.” His lips twisted as he added, “Managed to make Norby look house-trained fer starters…”
“Yeah. About Norby and Eddy linking up. How’d that happen?”
The Dregger shook his head. “Nah. I’m not sayin’ nothin’ more.”
“We could take it into account that you’d assisted us in our enquiries.”
He snorted. “Gimme a break. I know ʼxactly what’ll happen to me…” his voice was flat, his eyes hopeless. “Your lot’ll blast me ter the outer edges’ve the galaxy with no more thought than if I were a rat.”
His bitterness twisted my heart.
“And what about those people you raped and killed? D’yer treat them with any more consideration than a rat, eh?” I’d raised my voice.
“Yer know nothin’!”
“Then tell her. Explain how it was. Or else how can they know to be fair?” the woman’s voice was off-screen, however I didn’t need to see her to know who it was.
“Sonja?” my voice cracked as a slice of my former life ambushed me.
“Lizzy.” Sonja sounded cool. In control. Of course. She’d been expecting this meeting whereas I…
“How come you’re in with this criminal?” I demanded. “Thought you were working with children.”
“Last time I looked, all prisoners are entitled to some kind of representation when they are being interrogated. And when I first arrived on Hawking, Jaxome was a child.” She finally moved closer to the Dregger, so she came into view.
“It’s good to see you,” I said, as a sea of memories, both mine and Jessica’s, sluiced through me, leaving me weak-kneed.