by L O Addison
Kaylin struggled to hide her surprise. “You’re saying your whole society is run by a computer?”
“Yes,” Lio said. His calm tone told her that he found nothing unusual about this, aside from the fact that Kaylin had to ask about it. “It’s very common,” he added. “Many advanced societies use a similar system. Once a society reaches a certain level of complexity, mortal minds are no longer effective at guiding them.”
Kaylin nodded. “That’s…”
Weird. Creepy. Pretty much begging for an evil robot apocalypse.
Kaylin couldn’t even imagine Earth running on a similar system. Computers were pure logic, and the backbone of a healthy human society was empathy. The two just didn’t mix.
Then again, maybe she was wrong. After all, she was a professional thief. Not exactly the sort of person who had the right to judge what made society healthy and what didn’t.
“That’s interesting,” Kaylin finally said.
“Very,” Beck agreed, although Kaylin could hear a wary tone in his voice, and she guessed he had similar reservations about a computer-driven society.
Lio frowned a little, clearly offended by their lack of enthusiasm, and Marin gave a cold scowl. Kaylin got the feeling they were on the brink of pissing off the bodyguard, and she scrambled to come up with a question to change the topic. She glanced between the two aliens, noting how close they sat next to each other.
“What about relationships on your planet?” she asked. “I mean, you still get to pick your own partner, right?”
Lio tilted his head. “What kind of ‘partner’ are you referring to?”
“You know, like the person you fuck,” Kaylin said.
Beck cleared his throat loudly. “She means like a husband or wife.”
Beck shot her a sharp glance with a clear message: “Watch your language, this is an ambassador you’re talking to.” Kaylin shot him back an exasperated look with her own message: “Quit worrying, this guy’s opinion of me can’t get any worse.”
Lio frowned as he glanced between the two of them. “We call them shalenahs, our life-mates. And of course the Council decides for us. Love is blinding. Navigating it without guidance would be absolute chaos.”
“Chaos isn’t always a bad thing,” Kaylin argued.
Marin gave her an incredulous stare. “Chaos has worked well for you?”
Not exactly, or at least not in the love department. Kaylin had only ever been with a couple guys, and their times together had been so short, she wasn’t even sure any of them qualified as a relationship. Turns out the sort of guy attracted to sharp-tongued, pessimistic, and stubborn girls were usually sharp-tongued, pessimistic, and stubborn themselves. Not exactly the stuff of great love stories.
But even if Kaylin hadn’t exactly done great in her romantic life without the help of a guide, she’d at least…
She glanced down at the taros bracelet and gritted her teeth. Left to her own devices, she’d become a killer, and then a thief, and now a prisoner.
A smug look lifted the very corners of Marin’s lips.
Kaylin raised her eyebrows at the bodyguard. “I’m sensing just a little bit of judgement.”
“Then perhaps you aren’t as obtuse as you seem,” Marin said dryly.
Kaylin opened her mouth, ready to retort, but Beck elbowed her sharply in the side. Kaylin hissed in a pained breath, but decided to take the message and shut her mouth. After all, Marin had a gun, and Kaylin was totally unarmed.
Beck turned to Lio, ushering the conversation in a new direction. “Do you know why the Council chose you for your job? Is it something that runs in your family?”
“No,” Lio said, shaking his head. “We don’t have families in the same way you do. In our world, couples having children is considered very…old-fashioned. It causes so many problems. Health issues, overpopulation, poorly-behaved children.” He shook his head firmly, as if just the thought of these things was enough to upset him. “So Rhuramenti children are engineered in our labs and raised in our schools. When we turn ten years old, the Council studies our personality and assigns us our career, and we move to a special school for our job training.”
Kaylin blinked a few times, struggling to wrap her mind around what she was hearing. “So you mean… None of you have parents?”
“No,” Lio said. His tone grew defensive as he added, “They aren’t needed. Our entire society supports each other, so burdening two people with the entire care of a child isn’t necessary.”
Kaylin completely failed to hide her horrified expression, and this time, Beck didn’t chastise her. In fact, he looked nearly as dismayed as her.
Lio shifted uncomfortably under the weight of their stares. He nodded to Kaylin and struggled to put on a friendly tone as he said, “I’ve always been intrigued by old-fashioned families. What’s yours like?”
“Dead,” she whispered.
Her mom had died of cancer when she was only seventeen, leaving Kaylin as the sole caretaker of her little brother. And she’d failed him. Jaxon had been killed in the Syndicate invasion, slaughtered despite Kaylin’s best efforts to protect him.
Losing them had been the most painful parts of her entire life. But if she could go back in time and choose between being raised without a family, or losing her family all over again, she’d choose the latter. Everything good she’d ever had in her life had come from her mom and Jaxon.
“Oh,” Lio said, guilt flashing across his face. “I’m very sorry to hear you lost them.”
No, he wasn’t. He might have thought he was, but Kaylin knew he couldn’t truly understand the extent of her loss. Not if he didn’t have a family himself.
She nodded an acknowledgement of his words and then went quiet, staring down at her lap.
Beck softly cleared his throat, clearly at a loss at what to say. Then he quietly asked Lio, “Why do we look so similar? I mean, our species are obviously extremely different, but we look almost identical. So...why?”
It was the question Kaylin had been wondering since she’d first laid eyes on the aliens. She looked up at Lio, waiting for his answer.
“Both of our species are children of the Creators,” Lio said.
“And who were they?” Beck asked.
Lio struggled to hide his shock at the question. “They were the most powerful race to ever exist, and the ones who helped create our species. They felt it was their duty to populate planets with intelligent life. So they planted genetic material all over the galaxies, and eventually it adapted and grew into the species and societies we have today.”
Beck raised his eyebrows, looking equally impressed and skeptical. “So what happened to these Creators?”
Lio shook his head. “That knowledge is lost to time. All we have left of their race is the Virtues they left behind.”
Kaylin bit back a scoff. She’d been hoping for a real answer, but this was clearly just some Rhuramenti mumbo-jumbo, an ancient tale to go along with their holy relics. For all their high-and-mighty attitude, the Rhuramenti weren’t much more creative with their origin stories than any human mythology.
She considered telling them this, but then the door to the cockpit opened, cutting off their conversation. Jamison strolled out, his expression as deadpan as always. Kaylin had met the soldier twice before she deserted the Resistance, and both times he’d spoken less than five words. But other people talked about him enough to carry his reputation. He was one of Beck’s most successful students, and when he wasn’t running around completing top-secret missions like this one, he led his own team of elite snipers.
Jamison took the seat directly across from Beck, nodding a silent greeting. “Cate just got off the radio with the base in Nice,” he said. “They cleared us to land, but the call got cut off before they could tell us which tarmac to use.”
“Why was it cut off?” Beck asked, his brow furrowing in concern.
Jamison knocked a knuckle against the wall of the ship. “Just the storm. Cate says it’s throw
ing off our comms system.”
“A few clouds shouldn’t be enough to knock out the comms,” Beck said, shaking his head.
Jamison shrugged. “It’s a Gen-Three transport.”
Kaylin understood what he was really saying: they were flying in a hunk of junk that’d been made over twenty years ago. Ironically, it’d been the safest aircraft to take. It was the most discreet ship they had—cargo ships came and went from Resistance bases all the time, and no one in their right mind would transport an ambassador in one. Or at least that was what they’d hoped any enemy would think. It was a stealth ship in plain sight.
Beck nodded hesitantly. “You’re right,” he said to Jamison. “But tell Cate to get a mechanic to look over the comms system as soon as we land.”
“She’s already on it,” Jamison said. “We just need to figure out where to land.”
“Tell her to head for the eastern tarmac,” Beck said. “It’s where they usually direct visitors.”
Kaylin raised her eyebrows. “You’ve been here before?” she asked Beck.
“About a year ago,” he said, but he didn’t offer any more details.
Kaylin struggled to hide her surprise. She kept forgetting how high Beck had climbed in the ranks. In her mind, Beck would always just be her team lead, not some lieutenant who got sent on foreign missions.
“How long before we land?” Lio asked.
“About ten minutes,” Jamison said.
Beck nodded his approval. “Right on time.” He gestured toward the cockpit. “Tell Cate to keep trying the comms system. Let’s see if we can work that bug out before we land.”
Jamison nodded and stood back up, heading into the cockpit without a word of goodbye.
Kaylin glanced over at Beck, watching as his jaw worked back and forth. The rest of his body looked perfectly at ease, but Kaylin knew better than to trust that. Learning how to relax during tense situations was probably the most vital skill a sniper had. But no matter how much Beck trained, he'd never managed to get rid of his habit of grinding his teeth when he got nervous.
She leaned over to him and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I hope,” he said, lowering his voice so the aliens couldn’t hear. “I just don’t like that comms system going down.”
She glanced at the storm clouds outside the window. “Seems pretty normal to me.”
“And the storm back in Florida seemed normal too. But it wasn’t. It was a vapor bomb.”
“You think this storm was caused by a bomb too?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. It seems too mild for that. But I’m just not sure a storm this minor could take out our comms.”
“So then should we land at another base? Just in case?”
“We can’t. The only other Resistance base in France is over three hundred miles away. We don’t have the fuel stores to get there.”
“So then we’re screwed,” Kaylin said grimly.
Beck shook his head. “Probably not. I’m sure I’m just being overly paranoid.”
Kaylin slowly nodded, although she didn’t quite believe him. “If you get me killed, I’m never forgiving you,” she muttered.
Beck made a sound that was half scoff and half laugh. But his tone darkened as he said, “If we get killed on this mission, it’s going to be your fault, Goodfellow.”
A sudden, overwhelming urge struck Kaylin to tell Beck the truth. To admit that she wasn’t Goodfellow, that she had no idea who had stolen the Virtue or how to steal it back. To tell him that she had sworn to never, ever take another life, and that she would rather die than murder a guard. To make him understand that she may have been a bad person, but she wasn’t a horrible one.
But she choked back the urge. Beck was her enemy now, even if chatting with him made that easy to forget. Admitting that she wasn’t Goodfellow would make her useless to the Resistance. It would be suicide.
She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, clamping her jaw shut. Just ten more minutes until they landed. Then she could start hatching a plan to get Red and her out of there.
12
Lio
The air turbulence rattled Lio’s aching bones, and he swallowed hard, struggling to keep his nausea at bay. Only a few minutes remained until they landed. He could make it just two more minutes without vomiting.
He hoped.
“Are you all right?” Marin said, speaking softly in their own language.
Lio nodded, but he didn’t dare open his mouth, fearing he’d throw up as soon as he did.
Marin softly patted the back of his hand. “It’s almost over.”
Lio opened his eyes and glanced over at her. Marin looked just as tired as he felt, her forehead wrinkled in exhaustion and dark bags sagging under her eyes. But her shoulders were still straight, and her pale lips remained pursed in a look of determination. Lio felt a sudden burst of embarrassment, and he straightened his own posture as much as his seatbelt would allow.
He was a Collector, not a helpless child. Sick or not, he needed to act his part.
Beck and Kaylin sat in the seats across from him, both of them quiet and grim. Kaylin had her fingers tightly laced together, while Beck unconsciously tapped his thumb against the pistol holstered at his waist. In the seat closest to the cockpit door, Liam had stirred out of his short nap and was blinking sleep from his eyes. All three of them stared anxiously out the cabin’s small window, even though it showed nothing but dark, swirling clouds.
Jamison’s quiet, solemn voice came over the intercom. “One minute from landing. Comm system is still down.”
Beck pressed a finger to the earpiece clipped to his left ear. “You’ve tried the emergency channel?”
“We've tried all of them. No dice.”
Beck nodded grimly. “Just be ready to maneuver to another tarmac, if they give the orders.”
“Roger that.”
The cargo craft dipped to a sharper angle, heading toward the ground. Lio tightened his grip on the arm rest, clenching his fingers until it hurt. But he made sure to keep his expression even, refusing to show his fear.
“Thirty seconds from landing,” Jamison said.
Lio kept his gaze locked on the window, waiting for the clouds to lift away and reveal the base. But the clouds stayed, growing thicker and darker as they descended. A feeling of dread struck Lio in the stomach.
Kaylin grabbed Beck’s forearm in a panicked motion. “That’s smoke,” she blurted, pointing to the darkening sky.
Beck cursed and tapped his earpiece again. “Abort landing!”
Before he could finish speaking, the craft abruptly levelled out. Lio winced as he was thrown against the seat. His heart thudded in his chest, and his breathing came in gasps. He struggled to take deep breaths, but pain lanced through his chest where the seatbelt had jerked against him.
The cargo craft tilted upward, throwing Lio back against his seat.
“What’s happening?” he gasped, looking between Beck and Kaylin.
Beck ignored him, his gaze focused on the window, while Kaylin stared back at Lio with a bewildered expression. He suddenly realized he was speaking in Rhuramenti, but the panic searing his brain made all his training in English slip from his grasp.
“Jamison, what are the scanners picking up?” Beck demanded, speaking into his comm unit.
“What’s going on?” Marin demanded, speaking in English.
Kaylin shook her head, obviously clueless, and Beck slashed a hand toward them, silently ordering them to stay quiet.
“The scanners aren’t picking up a goddamn thing,” Jamison said to Beck through the intercom. “Something’s jamming them.”
“Head east,” Beck commanded. “Get away as fast as you can.”
“On it,” Jamison replied.
The craft tilted sharply to the right as it adjusted its course, slamming Lio against his seatbelt and forcing the air from his lungs. A deep boom echoed from below, and a shudder shook the craft, rattling Lio’s teeth.
“What is going on?” Marin hissed at Beck, louder this time.
A mechanical shriek filled the air as the cargo craft’s engines struggled to gain speed. Lio wanted to clap his hands over his ears to block it out, but he didn’t dare release his death grip on the armrests.
Beck shook his head in disbelief as he said, “The base is under attack.”
Lio opened his mouth to demand more of an explanation. But before he could form a single word, something struck the plane. Lio slammed forward, the seatbelt crushing his chest and silencing his panicked shriek before it could escape.
“We’re hit,” Jamison called out. “But the shields are holding.”
He barely finished speaking when another explosion rocked the craft, and then another, and another.
“Shields are losing power!” Jamison yelled, panic edging into his voice.
“Keep heading east,” Beck called back. “Don’t stop!”
Three more explosions hit the craft. The final one struck with ten times the force, whipping Lio forward and then back. Pain exploded in his skull as it struck the edge of the cabinet beside him.
Bright orange fire flashed outside the window, and Lio’s veins flooded with adrenaline. A roar filled his ears, and Lio prayed it was just the sound of his racing blood. But then the plane jerked and tilted sideways, shattering his hope.
“Exterior shields are down!” Jamison called out. “Right wing is crippled.”
“Land!” Beck ordered. “Now!”
“Hang on,” Jamison replied grimly. “This is gonna be rough.”
The craft tilted forward, and Lio’s stomach dropped out from under him. Another blast shook the plane. Lio gripped his seatbelt and glanced desperately at the exit. Emergency ejection packs hung on the wall next to the door, igniting a tiny spark of hope in his chest.
Beck followed his gaze over to the ejection packs and shook his head frantically. “We can’t bail!” the lieutenant called, yelling to be heard over the shriek of the engines and roar of rushing wind. “We’re too close to the ground.”