by C. G. Hatton
Because there were no AIs on board the Man’s ship but no one could know that. He’d briefed Hil, LC and Duncan to keep quiet about the side effects while they figured out what to do. As far as anyone was concerned, the properties of the virus were limited to regeneration.
“Hal Duncan?”
“Still with Science.”
The virus was proving to be a bitch to research, destabilising as soon as it was taken from a living host. Losing LC was the last thing they needed.
“Where’s Badger?”
“In the briefing room. He has everything set out for you.”
The room they had set up for briefings was cooler than the Man’s chambers. That was one of the first things he’d tasked Morgan with. It seemed that the Man had only ever met the heads of his various operations one at a time. NG had said straight off, “Screw that, we need a briefing room.”
Leigh was already in there, sitting at the back of the room. Badger was trawling through the latest reports and briefings. He was in his element. Special projects rather than deep cover but inundated with data from every aspect of the Man’s empire. They were pulling in everything from everywhere.
The table was strewn with boards and papers. There was a tray amongst it all. A jug of tea with cups and a bottle of whisky with glasses. As if they hadn’t known what mood he’d be in. He missed Evelyn.
Morgan followed him in and sat down. “Why would Anderton kill Ostraban’s daughter?” he said.
“He wouldn’t,” Badger said from across the table, looking as wild as ever. “LC’s never killed anyone.”
Leigh raised her eyebrows at that, thinking that hadn’t been what she’d seen out there on Erica.
NG reached across for the tea and veered instead for the whisky. LC might have changed, having been thrown into the middle of a battle, but deep down his intense aversion to violence hadn’t gone.
“He wouldn’t,” he said. “It doesn’t come naturally to him. He doesn’t hurt the people he cares about and he’s been involved with Olivia for a long time. I should have brought her in.”
She wasn’t the first person he’d made that mistake with.
Leigh was staring at him. She connected through the Senson and whispered inside his head, “LC is Thieves’ Guild and he was having a fling with Ennio Ostraban’s daughter? Wasn’t that complicated?”
“They didn’t know.”
“And now the whole galaxy does?” She was starting to see the implications of everything she’d read.
NG opened the bottle and muttered, “Don’t worry, we’ll get him back.” He reached for a shot glass. None of them had stopped since Erica, since he’d brought them all into special projects, gate-crashing Morgan’s cosy operation here on the Man’s ship, and he could feel the fatigue pulling at them.
He poured a shot and pulled over one of the boards, flicking slowly through the report, gaze lingering on the autopsy shots of grotesque figures in various stages of decay, dull orange eyes staring out at him.
It felt like the battle had been a million years ago.
“Where are we at?” he said, rubbing his hand over his eyes. He had everyone in Science, as well as the Man’s own medical team, working on the virus and the Bhenykhn.
Leigh looked up. They had nothing new to report. Every alien body they’d recovered from Erica had decomposed to organic sludge within eight hours, some faster. Every piece of Bhenykhn technology they’d scavenged seemed to have been inherently symbiotic with bioelements that had disintegrated just as fast. They were trawling through the data, she was thinking, what else could she say?
Badger was the one who said it. “Nothing new.”
NG pushed away the board. He knew that, it was all in the files.
“It would help if we had another subject…” Leigh said, still privately through the Senson, knowing she was out of order.
He shook his head. Lulu Essien was still unresponsive. Leigh knew that and she’d seen the reports on what had happened to Sorenson.
“No,” he replied. “I’m not going to risk anyone else. Not yet.”
As much as he desperately wanted, needed, the virus to be stable enough to use, he couldn’t, not as it was.
She looked at him, trying to figure out how to say what she wanted to say. She didn’t understand why they had no data on him and she wanted to whisper, ‘We need you’, knowing how bad that would sound and for once biting her tongue.
He was too tired for this. “Keep working with what you’ve got,” he said, out loud. “Where are we at with UM?”
UM was going to be the key to this. From what he’d ripped out of Gian Fiorrentino’s mind on Erica, UM had known about the virus before Zang but nothing the guild had managed to do had ferreted out the whereabouts of Angmar Rodan or any of his executive board. The corporation was as active as ever, more so, but its core personnel had vanished.
Badger looked up from the pile of reports he was shuffling, something weird going through his mind as he decoded an incoming. “We’re…” He stopped. When Badger caught something interesting, his mind sparked like a firefly. “NG?” he said warily. “Who’s Nikolai?”
Chapter 4
“The elixir?” one said. “Is there no way for us to use it on our own kind?”
They hadn’t offered him so much as a glass of water. He knew that there were some here who did not approve of their involvement in this galaxy. They hated the smallness of it, the weak-minded petty machinations of its factions, the self-destructive nature of its denizens. It gave them strength to despise the humans of this galaxy as if that excused them from their actions.
That the organism only worked on human DNA gave them more reason to hate when it should give them reason to hope.
He looked along the line for her, reading her expression, reading her thoughts. She was maintaining her composure, refusing to be drawn into the argument, biding her time to speak up for him. She wanted to know the whole story before she made her move.
“No,” he replied. “It is fatal for our kind. Any variation we have tried has proven lethal. Even for the humans, the elixir has proven to be elusive. More so because its very nature created a desire for it that overwhelmed any rational course of action. And that was not the only problem Nikolai and the guild were facing.”
•
NG froze. “Why?” he said, just as cautiously, seeing in Badger’s thoughts the turmoil of burning curiosity mixed with an infuriating tempering paranoia.
Badger held up a board. “High priority message. Encrypted. Tag says it’s for the attention of Nikolai.” He couldn’t read it and it was sending him spare.
NG stared at the board. It could be from the Man or Arturo. The only other people he’d ever told were Devon and Martinez. And as much as the Man had primed Morgan to be ready for NG to take over here, the guy knew nothing about him.
He held out his hand and took the board as if it was primed with high explosive. The message was on the screen. He read it, stomach turning to ice, stood and walked away, close to shaking.
Another mistake. And one he hadn’t even realised he’d made.
He suddenly felt really alone. Sebastian would have been chiding him relentlessly, viciously, might even have seen the danger before it was too late.
But he was gone.
Badger followed him. “Wait. NG, can you read it? Who’s Nikolai?”
He held out the board, said, “Work it out. The cypher is PrimeK,” and walked out.
He set the shower to maximum and let the steaming hot water rain down his back. It was very possible that he’d compromised the Alsatia, if not the whole guild, and he was so exhausted he was close to not caring. The Bhenykhn were coming back and next time, he wouldn’t be able to fend them off. Not alone. He had a jagged two inch scar on his chest that was a constant reminder of just how close it had been.
He stood there, head down, more than tired. He needed to keep his eyes open but he felt himself slipping, eyelids heavy.
A damp chill
shivered into his lungs, heart rate quickening, muscles tensing…
He snapped open his eyes, adrenaline pulsing, sucking in a breath of warm, clean air as if he’d been drowning.
Hot water streamed down his face, across his shoulders.
He was in the shower.
In his quarters.
On board the Man’s ship.
His heart was racing.
He leaned his forehead against the bulkhead. Going insane wasn’t exactly new to him. He was living day in, day out with the certain knowledge that Sebastian could turn up at any moment and take control. And in twisted self-destructive desperation, he’d tried everything to find him. He wanted him back. Wanted to confront the bastard. He’d virtually ransacked the place looking for something, anything, even the Man’s black powder, in that dark time right after Erica. He had no idea why he so needed to hear that condescending son of a bitch whispering in the dark depths of his mind again. Except he knew without doubt that without Sebastian, he’d be dead for real and the Bhenykhn would be rampaging through the galaxy and revelling in the death and destruction that drove them.
He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. All they’d done was delay it. He could still feel the cold bite of the poisoned blade as it had plunged into his heart. It would be worse next time.
Someone was trying to get him on the Senson. He ignored it. If they’d read the message, if they’d worked out the implications of it, they were probably freaking out. With good cause. But it was done. He’d screwed up. The only thing he’d been focusing on had been to stop that alien ship from leaving with the intel the bastards had gathered. He hadn’t even watched out for a threat on their own doorstep, from one of their own.
He could almost hear Sebastian whispering, ‘You fool, you should have seen it,’ and he couldn’t argue with that. He should have seen it a mile away.
He shut off the shower and got dried, rewrapping the support around his knee and dressing in field-op kit. He was aware that Badger had been hovering around outside for the last ten minutes. He grabbed his holsters and headed out of the door.
Badger was pacing and he spun round as the door opened. “Elliott? NG, how the hell does Elliott know where we are? How does he know this code?”
Leigh was standing there quietly, leaning against the bulkhead.
“He had access to the entire Alsatia,” NG said bitterly, walking past them without stopping. “I shouldn’t have let him within a million miles of us.”
They followed.
“Who the hell is he?” Badger said. “You can’t go, NG. No way.”
“How can I not go? He doesn’t just know I’m alive, he knows my real name.” He was struggling to strap on the holsters as he walked, swearing as he went.
Leigh raised her eyebrows, surprised that he was still wearing the cast on his arm.
“It’s too much of a risk,” Badger was protesting. “Send Hil, Duncan… Send a freaking assault team. Anyone but you.”
“Elliott avoided me the whole time we were on Erica. And he took out four of the Bhenykhn. You’ve seen the reports. He dismembered them, almost dissected them. I should have had him hauled off that damned freighter the minute we got back.”
“NG, you were fucked,” Badger said.
“He’s right,” Leigh said. “You did everything you could. How could you have known?”
“I should have seen it.” He tugged the strap tight but one of the damned catches was stuck. They weren’t looking so he forced it, misjudged the energy needed to nudge it into place and almost broke it, almost burned through to his leg. He snatched his fingers away, cursing.
The Duck shouldn’t even have been able to leave the cruiser. He’d left word from the Man that the Alsatia was to be locked down. Clean up the mess on Erica, fast because every damned ship in range had picked up the distress calls, and leave with all hands on lockdown until he could figure out what to do with everyone. He had no idea how Elliott had managed to leave but then he had no idea how Elliott could have got access to these codes and the intel on how to contact them. No wonder the son of a bitch had been avoiding him.
“I need to go,” he said, standing up. He couldn’t leave such a dangerous loose end like this unresolved. The message stipulated that he had to go alone. Fine, he’d go and if Elliott needed neutralising, he’d deal with it. “Pull everything we have on Elliott and the freighter. Send the Alsatia a warning to change all codes. Tell them to bug out and stay dark until we get back in touch.”
From a human perspective, it wasn’t possible to get much deeper into unoccupied space. The freighter was drifting, no life signs on board. It was powered down, no weapons that he could detect, and no AI activity.
NG stepped into the airlock, holding a gun in his left hand loosely down by his thigh. It was cold in there, quiet, as if ship systems were at absolute minimum. It cycled and he walked out into a cargo bay.
A shadow moved up ahead and he snapped up the gun, tracking the figure that emerged in a doorway.
Elliott.
Freaky as hell. Total void, exactly as LC had described.
The guy spread his arms and smiled. “Nikolai.”
He could read nothing, no thoughts, no emotions, even his body language was tough to read. It was similar to what had happened to Hil but colder somehow.
NG didn’t move, didn’t let his aim waver.
“There’s no need for the weapon,” Elliott said. “I don’t intend to harm you. I need you.”
“Why?” He didn’t bother to keep the suspicion from his voice.
“Now that Luka has gone awol again, I need you to do something for me.”
“It was you that sent in the phony tab?” That shouldn’t have come as a surprise. “What did you send him to do?”
Elliott smiled again, a sly creasing of his thin mouth. “Let’s take this inside, shall we?”
NG still didn’t move. “If you need something, why didn’t you just ask the guild to help you when you were on board the Alsatia?”
“I don’t need the Thieves’ Guild,” Elliott said, as if he was talking to a child. “I need you, Nikolai. You know, the whole time Luka was here, struggling with the virus, I never suspected the telepathy. That is how you were communicating on Erica, wasn’t it?”
NG stared at him. So much for keeping it under wraps.
“It’s not a virus, you know,” Elliott said.
They knew it wasn’t a virus but no one had come up with a better name or theory.
“What else do you know about it?” NG said, guarded.
“I know it’s derived from the Bhenykhn. And I know you don’t have it. Now that is curious because you heal fast… except for the broken bones, I see. Luka’s collarbone healed fully within what? Three days? That was interesting to watch. Aren’t you tempted to try it? See what it can do along with whatever the hell it is that gives you your special abilities, Nikolai?”
“What do you want, Elliott?”
“I want you to do a job for me. You need to help me. Trust me when I say that because you can’t do what needs to be done alone, and I can’t do it without you. Tell me, why did you fight the Bhenykhn on Erica?”
Christ, that was a question and a half. “Because we were there,” he said dryly.
Elliott folded his arms and leaned against the doorway. “I don’t think so. You’ve been looking for them.”
“So have you,” NG countered, adding it up and taking a chance. He’d never believed it was a coincidence that the Duck turned up for sale at Sten’s World when Gallagher was looking for a ship.
Elliott smirked. “I want to be ready for when they come back. You see? We have the same objective.” He turned away. “Come up to the bridge.” His voice echoed as he walked away. “I want to show you something.”
He followed Elliott through the ship, a route that was familiar from LC’s shared memories. The smallest of details, a scuff on the wall, a rust patch on a handrail, every dink and dent in the bulkhead, made it feel li
ke he’d been here himself already.
“So…” Elliott said as they climbed stairs, “telepathy is a remarkable talent to have. What else can you do?”
It was tempting to throw a fireball up the stairwell.
NG didn’t reply. Even though he couldn’t sense a thing from him, he could almost feel the guy smirking up ahead.
“It was impressive to watch how you used Luka and Duncan on Erica,” Elliott said. “Very impressive. You’re not infected like the others so I’m guessing you were born with this ability. Was Luka? Or was that the virus? I’m guessing the virus by the way it was passed to Duncan. Do you know how it works?”
It was difficult to tell if Elliott knew more and was fishing to see how much they did, or whether it was a genuine question.
Elliott laughed when he didn’t answer. “I knew Luka was good but the telepathy explains how he was able to keep ahead of the bounty hunters for so long. It does give you the perfect counter to the Bhenykhn’s jamming technology. But there are only three of you. If you manage to replicate the virus, how are you planning to disseminate it? The human race isn’t ready to welcome a society of telepaths into its midst, Nikolai. And you’re running out of time.”
He knew that. He didn’t have time for this. “What do you want from us, Elliott? What did you send LC into Yarrimer for?” The tab had been detailed – gain access, break into a specific vault, open a specific safe, acquire the contents – but there’d been no description of what those contents might be.
“They have an artefact I need,” came the reply. “Yarrimer is not somewhere I can go. From what I know of their security and what I know your field operatives are capable of, I reckoned Luka was my best shot. Luka or Andreyev.” He stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. “I take it no one else knows that little secret of yours.”
Martinez had guessed as much. No one else knew except the Man. It was unsettling to think that Elliott knew that about him and Christ knows what else.
He couldn’t keep the irritation from his voice. “Elliott, the last thing we need right now is LC out there on his own again.”