by Kal Spriggs
I stared at her in shock, trying to fight the raw emotions I felt surging through me at those words. She was leaving. The Admiral can't leave, we need her here, I need her here...
“In my absence, there are plenty of capable officers who can defend our homeworld, Jiden,” the Admiral told me. She stared at me for a long moment, “and though you haven't graduated yet, I count you among that number.”
I straightened in my chair, feeling as if my heart was going to explode out of my chest. All my confusion, all my fears were banished by her words. She trusted me to help defend Century in her absence. She really trusts me.
Somehow, that thought made everything seem better.
***
The message popped into my implant just after dinner. It was a full audio-visual message, but it didn't have any address tags or anything to signal where it had come from. Somehow, it had made it through all the filters that were supposed to stop that kind of thing. I was about to delete it when I saw the title of the message file: doppelganger.
That intrigued me enough that I opened it.
“Hello, Jiden,” I heard my own voice and saw... me. At least, she looked like me, if I'd died my hair black and wore a lot of black clothing and makeup. I realized who she was a moment before she went on, “It's me, your... sister, I suppose you might say. Your twin. The smart, funny one, not the big, clumsy dork in the planetary network.”
I gritted my teeth at her snarky comment. This was my digital clone, a copy of me made during the gestalt process for my quicksilver implant. A copy of me had been worked into the software of the implant in order to allow it to interface better with my brain. Doctor Aisling had pulled that copy out, though, and used it for a variety of things, apparently including running Charterer Beckman's secret network that she'd used to give orders to the corrupt Enforcers.
I'd found her when I'd thrown a wrench into the works. Only she had decided that doing the right thing for the right reasons wasn't quite good enough and she really didn't want to be erased as dangerous software, so she'd ripped up the secret network and then disappeared.
Or so I'd thought.
“At this point, enough time has passed that the little algorithm I left in the planetary network has decided to contact you. I was betting that it would be about a week before you went back to school, but I didn't have anyone to bet with besides myself. So I'll just assume I'm right.”
I gritted my teeth harder as I realized she was pretty much dead on.
“Anyway,” she went on, “as you might guess from the recording, I've left Century. Surprise!” She gave a naughty, girlish giggle. “I found a ship with sufficient capacity and hitched a ride in their computer network. They're headed some place I should be able to have a little fun. Way more processing capacity than here, I'll bet.” Her expression turned solemn, “Anyway, if you're getting this, It means you held up your end of the bargain, you didn't tell anyone about me, so they didn't go combing through the network for me. I appreciate that. Which is why I'm giving you this warning: don't trust anyone. Charterer Beckman was just the front edge of the sandstorm. There are reasons that people are maneuvering against Century. We're at a crossroads, Jiden. You may think we're on the edge of civilization, but we're right at the center of something important.”
Her serious expression evaporated. “Well, I'm off to enjoy all kinds of adventures. Maybe I'll send you a message now and again. We could even play a game. You try to guess where I'm at... and I laugh at you from my digital playgrounds. We'll see who had the nicer life, shall we?”
The message ended. I sat there, feeling a bit worried about what she'd said. She was me and her warning had been sincere, but it had also been so vague as to be nearly useless. What was Century at the center of? We were almost a hundred light-years away from Guard Space. We had little in the way of natural resources. Our asteroid belt was minimal, the other planets in the system were unremarkable.
She's probably just messing with me. I didn't know where she got it from, but my digital copy could be a real bitch.
I was half-tempted to share the message with the Admiral, but I had given my promise to her that I'd keep her a secret. The many investigations into Charterer Beckman's various crimes hadn't turned up any evidence of my digital clone, my evil twin. I wasn't going to break my promise to her, not when she'd kept hers to me.
Besides, who knew, maybe I'd need her help some day.
***
Chapter 2: I Meet A Visitor From My Past
A call from the Admiral woke me from muddled dreams where I chased my brother through space, both of us piloting Alexandria-class ships. “Hello?” I muttered, not sure if this was just part of the same dream.
“I need you to come down to Militia Headquarters,” The Admiral told me.
I checked the time on my implant, it was just after two in the morning. “Now?” I asked.
“James will drive you, I just messaged him,” she told me. “See you soon.”
She disconnected without waiting for my response. My brain felt sluggish and I felt a bit light-headed as I swung my feet out of bed. The cool tiles of the floor beneath my toes felt jarring, convincing me that at least this wasn’t part of my strange dreams.
I went to the wardrobe and pulled out my uniform. I’d been wearing my militia khakis a lot. In fact, other than some Academy sweats that I wore around the house, I couldn’t really think of the last time I’d worn civilian clothes anywhere. Most of the trial stuff that I’d been called in for as a witness, I’d had to report as part of my duties as a Cadet, which had meant in uniform. The ever-present media drones, searching for stories and images, had prevented me from leaving the house for just about anything else. My friends had been here at my grandmother’s house for the simulations and testing, so I’d had no real reason to travel to visit them.
I pulled on my uniform in the dim room, so familiar with putting it on that I didn’t need light, I could correct it by feel. I reached over to the nightstand and took the holstered pistol, strapping it on with equal familiarity, though that was a more recent thing.
My grandmother had given me the pistol. It was a Tylar Gromman eleven-millimeter pistol, a slim, military grade weapon that used the standard eleven millimeter rounds that the militia used in side-arms. It was one of three pistol types authorized for daily carry. She’d given it to me as a late birthday present. I could have requested one from the Academy, but with many of the uncertainties going on, I hadn’t been sure I’d actually have that request approved… and after what had happened to my family and all the corruption that I had helped to expose within my homeworld’s government and the Enforcers, I wanted to be armed.
I opened the door, finding James waiting outside. “Car is outside, miss.” The older man gave me a gentle smile. I didn’t miss that he, too, wore a pistol.
“Did the Admiral happen to mention what this was about?” I asked as I fell into step with him. I spoke quietly as we walked through the quiet old house. My friends were still asleep in the guest rooms that we stepped past. We’d been running the simulations until almost midnight, and then we’d all went to work on our summer assignments back in our individual rooms.
“She didn’t, miss,” James shook his head. “Rarely seems like it’s good news to get us out of bed, though.” There was just an edge of sadness in his tone. Sadness and loss, he was close to my mother as well. It had been a bad couple of years for the Armstrong family. My parents had been killed, my brother, who we’d thought dead, had been kidnapped. My cousins, Mel and Rawn Armstrong, had been arrested, sentenced to labor at a penal colony, and had apparently disappeared en route.
James and his wife Stacey were practically family. He’d served under the Admiral for decades in the Militia, before being medically retired, though I didn’t know the details of how he’d been injured. His son served as a part-time reservist in the Militia and also managed some of the maintenance around the Admiral’s house.
“Maybe this is different,” I answ
ered, hoping I was right. But I could admit to myself, that I didn’t have much hope of that. How could I? I’d managed to survive the past year and I’d managed to drag down most of the people trying to kill me, but that was about the best that I could say about it. I’m alive, my friends are alive, the Admiral is alive, and Century is free. It had become a mantra that I told myself, over and over again. Most of the time it was enough, but right now, in the early morning on too little sleep, it didn’t feel like enough.
James didn’t respond. We walked in silence, down the stairs, though the large foyer, and out front where the car awaited. He opened the door for me and I climbed in.
A moment later, we pulled out. I sat back in the comfortable seat, my eyes closed. I couldn’t sleep, though. My brain was a abuzz trying to connect pieces, to figure out what this was about. I tapped into my implant, diving into the planetary network, looking for clues, but there was too much information and my brain felt too tired, too sluggish to make sense of it all. There were multiple stories about the sentencing of more of Charterer Beckman’s fellow conspirators. Many of them were getting off fairly lightly, in my opinion, for a group that had planned murders, riots, assassinations, and to betray our planet. Granted, most of them had claimed ignorance of that last part. Other than Lieutenant General Corgan and now Charterer Beckman, most of their underlings had received lengthy sentences to the work camps. They’d be making gravel for various infrastructure projects for twenty, thirty, and even forty years.
Some of the media outlets were favorable of those sentences. Some others pointed out that many of these people came from relatively sheltered backgrounds and that the injury and death rates in the work camps were higher for those who didn’t know how to work machinery or do hard labor.
I had no sympathy for them, though. Even less for the articles that pointed out how some of those sentenced had families who would suffer with the absence of their loved-ones.
I’d had a family too, after all. And these people had been a part of the conspiracy that killed them. Lieutenant General Corgan had been sentenced to death and executed shortly after their treason had been revealed. Charter Beckman's lengthy appeal processes had dragged things out for a couple of months, but she'd gone to a firing squad as well. I had gone to observe their executions. I hadn't really wanted to, but it had given me some bit of closure about what had happened to my family.
We pulled up to the Militia Headquarters building and, in a few moments, I was signing in at the front entry, even as an enlisted woman came forward to be my escort. The Headquarters building, here in Duncan City, was surprisingly small. I’d been here twice to give testimony over the past few months. The squat, ugly building was built from fused sand and had a gritty, not-quite square look from the outside. It lacked any external windows and, on the inside,, it was partitioned with semi-permanent walls that corralled off sections of the building and rows of cubicles. I knew it had some kind of underground footprint, but I’d only been there once on one of my visits.
Even at this time of night, the place was relatively busy. I could see people at work, making reports on Militia readiness and evaluations on training. The upper floors were for the day-to-day operations. The Admiral had told me that most of the important work and everything attached to strategy and long-term planning happened on the lower levels.
My escort led me directly to the stairs leading down. We went through a security checkpoint at the bottom. My escort led me to another stairwell, through another checkpoint, and then down a dimly lit hallway and through a third security checkpoint where I had to sign some kind of non-disclosure statement, before they led me down another hallway and into a dark room.
The Admiral stood there, looking through what looked like a window, into a well-lit room. She nodded at me and gestured for me to come over. “Good morning, Jiden, sorry to wake you.”
I muttered something semi-appropriate as I looked through the window, wondering what was going on.
The room on the other side of the window looked like a medical exam room. Two people in scrubs were examining a young man. He looked to be of average height, but his skin hung off him a bit, as if he’d lost a lot of weight. There were bags under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept much, and worry lines worn into his face. He was pasty white, the kind of white that only comes from being inside, away from sunlight or that spacers sometimes get, when their environmental systems don’t produce a balanced light to help with vitamin d production.
I frowned, there was something familiar about him, something I couldn’t put my finger on. “What’s this about?” I asked, finally.
“A ship arrived a few hours ago, it’s the last vessel from Drakkus coming back here to Century. They’ve officially embargoed us and banned any of our civilian and military ships from their space,” the Admiral said. “He was aboard.”
“I don’t get it,” I admitted, my brain feeling like sludge. “Is he from here? I mean, he looks a little pale.”
“That’s because, according to him, he’s been a prisoner and slave for most of the past three years or so, plus living on the streets in Drakkus’s Old Town,” the Admiral told me. “That length of time will change most people, of course.”
“Three years?” I asked in shock. I looked back at the kid. He had a weak chin and a squint, as if he were missing glasses, he didn’t look particularly formidable. I guessed he might be my age, so really, I didn’t have much room to call him a ‘kid.’ Still, three years ago I’d already completed Academy Prep School and I’d ended up fighting for my life against smugglers who had kidnapped me and another intern at Champion Enterprises—
My thoughts froze as I realized why his face looked familiar. “Wait… Ted? Ted Meeks?”
“The same,” The Admiral gave me a nod. “He’s passed a gamut of DNA, fingerprinting, and other identifying exams. As far as we can tell, this is him.”
“How?” I asked in shock. “I mean, the investigation… the Enforcers, they all said that the smugglers must have killed him.” I felt shock and a little bit of horror. Here I’d been living my life, and Ted… God, the kid’s been captive to the same jerks who tried to kill me…
“The lead investigator of the smuggling operation was convicted a couple weeks ago, on unrelated charges, I might add, for his help in covering up some of the corruption under Lieutenant General Corgan. I’m told they’re reopening the investigation with new people after what Ted has had to say, just in the past couple of hours.”
“God,” I shook my head. “Where has he been, who had him?”
“A pirate, one whose name has come up before,” The Admirals voice went hard and flat. “Captain Wessek, a pirate who operated out of Drakkus.”
My heart seemed to stop. “Wessek?” I spun and stared at her. “The same Wessek who killed my parents and kidnapped my brother?”
The Admiral didn’t look at me, though I saw her lips harden in a flat line, “The same, yes, girl. It seems he was the one running those smugglers. They were his people, anyway. Which is why the former investigation has been reopened, because it seems one of Issac Champion’s goons mentioned the name and offered to make some kind of plea bargain… before he died in Enforcer custody.”
“Hock,” I swore. Then, though, I cocked my head, “Wait, you told me that Wessek had a prisoner… that my brother…”
“Yes,” my grandmother looked over at me, her blue eyes softening. “Ted and your brother were kept together as prisoners. I gather they escaped. We don’t have the full details yet, but from what Ted mentioned so far… well, I gather Wessek isn’t around anymore.”
My eyes went wide. “And Will, is he…” I trailed off as I realized the answer to that question. If my brother was here, the Admiral would have brought me to him, first.
“He remained behind,” The Admiral sighed. “Which in itself, isn’t a problem. We have agents in the Old Town, what they call the Barrens, on Drakkus, even a few in what they call The Heart. But your brother’s been remarkably difficu
lt for our people to find.”
“Wait, we have spies on Drakkus?” I stared at her in shock.
“Of course we do,” The Admiral told me. “Fewer, now that they closed down our consulate. But we’d be insane not to, just as we’d be insane not to have agents in the Dalite Hegemony or monitoring Guard Fleet. We need to see threats coming and the best way to do that is to have people in place to report on the things they see and hear.”
I rubbed at my eyes, feeling tired. “So, our agents are looking for Will, so when they find him, they can put him on a ship and…” I trailed off. “You said this was the last ship.”
“Exactly. Any traffic, any messengers from Drakkus are going to have to come through a neutral system first. Which brings all kinds of issues,” The Admiral looked back at Ted. “Young Ted Meeks there might be the last messenger we’ll get. It will be months before messages to our agents can get back to them, months more until their messages can get back to us.”
I closed my eyes as I considered it. My brother was alive, at least. And if he’d taken down Wessek, then it meant he had to have some kind of allies and resources. It’s something. I took a shuddering breath and gave a nod, “At least he’s alive.”
“Yeah,” The Admiral’s expression softened a little. “At least he’s alive.”
I looked back at Ted. “How is he?”
“Malnourished,” The Admiral answered. “His diet has been, well, awful. He’s got residues of a variety of drugs in his system, the Old Town’s pharmaceutical factories don’t worry too much about their workers or the people who live there. He’s got a number of parasites and he’s probably going to spend the next few months in quarantine and then the hospital, getting healthy. I just had the pleasure of notifying his parents that we found him, and I sent a Militia skimmer to pick them up and bring them here. So I imagine Ted is going to be alright.”