by C. G. Hatton
It was the first time the old man had acknowledged that he knew who he was speaking to, and it was a neat counter to the stunt of dropping in the names he’d picked out of Maeve’s mind.
NG smiled.
“Even escorted as you are.”
There was no threat in the man’s mind, rather he was bemused and he had already made his decision. He didn’t have much choice in the matter, with or without any influence NG could impose.
“The information isn’t here,” NG said. “You need to come with us.”
“You killed A’Darbi,” Itomara said, folding his hands in his lap and raising his chin. “You killed Rodan. Maeve is dead because of you. What guarantee do I have, NG, that you do not intend the same fate for me?”
“I’ll stay here.” He felt Leigh tense when he said that. “You go with my people to our ship in orbit. They give you what we’ve got, they bring you back. It won’t take long. Then we can decide together what we’re going to do about it.”
The Senson engaged. “You’re insane,” Leigh sent. “We’re not leaving you here.”
He ignored her and said to the old man, “Or we can both walk away.”
Itomara breathed slowly, inhaling the icy cold air and exhaling as if he was meditating. “The infamous Thieves’ Guild comes to me offering information? I have not got to be this old, NG, without being able to make good judgement. You take much risk to come here. What you have must be worth that risk.” He spread his hands. “Show me what you have.”
NG stamped his feet, pacing. He’d sat there for long enough, sipping at the hot tea, expecting them back any minute.
It was taking too long. He’d had regular updates up until ten minutes ago then nothing. There was no reason why they’d go silent.
He hugged his arms around his ribs, tucking his hands under each arm, trying to get some warmth into his fingers without igniting the worst of the pain again.
Itomara’s men were calm.
He couldn’t sense anyone else. No other life signs as far as he could reach.
It should have been straightforward.
He had no idea if the damned Senson was even working still. He tried an open channel. Nothing. He looked around, picking up that a couple of the guys around him were starting to think they hadn’t had any comms coming in for a while, realising they couldn’t get their Sensons to engage.
It dawned on them at the same time. They were getting jammed.
Itomara’s guys moved, readying weapons, shifting position around him.
He didn’t have any weapons on him, not so much as a knife, and it was looking like that could have been a mistake. He turned, arms spread, questioning, to the guy who seemed most senior.
The guy held up a hand, talking fast to his men. They were in the dark too. And they’d just lost contact with their charge.
“Not us,” NG said.
The guy didn’t care. He’d lost Itomara and he had a hostage, was as far as he was thinking. He gestured, combat signals. NG tensed and took a step back as they moved to surround him. Dammit, he was trying to ally with these people, he didn’t want to kill them.
“Wait.”
They had guns raised. Both their ships had gun turrets aimed at him.
“This isn’t us,” he said again, slipping into a defensive stance as they came at him.
The guy in charge didn’t care, yelling, “Get on the ground,” more shouting from the others that was drowned out by a roar from above.
Before they could get to him, a missile screamed down and hit one of their ships, the shockwave sending them all flying backwards, snow and debris billowing up.
NG tumbled, breath driven from his lungs, watching from a crazy angle as Itomara’s other pilot was smart enough and fast enough to take off. There was another missile heading straight for it, locked onto it. He reacted without thinking, throwing a blast of energy that deflected it away by inches. It plunged into the ground and detonated, the second shockwave rolling over them.
Gunfire started to kick up the snow, gunships and drop ships descending on them. He couldn’t pick up anything from the incoming troops but combat readiness, no thoughts of who they were working for.
Someone grabbed his arm and yanked hard, other bodies crowding in to get him to his feet and pulling him into a run.
“They’re not mine,” he yelled, recognising the guy closest as the one in charge.
“Then we’re in trouble,” the guy yelled back.
Ground troops were piling out of the drop ships. Itomara’s people started firing back. The Aries ship was thundering round to meet them, trying to land to pick them up and get off suppressive fire at the same time. Bodies were falling, blood spattering the snow, pops of void hitting his chest as distant thuds deep within.
He let them drag him into their ship, feeling it lurch and lift as they stumbled on board. He was thrown towards a seat as it took off, banking hard, engines screaming, guns still blasting. It was rocked violently, sparks and flames exploding inwards. NG shielded his eyes, trying to hold on with hands that felt like they were on fire. Something hit them. The ship tipped, throwing them forwards. He lost his grip, hit the bulkhead and fell. He curled up, senses spinning as he tumbled. Another impact and the ship slewed sideways. Pain exploded in the back of his head, sparks flashing behind his eyes. The heat and noise of another explosion seemed distant and muted. The mass of the ship dropped from beneath him and it felt like he was falling forever.
He was bleeding. Really badly from his side. A pressure in his head was making it feel like it was going to explode. He managed to get a hand to his abdomen, felt cold metal sticking out of him. He couldn’t grip hard enough to shift it so he cheated, made it move and pulled, letting the shard of wreckage drop from numb fingers. He calmed his breathing, gathered what energy he could and healed. Nothing new was broken, old wounds jarred, but nothing new that he couldn’t fix.
It was eerily quiet. He felt foggy-headed, squinted open one eye and wished he hadn’t. Far off voices got loud fast. A chunk of fuselage was pulled off him and a boot nudged into him.
“Got him,” someone said. “He’s alive. Let the boss know.”
They must have had orders to keep him alive because they pulled up his blood-soaked shirt and slapped a trauma patch under it, without looking too hard. There was a cold sting against his neck, a dampening patch stuck over the Senson then hands grabbed him and pulled.
He didn’t resist. He didn’t know who they were and he wasn’t in much of a state to fight them. They dragged him out into the cold and over to another ship, dropped him in a seat and strapped him in. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to get hold of him. And considering that he was supposed to be dead and that no one was supposed to know about this meeting, he had no idea who that could be. He’d spent his whole life working in the shadows, invisible, anonymous even to his own people. That had changed in the blink of an eye. Someone had outplayed them.
He closed his eyes and leached energy from every person he could sense, draining them all to the point of fatigue.
He felt the ship lift, accelerate and fly low, so they were staying on Winter, not going for orbit. It was either Zang or Ostraban. Had to be. And that was fine with him.
It was neither of them. NG almost laughed when he was walked off the ship and into a courtyard. He had a guard on each side, gripping his arms in restraint holds that were excessive considering he hadn’t given them any resistance, and another holding a gun at his back. Green-grey clouds filled the sky. Snow-laden stone battlements loomed on all sides. The big man standing there was all too familiar.
“Ballack,” NG said.
The head of the Merchants’ Guild gave a stern little disappointed-at-you shake of the head that didn’t match the satisfaction the man was stirring up inside. “NG,” he said solemnly.
There were guys in suits either side of him. One of them stepped forward and flashed a badge in a wallet. “Nikolai Andreyev, you are under arrest for murder.”
“You should have disbanded the Merchants’ Guild when you had the chance,” one of them said bitterly. “In all that we have failed this galaxy, that would have vindicated us the most.”
There were murmurs of agreement.
Of all the faults of these people, greed was not one of them.
“They play the pretence of neutrals,” another said, “yet they stand to benefit the most from the spoils, whichever side prevails.”
The Man looked up. “Ballack is a fool. No one will benefit, whoever they are, should the Bhenykhn prevail.”
She banged on the table. “This talk of the Merchants and what should have been is irrelevant. The question now is do we run? Again? Do we gather our refugees and flee? Again? Or do we make a stand? Here? With these humans we find so alien to us? These humans who fight so fiercely when threatened?”
•
They sat him in some kind of briefing room, a grand hall, stone walls, big wooden table, elaborate stone fireplace, left wrist manacled to the arm of the chair, guards armed with rifles stationed up on a balcony that ran all the way around the room.
They’d read him his rights and reeled off the list of charges: the murder of Taynara A’Darbi, accessory to the murder of Olivia Ostraban, harbouring of a fugitive and multiple counts of espionage. Plus whatever the hell else they wanted to throw at him. They’d added in the threat of extradition to Earth for the murder of one of the Emperor’s most valued Advisors, then left him sitting there for three hours.
The dampening patch was still over his Senson. It had taken very little effort to break the seal without moving but there was no reply from anyone. He’d initiated his emergency beacon. The guild would find him eventually.
There was no fire in the hearth, no heating at all, and they’d taken his coat so he was freezing cold, but he was pulling energy from anyone who came near so on the whole he was feeling quite perky. They’d sent in a medic to check him over. The guy had given him a cursory examination, peeled off the trauma patch and prodded, reporting nothing life-threatening and sending a tight wire communication to someone that, yep, lots of blood, no wounds.
Ballack was the next to come talk to him. Zang Tsu Po was watching by remote, sitting comfy somewhere up inside his fortress. They were all confident that even though he could probably bust out of the restraints, there were enough guns pointed at him that he wouldn’t get two inches from the chair if he tried anything.
Ballack sat his massive bulk in a chair on the opposite side of the table, that same self-serving condescending look on his face. He puffed out a sigh as if he was trying to think of something encouraging to say but couldn’t.
NG waited patiently. They had absolutely nothing on him regarding A’Darbi. Not a scrap and they knew it. He was reading Ballack’s innermost thoughts as they sat there. Everything. They’d received an anonymous tip off about the meeting with Itomara. From someone who knew his real name so that narrowed it down. They didn’t know about Rodan or Maeve yet. Ballack did know about the Bhenykhn that UM had captive. NG dug deeper and reckoned that this slick merchant man hadn’t known about it the last time they’d met, on Redgate. That bad a miss he would have been pissed about. They also knew that something had happened out at Erica but they didn’t know what.
“I’m afraid I can’t protect you from this,” Ballack said eventually, almost convincing, as if they were best buddies, guild leader to guild leader.
“From what?” NG said. “You have no evidence.”
“Coming to Winter was a mistake, NG. You have a lot of enemies here.”
“We have enemies everywhere,” he said, trying not to laugh. “No one has ever set us up quite as much as this before. Not the way your new chums have done. Angmar Rodan is dead, by the way. You want to charge me for that too? Have fun trying to fabricate the evidence on that.”
Ballack didn’t like that, frowning and sending an order to his people to check it out. Asap. He leaned forward. “Let’s cut the crap. You should have stayed dead, NG. You want to know what the Assassins have been offering me for your head?”
He kept quiet. He didn’t want to talk about why he’d gone after the Assassins, not with this buffoon.
“Bad enough that your boys stole from the Earth military,” Ballack said, scathing, confident in his position here, “but killing the daughter of the coalition chairman? Time’s up, NG. Anderton deserves to hang for what he’s done.”
He could read clearly enough that Ballack didn’t care one hoot whether Olivia Ostraban was alive or dead. This was being recorded and it was all an act for the benefit of Ennio Ostraban.
Ballack’s tone dripped contempt. “Give us Anderton and we could be in a position to negotiate.”
NG shook his head, incredulous. “Negotiate what? You’re not going to let me go.” He rattled the chain around his wrist. “These charges are bullshit and you know it. What are these guys offering you, Ballack? A place in their New Order?”
There was a moment of hesitation, a slight recalculation, then the bastard smiled outright.
NG read it in his mind before he said it out loud. Oh shit. He glanced up and round, counting the number of guns, working out how fast they could pull their triggers, how fast he could break free and move, how many of them he could take down.
“NG,” Ballack said, “I am the New Order,” and sent the command.
NG moved, faster than they were expecting, breaking out of the cuffs with a spray of sparks. They opened fire.
He could go for the door or he could go for Ballack.
He ducked.
FTH rounds punched into the chair, the table, a couple catching him as he dived out of the way.
Ballack was standing, shouting.
NG scrambled up, vaulted across the table and tackled him to the floor, rolling and twisting until he had the guy in a lock.
He needed more time. He had a twenty stone deadweight on top of him pressing against broken ribs, FTH sparking in his spine, thirty armed guys descending on them and he flashed Ballack to the middle of the battlefield on Erica, face to face with the massive Bhenykhn commander, orange eyes glaring, teeth bared. It thrust the knife into his heart. He froze the scene and flashed to a hill top overlooking the wreckage-strewn moorland.
Ballack scrambled backwards in the mud. “What in hell is this?”
NG sat, rain streaming down his face, staring out over the battle. It was whatever he wanted to make it this time, in this unreality. He could have stopped the rain but that wouldn’t have felt right.
“Your pet alien,” he said, numb. He hadn’t exactly planned to show it like this to anyone again. It had been bad enough flashing back here so briefly to show Jameson. “This is the rest of its advance unit. We fought them on Erica.”
Ballack stepped forward, peering through the downpour. “This isn’t real.”
“This isn’t,” NG admitted. “What happened was. This is in my memory. You want to feel the knife wound again?”
Ballack gave a kind of strangled half laugh. The only thing stopping him from thinking it was a nightmare, some kind of hallucination, was the detail of the alien because it matched exactly what they had in captivity on Poule. He wanted to see more.
NG obliged. He flashed from fight to fight, the weighted chain tossed tumbling through the air, poisoned talons raking into his neck, the stench of their breath, crossbow bolts flying, the roar of the pods landing, thudding into the ground to surround them.
He felt Ballack recoil, nausea building, and let it drop, bringing them back to the hillside.
Ballack looked down on him in disgust. “Erica? Where we lost the Tangiers and the Expedience?”
‘We’. He really did stand firmly with one foot in each camp.
“Yep.”
“You were there? These – things – were there?” They’d thought they had the only one. First contact and a neat prisoner, one up on the rest of the galaxy, a head start in researching its technology. His grasp on the si
tuation was coming crashing down around his ears and a part of him still wanted to think that NG was pulling some kind of stunt to fool him.
“It’s real, Ballack. You want to see the scars?”
The big man was still not convinced. “How are you doing this?” he asked, suspicious.
“I can make you think, and feel, and see, anything I want,” NG said, petulant, thinking as he said it that maybe he shouldn’t have done but the time for hiding and secrets was past. He had no way out of that room, no plan B, no rescue team on its way and nothing to offer up in exchange. He wasn’t about to give up LC. And even if he did, he wasn’t stupid enough to think they’d let him go.
“What do you want?”
NG laughed. “I want you to let me go. Honestly, Ballack, you weren’t on my list of people to let in on this.”
He got to his feet, breathing in the chill chemical rain of the distant colony, water flooding down the back of his neck. He gestured towards the battle raging down there, the flashes of explosions, the screams and rattle of gunfire. “This is a small advance reconnaissance unit. They’ve been gathering intel on the whole galaxy.” He let that sink in. “They have more recon units here already and they’re coming back with a full attack fleet. That’s what’s heading for your New Order, Ballack.”
He let it go, braced himself and pushed the massive bulk of the man off him, curling up as FTH rounds impacted, too many to brush off, blows punching into his head and darkness descending fast.
The tingling sparks of the FTH were still lingering when he started to come round so he hadn’t been out long. He blinked lazily, focusing on the same fireplace. Same chair. Ankles restrained this time as well as both wrists, tape around his chest securing him to the chair and a button in his neck.
There were more bodies down in the room with him, more stationed on the balcony. They’d misjudged him and they weren’t going to make the same mistake again.
Someone came close and a sting of perfume hit his senses at the same time as a sharp slap from an icy cold hand hit his cheek. There wasn’t much power in it but the hate behind it threatened to send him reeling.