Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  Keva stopped. “We all are.” She had nowhere to look. “I want to see you, I would like to rig up some way of interacting with you.”

  “I was trying to engineer something similar,” ILO said. “So, I stashed some materials.”

  “Where?” The ship wasn’t big, and Keva knew every square inch of it. At least she’d thought she had.

  A light flickered overhead. “Follow the lights.”

  There were lights hidden at the ceiling, the only thing Keva could see was the light rays themselves shooting along the surface. She’d never paid attention before. The lights worked. That’s what mattered.

  They flickered strategically a few feet in front of them, staying just ahead of them as they walked. As they passed, the lights resumed normal operation.

  ILO led them to the cargo hold where ARO’s shuttle sat. “What are we doing about him?” Keva asked.

  “That is something we need to talk about,” ILO said. “What I wanted to show you is this way.”

  Keva didn’t miss the fact ILO hadn’t wanted to discuss it in the same room as ARO. She had questions but decided to wait until they were in a more secure area, or at least where it was less likely for ARO to overhear.

  ILO led them to a kind of cubby. It was more like an indent in the wall. Keva had always thought it was an odd architectural feature. The metal wall was smooth. No door handles. No buttons to gain entry.

  A light appeared on the right-hand side wall, and then a panel of the wall recessed and slid away, revealing a brightly lit room. Tables littered the space, each covered with…stuff. The door panel slid shut behind him.

  The room was quite large, and the lack of space on the ship suddenly made sense. Keva had always thought there should be more cargo space but had thought perhaps there were more areas devoted to the engines and machines running the ship than she understood. So long as her ship worked, that was all that mattered to her.

  “How long have you had this?” Keva demanded. “What the hell is going on in here?

  “I’ve been on this ship for over a decade,” ILO said. A screen lit up on the far wall, and ILO’s face appeared. “I’ve been gathering what I could, hoping to make something that could better house me and allow me to walk.”

  “How?” Keva turned in a slow circle taking in all the junk. “You have no legs, ILO.”

  “But I do control the service bots.”

  Something rolled out and tapped her leg, letting out a mechanical squeal.

  Keva fought to keep her own squeal to herself. She’d been on this ship for three years with those service bots working away in the background just keeping things running. She’d turned complete control over to ILO without even realizing it, she was lucky this was all the AI had been up to. “How did you keep this from me?”

  “Very carefully.”

  Dothylian bit her bottom lip and smiled, taking in everything. “I think we can do something with this. I mean, it's at least a start.”

  Keva had to admit the woman had mastered the spacer speech patterns much better and a lot faster than she’d thought she would. “Okay. Well, then, I will leave you to it.”

  Dothylian frowned.

  “Look, I’m not your nursemaid. You have the freedom to do whatever helps get ILO into some kind of body. This might be exactly the kind of skill that will help you make it out here. I don’t know.” Keva took in a deep breath, scrunching her shoulders toward her ears. “Have fun?”

  “Thank you?” Dothylian seemed as uncomfortable with the newness of the situation as Keva did.

  “About Eddqin.” Keva had an idea she would probably regret later. “We need to give the ship a new name. I thought you might want to honor him in some way for sacrificing himself?”

  “I’ll…” Dothylian dropped her gaze to the floor. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good.” Keva couldn’t identify any of the stuff on the tables. “Okay. Now that we’re alone, what are we doing with ARO?”

  “I don’t trust him,” ILO said, her head bobbing on the screen so severely her hair billowed all around her.

  Dothylian’s eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed, the fire lit in her pale eyes. “He’s my brother.”

  Keva leaned against one of the tables where she could see Dothylian and ILO and crossed her arms over her chest. She wanted to watch this.

  “I don’t understand what that means.” ILO’s hair resettled around her shoulders. “We barely know anything about him.”

  “It means,” Dothylian said, advancing on the AI’s vidscreen, “that I do know him.”

  Dothylian was a lot more fun to watch when she wasn’t in the tightly constrictive society of Qar. She still had a long way to go to win Keva’s trust, but she made more headway than she realized with just this conversation.

  “Do you?” ILO tipped her head. “Then, perhaps you can tell me why he’s been trying to hack into my systems since he arrived.”

  “What?” Keva asked. It was one thing to help someone who needed it. It was something entirely different to let it onboard her ship so it could take over. “What is he doing?”

  “He’s trying to get information.” Dothylian turned so she could see both ILO and Keva, her hands balled into fists. “It’s what we taught him.”

  “What you programmed him to do.”

  Dothylian shook her head. “We taught him. We gave him the most basic of programs, and he decided what he would do with it. He’s not someone to be afraid of.”

  “Then, tell him to stop trying to hack in.”

  “He’s probably scared.” Dothylian turned to Keva. “Has anyone talked to him?”

  Keva closed her eyes and smiled. She’d been in the military since she was born and didn’t grow up dealing with emotions. Then, she joined the Syndicate and was alone for the better part of three years.

  Now, her ship was a little too full of people emoting at her. “I’ve been a little busy.”

  “You were able to get drunk.”

  Oh, that little… “I’m going to get you drunk one day and then you’ll understand what it takes to get me sideways.”

  Dothylian flinched as though she realized she’d overstepped her boundaries.

  Good grief. She couldn’t even handle a tiny flare of frustration?

  Keva needed to keep her temper in check. She’d figure it out. She just needed time.

  And until then, Keva would figure out how to keep Dothylian alive. They’d find some way to make this work.

  “Okay. Whatever. I’m sorry. I will tell him, but you’ve got to get him to stop trying to infiltrate ILO’s systems.”

  Dothylian nodded slowly. “And I’ll see what I can do about making them more mobile.”

  Them. Not just ILO. Keva had been the one to bring him along. When had she started taking in strays?

  “Well, in that case, I will get out of your space and will go have a conversation with our ride.” Keva pushed off the table. “You two play nice?”

  ILO quirked her lips and blinked slowly.

  Dothylian shrugged with a slight smile.

  This was a step in the right direction. Now, to check on Wilmur's worm and Hale.

  15

  The problem with jump speed was there was a lot of time to kill on a small ship waiting to arrive at a destination. Not that Keva could complain. Reality was, they were traveling through a large section of space. Having slip drive in the military had spoiled her. She admitted that. Slip drive would be damn useful now.

  But it gave her more time to do things she rarely made time for. Like building relationships.

  Hale met her at the hatchway between their ships, a grin on his lips. “Took you long enough to invite me back down here.”

  She glared at him and led him back toward the video conference room. “I need some help with the recirc-purifier. Dothylian is looking at it, but I have my doubts about what she can do.”

  “You and the princess could come up for a bite to eat, you know. I remember your form of cookin
g and food. Stekil can look at it.” He wrinkled his nose as they passed the galley and the broken liquid purifier.

  “The fewer people who know about her, the better.”

  “Are you saying you can’t trust my people?”

  “I don’t know your people, Hale.” Keva led the way down the hall to the video conference room.

  “You could change that.”

  She could, and if they were going to make a concerted effort to gather intel as a team, she’d do just that. “Let’s get to Kalamatra first.”

  “New ident for the princess?”

  “You’re gonna have to stop calling her that.”

  He shrugged and stepped into the room. “Drinking or no?”

  “Business, then drinks.”

  “I pride myself on being able to do both at the same time.”

  She decided to ignore him. “ILO, can you bring up the worm feed, please?”

  Hale perched on the arm of a chair. “Have you checked on the—this?” He gestured to the screen. “Before now?”

  She shook her head. “ILO’s been watching it, but no useful information has been transmitted until a few minutes ago.”

  “Why not?”

  “How long does it take you to get a message to whoever you’re working for?”

  He ran his tongue along his molars, jutting his chin forward as he gave her a dry expression.

  She gestured with her hand, acknowledging the fact that further explanation wasn’t required. “The mind worm works faster out here, but not by much. The worm boosts the signal with the power of the host’s body.” Keva didn’t know a lot about biology. She’d never cared, so she’d never followed through in those areas. The military had allowed her some small part of freedom.

  But she did remember the human body generated electricity, and the worm worked off that. Somehow.

  The vidscreen came to life and Wilmur’s point of view flickered into sight. He was in a small Holoroom.

  Hale raised an eyebrow at Keva. “We are going to need drinks.”

  Keva nodded in complete agreement and retrieved their glasses. She brought over a cheaper bottle of lighter alcohol spacers called Forlay. She was sure there was a reason behind it, but she never asked and never cared.

  It had a light berry taste followed by a buttery aftertaste. It wasn’t horrible. It was light, though, which was the reason she didn’t drink it most times. She typically chose the harder stuff because she needed it to deal with the boringness of freedom.

  Oh, yes. Being in the Black, having all this freedom, meant a hell of a lot of time to pass with nothing to do.

  Dothylian might enjoy being out here, especially if she could make any headway with her project. She could devote all this time in the traffic lanes to that project without being interrupted. Keva should get a hobby that didn’t include alcohol or fighting. Yeah. But she couldn’t think of what she’d want to do.

  A woman flickered into view and raised her nose minutely. “Wilmur.”

  “Angelique,” he said equally as crisply.

  “I trust your house is in order.”

  “It is.”

  Her lips flattened as she folded her hands over her chest. Her head shifted, and light from somewhere nearby reflected the pink of her dress onto her cheeks. “I doubt that. I heard your wife-to-be ran off with someone of interest to me.”

  Wilmur turned toward Angelique Poe so her nose swelled in the center of the fishbowl of his vision. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. Apparently, Dothylian Solvei became friends with a Kadira Saqqaf.”

  “So, who is he talking to?” Hale asked, propping one leg over the armchair he had draped himself into.

  “High Councilwoman Poe.”

  “And who is she?”

  Keva looked at Hale. “The woman who killed Kadira Saqqaf the first time.”

  He narrowed one eye at her and then nodded.

  He’d handled that little nugget nicely, which brookered a growing sense of real confidence in the idea that this arrangement could work. “Apparently, she killed the previous Kadira because her father told her too much about Batch D-65.”

  “And no one told you about that the first time you went down?”

  She shook her head. “All they knew was the identity was newly available and would fit well enough for me, with my physical attributes, to take her place.”

  “You couldn’t just say, ‘someone who looked like you’?”

  Frankly, her mind was on other things. Like what High Councilwoman Poe and Wilmur could have to talk about in what should be an unhackable holoroom.

  Keva’s stomach was in a knot. Angelique Poe knew Keva’s secret. If she told Wilmur, that identity was blown, and she would never be able to use it again. Or, at the very least, it would be unwise to do so.

  “Do you intend on retrieving your bride-to-be?”

  “I do not, madam,” he said, his voice a low rumble.

  Well, that was a relief.

  “I would advise you to reconsider,” Angelique said. “You see, Kadira Saqqaf was murdered four years ago. Imagine my surprise when she showed up a year later and oddly positioned herself to marry into the Zervek family.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, madam?”

  If Keva were Wilmur, she’d be shitting her pants about now. The worm only allowed her to see the interaction from his point of view so she couldn’t gauge how he was reacting, which was frustrating.

  “I believe Kadira Saqqaf is a plant to learn about Batch D-65.”

  Wilmur paused, but gauging from the pinch of Angelique’s face, the two were exchanging a look. “She did not offer to marry into the Zervek line again.”

  “No. However, she instantly befriended your intended, and then they took off shortly after her arrival. Did you two exchange vows?”

  “No. We did not.”

  “Then, any information she obtained, she is free to share as she so pleases?”

  Keva glanced at Hale.

  His attention was squarely on the video screen, his drink forgotten in his hand.

  “She knows nothing,” Wilmur said.

  Angelique rubbed her pointer finger along her bottom lip. Done, she rubbed her fingers together, her expression prim. “Let us hope not, but I must wonder why the young spy would kidnap someone who knew nothing.”

  Keva hadn’t thought of that angle when she decided to take Dothylian away with her.

  “She knows nothing,” Wilmur said carefully.

  “Let us hope for your sake you are correct.” She waved her hand as if dismissing an annoying thought. “Now, tell me. How are the preparations?”

  “I will explain all of this in person at the meeting tomorrow.”

  “I do not want surprises when others are around, Wilmur. I believe you remember how I deal with those.”

  He didn’t say anything for a beat. “Preparations are ahead of schedule.”

  “Quaint.”

  “Indeed. We will proceed with our first test run in a week.”

  “That gives you precious little time to get there.”

  Wilmur turned so the side of her head filled the center of the fishbowl again. “I have one of the sleekest vessels in the Black, equipped with the latest slip drive. Be assured; I have time.”

  Slip drive? So, it was confirmed. The Elite had broken the agreement they had with the military and were implementing slip drive technology on their ships. She’d wondered if they would. It made sense. But to hear it confirmed…

  Did nothing but escalate the schedule. They had to push harder to get to wherever this testing place was.

  “What do you expect the level of success to be?”

  “Success is such a relative term.”

  “Then, let me make it blunter for you. How many people do you think will survive the process?”

  Wilmur looked away. “Less than three percent.”

  Less than three percent of the people they used the weapon on would survive? Keva’s body clenched, and she moved
as if to stand, but there was nowhere to go, no one to fight. This information did nothing but make things worse.

  “That’s rather unfortunate,” Poe’s lips turned slightly downward, creating the tiniest of lines.

  “We can make more.”

  “Humans?” She sniffed. “Yes, but I would rather not need to. Those humans are a resource we need. We need them to mine and to harvest and to work the stations. What will we do when they are no longer there?”

  “We do not need them for the stations. We possess slip drive. The universe belongs to us.”

  Make more? Not needed? These were people they were talking about? Keva couldn’t stop the rage pounding in her ears as she listened to these two aristocrats talk about human lives as if they were nothing more than Hexium ore. She slammed her drink down on the table but Hale didn’t even move. His own reaction of horror painting his features with fury.

  “And what will we do without Kalamatra? That station holds a great deal of power.”

  “Power which belongs primarily to the Families. Imagine if they no longer had the personnel available to run their stations, to maintain their push points, to keep the traffic lanes aligned and secure. The Families would fall.”

  Angelique raised her eyebrows in agreement. “And the three percent who survive? How much of them is still intact?”

  “The DNA modifications are within the specified parameters issued to me. They are docile. Although, many come through the process changed in unanticipated ways depending no their previous modifications and existing levels of toxicity in their system.”

  “I only care that they can be controlled without needing a chip.”

  “A chip a growing number of people can override.”

  Were they talking about the Jays? Jays were supposed to be the only ones who could override the chip, the errant J-gene mutation from their genetic engineering rendering them capable of disregarding the chip’s directives. Was Batch D-65 created because of people like her?

  “I expect to see results, Wilmur, and I want better than three measly percent. That’s an unacceptable rate of success for the astronomical amount of tarn we have invested in this project.”

  “We are overriding the DNA of fully grown individuals, not embryos, Angelique. It is reasonable to expect casualties.”