by M. R. Forbes
The lift carried them back to the fortieth floor of the tower, where the balcony extended out to the area where the dropship had circled back and landed. James kept a firm grip on Natalia Duke, concerned she might try to pull away and cause some other kind of trouble for him.
She was impressive. In some ways more impressive than her husband. She had done something to the combat armor to make herself invisible to him, and she had gone on a powerful offensive with only one arm.
It was too bad it had all been for nothing.
He didn’t have to kill five of her people in exchange for his. Tinker wouldn’t have demanded it. His pride did. It was bruised from his fall, and he was as angry as he had ever been over looking weak in front of his men. Did it make him look strong? No, but it made him feel a little better.
They walked together across the damaged floor. He felt Natalia’s arm stiffen when she saw the damage from the Harpy’s plasma cannons. Whoever they had hit, James knew they were important to Natalia, and maybe the rest of the community. Their leader, maybe? But he had thought Hayden was their leader. It didn’t matter. The damage was done, the battle victorious. He had the spoils in his hand.
He pulled her outside and across the balcony. A brisk wind was blowing in from the nearby water, and when he looked to the east he thought he saw a shadow in the distance, rising way too high from the ground to be real. He stared for a second while continuing toward the Harpy, before forgetting about it a moment later.
The ramp into the hold was already down. James brought Natalia onto the ship, up into the hold where Tinker was waiting.
“Tinker, this is Natalia Duke,” he said.
“The Sheriff’s wife?” Tinker asked.
“Yes. She’s going to take us to John Wayne.”
Tinker stared at her. She stared back at him, still defiant.
“Is she?” Tinker asked. “She looks like a caged animal. I can almost see the wheels turning in her head, figuring out how best to mislead us.”
“Given a chance, I’ll steer you right into the side a fucking mountain,” Natalia said.
Tinker laughed. “You have Hayden’s spirit, don’t you? I don’t know if I’m ready for another Duke just yet.”
“So why don’t you let me go?”
“You know where John Wayne is. Why would I let you go?”
“I know what you’re looking for. Like I told your iron monkey, if you leave the city alone, I’ll take you there. No tricks. I can’t guarantee that whatever it is you want will still be there.”
“It will be there,” Tinker said. “I’m confident of that.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“It’s my destiny to carry out the will of the Others and save this planet from the trife. I’ve seen it come to pass.”
Natalia glanced at James as if to ask him if Tinker were sane.
“Tinker,” James said. “Natalia was injured in the fighting.”
“Well, we can’t have her getting an infection and dying on us, can we? Get her patched up and bring her to the bridge so she can direct Captain Fahri. I expect to be underway as soon as possible.” He nodded toward Natalia. “A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Duke. My condolences on your husband.”
“General Stacker said he’s still alive,” she replied.
Tinker smiled. “When we left, maybe. But it’s been hours, he was already within a few breaths of death, and Lieutenant Shun isn’t known for being gentle. I’d be willing to bet he’s given up the ghost by now.”
James felt Natalia stiffen in his grip again, but she didn’t cry out or show any other emotion. Tinker turned around and rolled himself back to his command module.
“Major, keep an eye on Mrs. Duke while I get out of this.”
“Yes, sir,” Major Efreet replied, putting his gun against her again.
James walked over to the module on the side of the hold, stepping back into it. The machine unbolted the armor and allowed him to step out of it.
“How much of you is real?” Natalia asked at the sight of him.
“Just enough,” he replied. “These wounds didn’t come from fighting like your husband’s. I was made this way.”
“Made?”
“I’m a replica.”
“Like Sergeant Bennett?”
It took James a moment to think of who she meant. Then he nodded. “Yes. A different model though.”
“How are you related to the fugitive? To Nathan Stacker?”
“We’re both replicas of the same base DNA. James Stacker was the original. He was an Earther, did you know that? He never stepped foot on Proxima. He stayed to fight the trife. Whatever you think of us and our methods, that’s all we’re trying to do. Destroy the trife and save what’s left of humankind.”
“The Cleansing,” Natalia said. “You plan to save one city, and it isn’t Sanisco.”
“No.”
“How are you going to do it?”
“We’ve developed a virus that kills trife. But it also kills humans.”
He could see how Natalia’s mind was working, trying to solve the whole equation. She was a smart one. He would have to see if he could get Tinker to let her live once they recovered the artifact. She could be useful to them.
“Take off the armor,” Nathan said. “I’ll get the patches to help with the wound.”
He turned his back on her, walking over to the medical module and opening it up. He found the patches in it, along with sterilizer and brought them back to where she was stripping out of the armor. The blood from the wound had run down her arm, drying along it.
“You don’t have a shower on board?” she asked.
“We do.”
She looked up at him, grabbing the collar of her undershirt and tugging it to show him the blood and sweat. “Do you mind if I use it? And maybe get a change of clothes? The woman I killed, the one with the bone tattoos, she was close to my size.”
James clenched his teeth. She was needling him intentionally. He took a deep breath, trying to keep himself in check. He nodded. “This way.”
He led her up the stairs to the next level of the dropship, and then aft to the barracks. He showed her the shower, locking her in while he retrieved new underwear and a jumpsuit from Bones’ rack.
He unlocked the door, waiting a few minutes for her to come out. “Natalia, get out now,” he said.
She didn’t. The shower was still running.
“Natalia?” He opened the door and stepped into the head, leaving the clothes and medical treatment on a small metal table to the side. There were two showers in the barracks, and both of them were on high, the steam filling the area.
She came at him from his right, a piece of metal pipe she had extracted from somewhere in her grip. He saw her almost too late, turning and getting his replacement arm up to take the blow from the metal. It clanked off his arm, and he turned and reached for her, but she ducked away, getting beneath his attack and swinging the pipe again. It hit him on the side of the head, cracking into the metal plate beneath his cheek and cutting him open. He cursed, finding her and barreling ahead, sweeping her up in his powerful arms and driving her to the ground.
The pipe clattered on the floor beside her. He pinned her to the ground, naked and crying.
“I should have guessed,” he said, feeling stupid for not realizing she would find a way to make a weapon. He climbed off her, returning to the table and grabbing the clothes. Her wound was bleeding again from her effort. “It was a good effort. Sit up.”
She pushed herself to a sitting position against the wall. He went to the showers and turned the water off, noting that she had disabled the heat limiters to make more steam. Then he crouched beside her, opening the sterilizer and spraying it onto the wound, and then wiping the area clear.
“You’re lucky it went all the way through,” he said. “We don’t have tools on board to remove fragments.”
“How’s your cheek?” she asked in reply.
“Better than it would have been if it weren’t a
metal plate underneath,” he said. “I’m lucky you didn’t break my skull.” He unwrapped one of the patches and pressed it against the front of her shoulder. “Lean forward.” She did, and he put a second patch on the back.
“This thing you’re looking for,” she said. “What does it do?”
“It’s a door to another world,” he replied. “The home of the Others.”
“Who are the Others?”
“Tinker says they’re gods.”
She leaned forward, looking up at him. “You don’t believe that.”
“No. I’m not sure what the Others are. All I know is that he expects them to protect us from Proxima’s reprisal, and from the ones who sent the trife.”
“And to think we spent so many years believing we were alone in the universe.”
James stood up, grabbing the clothes he had gathered and handing them to her. “I always think it would have been better if it had stayed that way. But then, without the trife replicas wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t exist.”
“I think it would have been better if it had stayed that way,” Natalia said, testing the patched arm while she put on the clothes.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But this is what it is.”
“At least we agree on something.”
James stared at her. He had lost Nathan as an ally if he needed one when the time came. Natalia was smart and resourceful. But would she help him in the end? He glanced back at the door to the head. He wouldn’t get another chance to be alone with her.
“Natalia, I’m not sure the Others are as benevolent as Tinker believes, but as his creation I’m not capable of defying his orders. I want to destroy the trife, but I don’t know if allowing another alien race to gain control of us is the right thing to do. Do you understand?”
He could tell by her expression that she did.
“Did you enjoy torturing Hayden?” she asked.
“In part, yes. He killed a lot of my best men.”
Her eyes narrowed. He couldn’t make her help him. Not in this. But he was offering her a chance, and judging from the risk she had taken with the pipe. She wouldn’t be able to resist it.
“At least you’re honest. Okay. However you bind me, make sure I have a tool to get out of it and someone nearby with a gun that I can overpower.”
“If I need you, I’ll make sure you have what you need.”
“My father always warned me about making deals with the devil.” She held out her hand.
“Well, Mrs. Duke, in this case, I’m not sure which one of us is supposed to be the devil. But neither one of us has much choice.”
He shook her hand to sealed the deal.
Chapter 41
Edenrise was in chaos.
The return of the energy shield had helped stop the attacking trife as quickly as losing it had brought them running, but the damage had already been done. Hundreds of Liberators were dead. Hundreds more of the residents had met the same fate. General Neill was dead. Doc was dead. Residents were pouring from their buildings, looking for missing loved ones or rushing to get out of the city before there was any more chaos. The remaining soldiers were heading home to collect their families and do the same.
And the virus was on its way, four thousand vials strong, to who the fuck knew where.
It was a mess. A gigantic, sloppy mess. Hayden wanted to say he didn’t care. That they had all gotten what they deserved for following a self-aggrandizing would-be messiah like Tinker. But he knew why the people came to Edenrise. He couldn’t blame them for wanting to survive. And he wasn’t going to leave them in bedlam either.
“Nathan, you’re the ranking officer now,” Hayden said, watching the streets through the drone feeds of the command center. “You’ve got to get the soldiers and the law enforcement officers back on the streets, spreading the word that the threat’s been neutralized.”
Nathan spread his hands. “How am I supposed to do that, Sheriff?”
“Get out there, start making the rounds. They’ll follow you.”
“They’ll follow James. Not me. They know the difference.”
“Not right now they don’t. They’re panicked. Scared. You can get out there and quiet them down. Once the soldiers are calm, the residents will calm.”
Nathan looked up at the screens. “Shit. I’ll try.”
Hayden walked over to the fallen Other, scooping up its head, which had stopped leaking fluid. He tossed it to James. “Bring this with you. It’ll prove you killed the thing.”
“Pozz that,” Nathan said. “What are you going to do?”
“Chandra and I are going to try to find out where those vials are headed, to confirm Sanisco is safe.”
“What if it isn’t?”
“Then god help Tinker and his followers. We’re going to try to get a message back to Natalia, and then you’re going to meet me back at that starship. What’d you call it?”
“The Pulse?”
“The Pulse. We can take it west and try to cut Tinker off before he causes too much trouble.”
“It’s been hours, Sheriff. I think we’re probably too late for that.”
“Then we’ll improvise.”
“Okay, but I don’t think the Pulse is the best idea.”
“Why not?”
“For one, the Other was on it for who knows how long. It could have sabotaged the whole thing, made it so it’ll detonate in low orbit or something. For another, the Harpy will pick us up before we can get close. Whatever the situation is, I think the element of surprise is our best advantage.”
Hayden considered for a moment and then nodded. “You’re right. The trouble is, we need some way to get from here to there in a hurry.”
“Understood, Sheriff. Edenrise used to be a USSF military base. I know Tinker’s torn apart most of the old equipment, but maybe there’s something else around here we can use.”
“I can check the supply database,” Chandra said.
“Pozz,” Hayden replied. “We’ll figure it out. First things first. Chandra, see if you can get into the launch system and find out where those delivery rockets are scheduled to land.”
“Pozz that, Sheriff.”
“Comms are working,” Nathan said, tapping the link in his ear. “I’ll be in touch when I’ve got things back under control. Not that you won’t be able to see it.”
“Good luck, Stacker.”
“You too, Sheriff.”
Nathan headed out of the command center. Hayden turned back to where Chandra was pounding furiously on the central terminal, her legs straddling General Neill’s body. It only took her a few seconds to get the networked connection to the launch mainframe up on the main display.
“I’m into the system, Sheriff,” she said. “Give me a couple of minutes. I think the software already has most of what we’re looking for. Obviously, Tinker wanted to keep track of the progress of the virus so he would know when the Cleansing was finished.”
“I’d tell you to take your time, but that’s the one thing we can’t spare right now.”
Hayden moved back to the Other, looking down at it. He leaned over, tapping its artificial skin with his metal finger. The skin shimmered wherever he touched it, spitting out a projection shaped and colored like Doc. Even in death, its camouflage was still somewhat active.
“Did you send the trife?” he said to it. “Or are you as much a victim of them as we are? If you are a victim, two wrongs don’t make it right.”
“What’s that, Sheriff?” Chandra asked.
“Nothing,” he replied. “Talking to the dead Other.” He continued staring at it. “Why were you laughing, anyway? Why are you so sure Tinker’s going to do what you want?”
It was a new question. One that stuck in his head, a brain-bug that wouldn’t let go. Nathan had said Tinker was convinced of his place in the story because of visions he was having. Was the Other responsible for the visions? Had it somehow planted them in his head, and used the sphere to help push him in the right dir
ection? But how could that be when the Other had only been freed a few days ago?
Unless it hadn’t been freed only a few days ago?
What if it had been in Edenrise the whole time? What if it was on the Pulse when James and Nathan went to Area 51? What if it had been controlling things for years? If the ship under the generator was its ship, who was to say it hadn’t been lingering near it the whole time? He had assumed the alien had organized all of this chaos in days, but what if it had been waiting on this moment for years?
It was enough to make his head hurt. At least the damn thing was dead.
“Sheriff, I’ve got it,” Chandra said.
Hayden stood and turned around, looking up at the primary display. It showed a flat map of the planet, with four red circles symbolizing the launch vehicles, and blobs of red against the continents showing the spread. He was surprised by how little area the four thousand vehicles would cover. Then again, hadn’t Nathan said there were a hundred thousand delivery vehicles? It was less than half of a percent of the target mass.
He breathed a sigh of relief to see that none of the red areas were close to the United Western Front. All four of the launch vehicles had gone the other direction, across the ocean to the land masses on the other side, marked on the map as Europe. He felt a pang of remorse for the people inside those red zones, at the same time grateful Natalia and Hallia weren’t among them.
Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. How could Tinker retrieve the gateway to the interstellar bridge if his creation killed him?
“Sheriff,” Nathan said, his voice coming through loud and clear over the comm. “I’ve got a platoon gathered with me, crossing into the main residential area of the city.”
Hayden smiled. It had only been five minutes. “Nice work. How are they handling things?”
“They’re shaken, but they’re coming in line quick when they see a familiar face. You were right. They don’t care that I’m not James. They care that I’m like James.”
“Pozz that.”
“That isn’t why I called in though, Sheriff. We might have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“I’ve got a Corporal Dix here with me. He told me he was near the Pulse when it melted down.”