by C. G. Hatton
“I have another job for her if she wants it,” NG said softly.
Frank looked at him, eye to eye for a long minute, then nodded. “She will. I get the feeling no one is going to manage to cash in on these contracts. Jesus, NG, eighty five mill each on those two and five hundred on you? Who the hell have you all been pissing off?”
NG paused with the beer bottle half way to his lips, aware that LC had picked up on that five hundred. “It’s a long story.”
Frank didn’t push it. “I was sorry to hear about Mendhel,” he said after a while, genuine emotion. The guild didn’t mix with many people in the outside but when they did, loyalties and friendships tended to run deep.
NG drained the last of the beer. “We’ve lost some good people,” he said quietly. It was weird but as much as they were all relieved at this temporary respite from the chaos and drama, all he could pick up from Sean’s dad was a burning curiosity, a yearning to leave this sanctuary and get back out there himself.
“We might have a job for you if you’re interested,” NG suggested, nonchalantly. “If we can tempt you away from the fishing.”
Frank laughed and clapped him on the back. “Come on, we shouldn’t leave those two reprobates alone with my little girl for much longer.”
The three of them looked up as NG and Frank walked back in. More logs had been stacked onto the fire and they were sitting around the table messing about with a pack of cards.
Frank pulled another couple of beers from the fridge, giving one to NG and sitting at the table. He settled himself, took a swig from his bottle and looked directly at LC. “So have you slept with her?”
Sean had a mouthful of beer herself and almost choked.
LC flushed, bright red, fumbling the shuffle and spilling cards onto the table.
Hilyer grinned and stood up, excusing himself and limping out to the kitchen, sending silently to LC, “Don’t blow it, bud.”
NG followed, smiling.
Frank’s kitchen was well stocked, homely in a way the mess on a ship could never quite manage.
Hil leaned against the counter, pulling a pack of painkillers from his pocket. “So what happens now?”
“Frank’ll give LC a hard time then if he likes him, he’ll welcome him into the family.”
Hil smiled and popped a couple of the pills. “You know what I mean.”
They hadn’t talked a lot on the way out here, not knowing what they’d find, what state LC would be in. Now the kid was wondering where they went from here.
“We need to hold Skye in quarantine, Hil. We have no choice. After what happened with Genoa, we can’t make any exceptions.”
Hil stared at the floor. He was tired out, feeling that he had no fight left.
“We have some loose ends to tie up,” NG said.
“Anya?”
“Anya. Zang. That bastard’s not going to let up until he gets hold of you both.” He looked at Hil. So far nothing had been said about the incident at the lab except that LC had been infected by something. Hil was assuming it was a failed experimental bioweapon that LC had somehow recovered from. “There are also some people LC encountered while he was out there. We need to bring them in.”
Hil looked up, puzzled, wondering why. NG didn’t say anything but the kid was smart enough to put two and two together, thinking shit, he knew LC had been screwed up but to have revealed his connection with the guild to anyone was bad news.
“We still off the list?”
NG nodded. “Special projects.”
Hil took a beer out of the fridge, holding his side as he leaned over. “We should go rescue LC.”
“I think he’ll be fine. He’s still wearing her tag – on some planets that’s virtually a wedding band.”
Chapter 18
She took a sip. “I do like Hilyer and Anderton,” she said without looking up. “They have such an indomitable spirit. Did you suspect that Zang’s mysterious package could be carrying such a significant secret?”
“If I had,” he said dryly, “I would not have acted any differently. We have enemies. We confront them. This, this… package… that had the entire galaxy chasing after our missing operatives, no one knew what it was. Even Earth didn’t know what they had. However,” he raised a finger, “if we had known then what its origins were, I…”
“Hindsight,” she interrupted sternly. “As you say, you – we – are not omnipotent. How did Zang learn of it and we did not?”
“The Order, I presume. And therein lies a greater question. How did the Order know of it, and we did not?”
•
It was a brief respite, reality waiting as soon as they set foot on the Alsatia. Evelyn was standing almost to attention, arms behind her back, flanked by two of the Man’s elite guard.
There was something wrong.
She didn’t move, expression neutral, eyes flicking from NG to LC as they walked off the ship.
NG was a step ahead and he turned slightly to the others, gesturing them to wait and saying softly, “Stay here,” not liking what he was reading in Evie’s mind.
He felt a flutter of panic in LC, felt him reach out cautiously with an automatic self-defensive need to assess the danger around him. Christ, the last thing the kid needed was to get sucked into the disturbed psyche of the Man’s elite guards. NG threw up a shield to block him instinctively, switching to direct thought. ‘Luka, don’t. Don’t even try to read these guys. You don’t want to go anywhere near their minds, you understand?’
LC frowned and the banging headache that was emanating from behind the kid’s eyes peaked with an intensity that almost made NG’s eyes water.
NG squinted at him. ‘LC, do you understand?’
‘No,’ the thought came back. LC was vague, dazed almost. ‘Shit, NG, how do you deal with this?’
‘Shut it out,’ he sent back brusquely. He didn’t have time for it. ‘And for Christ’s sake, don’t try to read the minds of the Man’s guards. That’s somewhere you don’t want to go. I’ll explain later. Okay?’
LC nodded, swaying. Sean steadied him with a hand to his back and it was impossible to miss the flare in Evelyn’s thoughts as she saw the gesture.
NG turned away. He definitely didn’t have time for this. “Stay here,” he muttered again and walked up to Evelyn.
She was still staring at Sean and LC as he approached, snapping her gaze directly to NG’s eyes as he came to a halt in front of her.
“Winter has attacked an Imperial mining facility,” she said. “Ostraban claims it wasn’t sanctioned and Earth is making diplomatic noises at the moment but they’re shifting their fleet into the Between. Media wants to see you – she thinks this could be an opportunity.”
NG nodded, irritation building, waiting for the rest.
“Ballack has lodged a complaint against you. The staff in Legal want to know how you want to respond. And the Chief needs to see you.”
She paused. There was a lot more to all of it, all swirling in ordered circles around her thinking as she filtered the information she decided he needed to know right now. The alert he’d sent out had caused massive ripples, compromising too many of their operations to mention. She decided the Chief could cover all that with him and set her expression back into neutral, report over.
NG narrowed his eyes. She wasn’t getting away with it that easily. “Where’s Devon?” he said bluntly.
Evelyn sucked in a breath. “She left a message for you in your office before she went. She didn’t tell me where she was going.”
NG felt the anger rising and bit down on the comments that flew into his mind. It wasn’t Evelyn’s job to keep Devon in check. But he’d left Devon in charge and it wasn’t just irritating that she’d skipped out. It had been a relief to get LC and Hil back within his grasp, was it too much to hope that he could keep a grip on his people again? And finding out that Devon wasn’t tucked up safe and sound on the Alsatia as he’d thought was more unsettling than he’d expected to ever feel.
&
nbsp; NG held out his hand and Evie passed over the board she’d been holding behind her back. The orders were explicit in their simplicity. He read through them quickly.
‘No rest for the wicked…’
He turned to LC and Hil. They were both hanging back, hesitant. Sean was standing close to LC, still protective towards him, still disturbed by the emotional attachment she hadn’t managed to avoid.
The Man wanted to see him. And the Man wanted LC and Hil confined in his own medical facility, on board his ship. Quarantined. Like he’d guessed they’d have the package and it was never going to be as simple as delivering up a sealed container with the goods inside.
As far as NG knew, no one except himself and the Man’s private staff and security had ever been allowed to set foot on that ship before. And the Man never left it. The ship docked with the Alsatia and left, as far as anyone else knew, to liaise with the rest of the council that supposedly controlled the Thieves’ Guild from afar like omniscient puppet masters. And now the Man was inviting, ordering, their two recalcitrant field operatives into his sacred domain.
The two elite guards stepped forward.
“Go with these guys,” he said, feeling another pang of panic in LC. This was going to be a minefield. Hiding him away on the Man’s ship was a way they could keep the kid isolated and protect his sanity. For a while at least.
“Trust me,” he said. “It’s the safest place for you right now. Don’t argue. Don’t say anything to anyone. Understand? Play dumb. They’ll run a standard medical, just like post-tab. Nothing more. Then they have orders to keep you secure. Don’t do anything stupid.” He had to wait for them to nod, sensing the caution and distrust and sharing it. “Sean, go with Evelyn. You can wait in my office. This might take a while.”
The Man had a twisted sense of humour at times. Playing chess with a being that could read your mind was challenging; playing chess while presenting a debrief from one of the worst situations the guild had ever had to manage had been almost impossible. And it hadn’t just been a game. The Man was ruthless in teaching his lessons and the end game had been hard, emotionally as well as strategically.
NG cradled the goblet of hot spiced wine in his hand, resting its weight against his knee, still not sure how much longer this was going to last. He’d met with the section chiefs before coming in here, more to grab some intel on LC’s story and issue some fast orders he wanted actioning immediately than to hear what they had going on, and he was very aware that events were unfolding out there while he was sitting in here playing chess.
He took a sip of the wine. The alcohol was laced with a narcotic far more potent than anything the Man had ever given him before. It had already been a long session, the Man pushing him for information, insights, even going as far as trying to spark that supposed latent telekinetic ability that he’d never managed to find. It had been tough going.
He was having trouble focusing, eyes heavy, the fallen chess pieces that were lying discarded on the desk blurring, the queen he’d sacrificed so ruthlessly to win staring up at him from her blind, intricately carved eyes.
It seemed to be his fate to sacrifice those most valuable to him and it never got any easier.
The Man leaned forward. “Zang Tsu Po is a worry. The bounty has doubled. He acts directly against us. Where is he?”
“Vanished.” NG drained the last of his wine. “Jameson is looking for him, Ostraban is looking for him, we have people on it and we have people watching them. With tensions this high and emotions this charged on both sides of the line, there aren’t many places to hide.”
“We have enemies, NG,” the Man said softly. “We must take care. Zang’s wild actions are making him more dangerous than we anticipated. Find him.” He paused, rubbing his thumb across his fingers and glancing at the single candle illuminating the dark chamber as if he was about to snuff it out. That would be the end of the session.
NG stared at that tiny burning ember, the glow turning into a blur of orange, willing his boss to extinguish the stuttering flame.
“Yet…” the Man said.
NG blinked, concentrating his focus back onto the figure sitting there in front of him, a being who wielded such sway over the future of the human race.
The Man’s eyes were dark. “I fear there may be more to all this. Tell me again of the freighter and its captain.”
He’d been through it all once.
“Tell me again.”
NG rubbed a hand across his eyes. “William Gallagher. Claims to have been shot down by aliens. He lost his ship and was lucky to survive. Everyone out there thinks he’s mad.” He felt the touch of the Man’s mind as a gentle nudge, hypnotic. It was hard not to fall into that embrace and let go completely, let the Man read whatever he wanted.
It was LC’s memory of a vague contact with Gallagher’s mind that the Man was manipulating, gently teasing the information from NG’s mind third hand, seeing what Gallagher had seen, what LC had subconsciously seen hidden deep in the old man’s memories, what the kid had then thrown across to NG without even knowing it.
It wasn’t painful when the Man did that, but it was wearing. Time had no meaning. Hours could have passed.
NG opened his eyes, not realising that he’d closed them.
The Man was staring at him, a gleam in his eye that was a mix of anticipation, dread and satisfaction. “I want that freighter and its crew,” he said, something in his voice NG had never heard before.
The Man stared without a word for a while longer then suddenly picked up his fallen king. “Work with Luka,” he said. “Zang Tsu Po has delivered right to us, through his greed and morbid fear of mortality, the very answer to our ultimate dilemma. Use it.”
It being the virus, the catalyst, whatever it was that Earth had managed to discover and lose without even knowing what it could do. No one knew what it could do and the idea of letting it loose was chilling.
“It is loose,” the Man said scathingly.
NG dropped his gaze, staring down into the dark depths of the empty goblet. LC hadn’t just let slip knowledge of the guild while he was on that ship in the mining colonies, he’d spread the virus to at least one other that he knew of. What had happened since the kid had left was anyone’s guess.
The struggling flame of the candle flickered.
“Zang,” the Man said eventually, breaking an ominous silence, “was chasing rumours of an elixir of life. Eternal life. This quirk of human biochemistry that gives us the weapon we need against our enemies is, I suspect, not simply a serendipitous side effect of an artificially created virus. But wherever it originated, it is one that has landed in our lap and one upon which we must capitalise. You say Luka has the potential to be stronger than you? We have to know. Isolate the active element of this elixir and use it. We need to know what it can do, what our people can do when it is given to them.”
NG raised his eyes, working hard to keep his breathing even, trying not to react, concentrating to avoid the temptation of looking into the Man’s mind to read his full intentions.
“Hilyer, Sorensen and Essien,” the Man said.
Their best.
NG hesitated to argue outright that it was madness to infect three of their top operatives based only on LC’s account of his experience and anecdotal evidence of the effects on another, without initiating some kind of test protocols.
The Man frowned and shook his head slowly. “Tests take time – time, based on the experience of Luka’s freighter captain and the very arrival of this DNA in our galaxy, that we do not have.” He said again, “Hilyer, Sorensen and Essien.”
NG nodded, the slightest of movements in acknowledgement of the orders. He could be sentencing three of his best people to death for all he knew.
“Nikolai,” the Man said quietly, “from here on, there will, I fear, be much more we will have to risk and sacrifice in order to accomplish our ultimate goal.”
The words weighed heavily and he couldn’t help glancing at the forlorn que
en.
The Man kept his ship dark. Warm. NG sat in the anteroom to the Man’s chambers waiting, elbows on his knees, head resting in his upturned hands. After the session with the Man, he’d made his way back to his office, brain fried, senses scrambled, wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed. Instead he’d had to talk to Sean, fend off the Chief and work out a series of orders with Evelyn. Devon’s message had been ridiculously cryptic but to give her credit, she’d left a command structure in place that was managing to be as slick and efficient as he’d expect from Legal.
Sean had taken the job of chasing down Anya after some persuading, concerned about LC and reluctant to leave him but too stubborn to leave unresolved a mistake like letting Anya go and still furious with herself that she hadn’t brought LC straight in. The Chief had kept his report brief – they were in the shit and it wasn’t getting any easier out there. And Evelyn had patiently plied him with tea while they worked out priorities.
Sleep hadn’t featured in any of it.
He’d sent for Micah Sorensen and Lulu Essien and headed back to the Man’s ship, sending word for LC and Hil to be brought to him. The Man wanted to speak to them all. He was hardly asking for volunteers but he was honourable enough to feel the need to explain before condemning them to become lab rats.
NG rubbed his eyes. This was what they’d been working towards, striving towards. A weapon that would give them a chance. And now it was within reach. As rumours of alien sightings and alleged incidents increased, an Earth scientist managed to engineer an elixir, as the Man called it, with the exact properties they needed to take on the alien race they knew was fast approaching its new feeding ground? Coincidence? Christ, there was no way it was a coincidence.
He looked up as he sensed the four figures approaching, shaking off the fatigue and standing before they rounded the corner.
Luka looked exhausted, hands stuck in his pockets, head down as if he didn’t dare look up in case he accidentally encountered someone who would melt his brain. God knows what the Man’s medical team had been doing to him.