After Tag sat, the others took their seats. The four marines remained standing behind Doran, their pulse rifles still held close to their chests. Rizzar settled next to Tag’s feet, curling around herself like a snake.
“You surprise me,” Doran said. “I hadn’t expected to see the Argo again after you fell off the grid.”
“I’m sorry for our lack of communication, but we’ve got some very good reasons,” Tag said. “I’ll be happy to fill you in on the details.”
“I’m sure you would be,” Blank said, a scowl accentuating his wrinkles. “It’s fortunate for us Harsia has come to warn us what you and the crew pulled on Meck’ara.”
“What we pulled?”
Harsia crossed her thin arms over her black unisuit. “As soon as you took off, we knew where you would be headed, and I was sent immediately to intercept you.”
“But—”
Blank cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Save it, Brewer. Harsia told us how you left without warning, stealing away when they were trying to resupply their own cities. She also told us about how you destroyed the Dawn of Glory.”
“We didn’t destroy the Dawn,” Tag said, feeling the heat rise to his face. “If you’ll just let me explain.”
“All that will come in good time, Brewer,” Harsia said.
Tag made note of that. If she had left Meck’ara right after they did, then she might not be involved in the possible coup. And if L’ndrant had sent her, the Mechanic diplomat might be willing to listen to reason.
“Harsia warned us you might be compromised by what you all are calling the post-humans,” Doran said. “She showed us what happened to their planet. Mechra, is it?”
“Meck’ara,” Harsia said.
Tag wanted to protest. But no matter how adamantly he tried to deny being a victim of the nanites, it wouldn’t prove anything. There had to be some way to prove it.
“I’m going to level with you, Brewer,” Doran said. “I didn’t have high hopes for your mission when you went out there. I knew it was risky and you were ill-equipped, but we didn’t have a lot of options at the time. After we stopped getting courier drones, I assumed the worst.”
“I understand,” Tag said. “And you’re evidently taking precautions because you think we might be post-human compromised. But we were worried any information we shared via courier drone could be intercepted by the collaborators.”
Doran seemed to consider this. “Collaborators? That’s what you’re calling them?”
Blank almost leapt across the table, his eyes sparking with malice. “Admit it, Brewer. Harsia’s already told us the post-human stories you brought back along with that post-human ship. And now you’ve destroyed the Dawn. It sure doesn’t look good for you, especially after leaving us in the dark for so long.”
“I know it looks bad,” Tag said, trying to keep his anger in check. Blank’s face burned, sweat trickling from his receding hairline, and Tag mentally chided himself to remain calmer than him. “I didn’t destroy the Dawn. I have footage from that incident.”
“Footage is easily doctored,” Harsia said.
“It is,” Tag said. “But logically, why in the names of all the gods would I go through the trouble of bringing the Dawn to Meck’ara only to destroy it?”
“That’s what I want to know.” Blank slammed both his fists on the table.
With the back of his hand, Tag wiped Blank’s spittle from his cheek. The man was rabid. Had the man taken Tag’s radio silence personally? Or had Harsia already convinced Blank that Tag and his crew were the enemy? Either way, Tag had seen privates in the marines with better decorum than the rear admiral.
Doran gave Blank a sidelong glance before her eyes returned to Tag’s. She placed both hands on the table in an open gesture, as if this was some kind of intergalactic good cop, bad cop routine. “Look, I want you to tell your side of the story. Why you were suspicious, why you withheld information until now. What you discovered about the post-humans and why you brought that ship back and why it was destroyed.”
“Gladly,” Tag said. He shifted in his chair and then looked up at the marines. “Much of this information is sensitive.”
“Give it a rest, Brewer,” Blank said. He gestured to the marines. “Those men are here to take you down the moment we catch you in a lie.”
Lucky shifted at his feet, and Tag willed her to remain silent. Doran had been amused by the Rizzar, but he didn’t think Blank would be so amenable to Lucky’s presence.
“Is this an interview or an interrogation?” he asked.
Doran and the Mechanic ambassador watched him with equally stoic expressions. “There’s no need to worry,” Doran said. “Everyone in this room was hand-selected by Rear Admiral Blank. Nothing said here goes beyond these walls. Simple as that.”
Tag hesitated for a moment longer, but it seemed the only way he was walking out of this room a free man was to tell them everything.
He started from the last courier drone he had sent, telling Doran and Blank about taking the Argo into what was once Mechanic-controlled space. Harsia closed her golden eyes when he described finding nothing but ruined space stations and colonies, torn apart by the Drone-Mechs. With some hesitation, he told them about how Lonestar had been duped by a military intelligence officer into planting a transponder in the Argo that allowed the Drone-Mechs to track them down.
He told them about encountering the Dreg and Melarrey, and finally the free Mechanic fleet. How they had launched a counterattack on Meck’ara to retake the planet and disrupt the grav wave signals controlling the Drone-Mech. Then he went over their self-appointed mission to the coordinates he had discovered hidden in Captain Weber’s logbook. How they had stumbled on the cobbled-together monstrosity that had once been the UNS Hope, post-human. Finally, he told them about their discovery of the Dawn of Glory and how they had overcome Ezekiel.
“It was on that ship we discovered the Collectors’ plans to develop nanites that not only enslaved humans but also set off a wave of genetic alterations to turn them into post-humans,” Tag said. “I took the ship back to Meck’ara, because I was worried if I brought it here—”
“The Collector collaborators would take it back,” Doran finished for him.
“That’s ridiculous,” Blank said. “We were attacked by the Drone-Mech. Why would they do that if we had collaborators aboard on their side?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Tag said.
“You still claim you didn’t destroy the Dawn,” Doran said.
Harsia muttered something under her breath, but Tag couldn’t hear it.
“That’s right,” he said. “We didn’t. A Starinski Labs stealth craft blew it up.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“You’re lying,” Blank said. His forehead was still glistening with sweat, as though he were the one being interrogated and not Tag.
“I’m not,” Tag replied. “One of my marines identified the craft.”
Doran tapped on her wrist terminal. A holo of a ship appeared in the middle of the white table they were seated at, all smooth contours and dark as space itself. “Does this look familiar?”
“That’s exactly it,” Tag said. He motioned to his wrist terminal. “May I?”
With a nod, Doran gave holo control access to Tag’s wrist terminal. He swiped over the device’s screen until he reached the footage of the incident above Meck’ara, right when Coren had knocked out New Blood’s cloaking shields. With a flick of a finger, the holovid began to play. Doran watched, frowning slightly, but Blank was already shaking his head in disgust.
“That’s the ship,” Tag said. He paused the image and pointed to a speck on the Dawn’s ship bay deck. “And there’s the bomb it left behind.” He let the holo play. First the stealth ship jumped into hyperspace, and then the Argo rocketed away just before the series of explosions eliminated the Dawn. “The footage isn’t edited.”
Harsia looked unimpressed. “If you are on the side of the post-humans, there is no tell
ing what their technology can accomplish.”
“That’s true,” Tag said. “Which is why we were so worried about letting information spill to the Montenegro.”
“I see,” Doran said. She looked to Harsia. “His story does mesh with yours, despite your uncertainty of the events surrounding the Dawn’s destruction.”
“So you believe me?” Tag asked.
Doran checked her wrist terminal. “I’m getting reports from your other crew members. They support your story.”
“Of course they do,” Tag said. “It’s the truth.”
Blank’s jaw worked like he was chewing a gristly piece of steak. “Or you all rehearsed the story before coming here.”
“I am not convinced,” Harsia said. “Our people were fooled by the Drone-Mechs before. I would hate to see the same happen to yours.”
“Fortunately, I don’t have to rely on something so primitive as a gut feeling,” Doran said.
Harsia shot her a bemused expression.
“What do you mean?” Tag asked.
Doran watched him, her expression guarded. “Surely you’ve noticed it, Captain. Something different from your last visit.”
“I don’t know,” Tag said. “I’ve never been to this part of the Montenegro before.”
“That would be because they’re new,” Doran said. “We’ve made some...modifications to the life support systems. Specifically, the air.”
“I did notice a strange taste to it. It reminded me of the Dawn.” Then his spine tingled with electricity. “What did you do?”
“Relax,” Doran said. “Nothing so insidious as the nanites used to control the Drone-Mechs. Truth be told, we’ve been dealing with more civil unrest than usual throughout our colonies. Classified reports detailing peculiar behavior in some of our Mil Intel, civilian contractors, and even enlisted men and women, have landed on my desk. Colonial protests have turned into riots approaching civil war. It’s chaos out there in SRE territory.”
“You suspect the Collectors are behind it?” Tag asked. He couldn’t believe the collaborators were getting so brazen. Inciting riots and rebellions already? But what did this have to do with nanites in the air?
“Maybe,” Doran said. “I’m not ruling out anything. More likely, other splinter groups are taking advantage of the fallout from the news about the Drone-Mech attack on our strike group.”
“If any of these events are linked to the Collectors, it’s certainly in the SRE’s best interest to investigate it,” Tag said.
“Very true,” Doran said. “Which brings me back to what I wanted to say before. While you were gone, we began developing nanite-based technologies of our own—based largely on the findings you provided.”
Tag must’ve let his dismay show on his face.
“It’s not mind control, Captain. Instead, we developed our own particles. They congregate around the nanite antennae within a host’s brain. I couldn’t explain the exact process to you. But my team assures me that these particles form a large enough cluster around the nanite antenna that they’re visible to our existing medical imaging equipment.”
“So this whole time we’ve been in quarantine,” Tag said, “we’ve been breathing these particles in, and they’ve been circulating through our blood.”
“That’s about it. It takes time for the particles to build up enough to give an adequate signal,” Doran said. “And we have to be sure—absolutely sure—that you aren’t compromised.”
“And?” Tag asked, glancing between Harsia, Doran, and Blank.
Doran tapped her wrist terminal, and a moment later there was a knock on the door. One of the marines opened it, and a man in a white lab coat entered. He gave a data cube to Doran. She placed it over her wrist terminal.
“I hope you don’t disappoint me, Brewer,” she said.
Tag wasn’t worried. He was no drone.
The test would clear his crew.
Wouldn’t it?
The room began to feel warmer as Doran loaded the data to his wrist terminal. He felt a trickle of sweat rolled its way down the back of his neck, following the ridges of his spine. Maybe the detection particles would read the trace amount of nanites still in him from his time aboard the Dawn. As Doran’s eyes scanned her wrist terminal, a marine with tattoos climbing up his neck seemed to lean over her shoulder, following along. Tag glanced at the marine’s name tape: Perry.
Without warning, Perry’s fingers moved from casually holding his pulse rifle to gripping it as if he was about to fire. Two more of the marines took a step back from the table, their own rifles at the ready.
“Admiral Doran!” Tag shouted.
Before Doran could look up from her wrist terminal, a dark shape exploded from under the table. It latched onto the nearest marine, and the man’s rifle went off. The resulting pulsefire tore craters into the ceiling. Perry swiveled his rifle toward Harsia and shot her before firing on the lab technician who’d delivered Tag’s test results, as Blank disappeared under the table.
The world seemed to go silent. Tag leapt over the table, acting before he could think. He grabbed the nearest marine’s rifle, meeting the man’s angry blue eyes for an instant as Tag wrestled the weapon away. Adrenaline surged through him, and his pulse thundered in his eardrums.
He pulled the trigger, pumping pulsefire into the blue-eyed marine at point-blank range.
There wasn’t time to think about what he’d done. He threw his body at Perry, forcing the marine to twist away just before he fired on Doran. Perry’s finger remained tight on the trigger. Rounds lanced into the fourth marine’s side, tracing up his ribs and sputtering over his exposed face. Singed skin sloughed away, and blood spattered across the bulkhead.
Tag pushed forward, driving Perry backward until the man’s head cracked against the wall. One of Tag’s feet started to slide out from under him when the marine shoved back, and he staggered.
These men were stronger than him. Better at combat. But Tag had an edge the marines did not. He was fighting not just for his life but the future of the human race.
Tag ducked, borrowing a move he had learned from sparring with Coren. The momentum Perry had gained from shoving Tag carried the hefty marine over Tag’s back, and he slammed onto the table. The jolt made him lose his grip on the rifle. Tag darted in to snatch it away.
Perry was down. The blue-eyed marine wasn’t getting up anytime soon, and the fourth man had been taken out by friendly fire.
But what about the third marine?
He turned just in time to see the marine raising his weapon to aim at Doran.
Tag squeezed the trigger before he had a chance to aim. Rounds punched into the deck then the bulkhead. Then the marine. For a moment, Doran’s gaze met Tag’s, her eyes wild. “Brewer, look out!”
He turned to see Perry standing atop the table. A vessel bulged on his forehead. He attacked Tag like a rabid animal, arms pummeling and teeth biting.
The adrenaline did nothing to combat the agony of blows landing on his temple, his ribs. A hit directly to his kidney. He doubled over, and as soon as he did, he took a knee to his face. He heard a whimper, but it wasn’t his.
Lucky had entered the fray, and Perry had kicked the Rizzar hard enough to send her crashing against the bulkhead.
“No!” Tag grunted.
He tried to raise the pulse rifle, but Perry lashed out with a vicious series of jabs. Lightning struck through his skull and ribs, reigniting old injuries he had thought were healed. His whole world felt on fire, and he struggled to keep his eyes open. His vision wouldn’t focus. The taste of copper was heavy on his tongue, and this time he knew it wasn’t nanoparticles floating in the air. It was his own blood.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A gunshot rang out, and everything went still. Tag felt the sticky warmth of blood across his chest. Its ferrous odor filled his nostrils, and a throbbing pain sent splinters of fire through his jaw. His vision started to refocus, revealing sticky blood all over his outstretched hands.
<
br /> Great, he thought. Now I can watch myself bleed out.
Instincts ingrained through years of practicing medicine kicked in. He slumped against the bulkhead and assessed his injuries. Where had he been shot? He could breathe fine, so no lung damage. No excruciating pain in his abdomen to signal a devastating gut shot. And he was still able to think, so it couldn’t have been a headshot.
Tag was alive for now, but Perry would no doubt finish the job if given a chance. Tag wobbled upright. A sensation of vertigo made the deck swirl, and he stumbled forward, his hand blindly reaching out to steady himself.
He touched something warm and fleshy. An arm. There was no pulse beneath Tag’s fingers, and the icy blue eyes of the marine he’d killed were fixed sightlessly at the ceiling.
Tag swiveled, blinking away the blood and sweat and confusion. He saw someone moving in his peripheral vision. It wasn’t the hulking frame of the marine, but someone smaller, slighter.
“Admiral?” Tag tried to say, the word coming out slurred.
Before she could answer, Blank shoved past Tag and launched himself at Doran. A sharp pain ricocheted through his bruised and blood-covered wrist as he tried to grab Blank. Doran slammed against the floor.
“Stop!” Tag yelled as he attempted to drag the rear admiral away from Doran.
“She’s one of them,” Blank rasped.
Doubt swept over Tag like a chilling wind. By the gods, what if he was fighting on the wrong side? Was he responsible for the deaths of innocent men trying to bring down a traitor?
Blank took advantage of his confusion. The rear admiral threw his elbow in Tag’s nose. Tag wheeled backward, blood spilling between his fingers as he clutched at his damaged face. Doran flailed under Blank’s grasp, her face turning red. Her limbs started to tremble, moving more sporadically.
No, Tag thought. Even if Admiral Doran was a collaborator, he couldn’t allow Blank to murder her. She needed to be questioned. Once more, he tried to drag Blank away from Doran. Unlike him, Blank hadn’t been injured in the fray. He kicked Tag in the chest with enough force to send him flying backward. Tag juked around the rear admiral and slid across the table. He landed on the other side, picked up one of the dropped rifles, and leveled it at Blank’s face.
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