by David Ryker
She held it up and inspected it. There was dried blood on my palm, but the wound was gone, and there wasn’t even a scar there. She pursed her lips and nodded, throwing my hand back to me and reaching for my shoulder instead. She dug her nails into the cuff and took my wrist with her other arm, rotating and lifting it until she was satisfied.
She stepped back a little, looking me up and down, and something in her manner tweaked for me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and my muscles tensed.
Whether it was the way that she pushed into the balls of her feet just enough to make her shoes squeak a little, or that she’d turned just an eighth on — maybe the slight raising of the chin, or the straightening of the hand — I didn’t know which it was, but as she fired a chop towards my neck, the metal reinforced heel of her hand destined for my trapezius, my left hand shot up and parried the blow before I even knew she was throwing the strike. My right shot out in response, my hand closing around her throat before I could stop it.
She broke the hold, driving her elbow into my forearm and then swung her knee up toward my gut.
I blocked it with a cross-guard, not even knowing that I knew how to do that, and then kicked her other leg out from under her.
She landed on the ground with a dull thunk and sprang up at me, throwing a stiff cross toward my cheek.
A solid thwap cut the air and my arm tingled. My brain stuttered and caught up, registering what I was looking at. Her fist was enveloped in my hand. She’d thrown a punch and I’d caught it, centimeters from my face. I hadn’t even seen my hand move up, and yet the sting on my skin was screaming at me that it’d just happened.
Rhona smirked. “Good.”
“Good?” I scoffed. “Uh, not the word I would have used.” I let go of her hand and she retracted it, straightening her suit.
“It means that the process is taking full effect. Your reflexes are greatly improved, and providing you give your body enough fuel, the muscular and metabolic improvements should continue to heighten as well. How do you feel?”
“Uh… confused?” I flexed my hand. It was still tingling. “What the hell is happening to me?”
Rhona looked at the door, confirming it was closed, and then smiled briefly. “Glaavus instructed us to care for you, but after speaking to your companion, Greg, Glaavus also ordered us to provide you with a slight boost for the coming tribulations.”
I shook my head. “Back up — what do you mean a boost?”
“The nanites we used to treat you are just one part of what we’re able to do on Aelock. The Federation continually push us to develop new technology for them. When the Tenshi were posing a larger threat, they had us invest our efforts in the development of something that might even the odds somewhat. By the time we had made enough progress with our nano-enhancement, the threat had already been neutralized. They opted for a brute force attack that not even the Tenshi’s advanced biology could stand up to. But, considering what Greg told Glaavus about your meeting with one of them on Notia, he said that giving you more of an edge would improve our chances of success. The nanites you’ve been injected with are coursing through your system — your mind and your muscles, and you’ll see improvement across most facets of your being.”
My mind was racing, but where I usually would have been asking a hundred questions — the why, the how, the what — I had none to ask. I nodded in understanding. “Okay. And the others?” I cast my eyes upward.
Rhona shook her head. “The existence of the technology is top secret.”
“They don’t even know?”
She shook her head. “Greg told Glaavus that you could be trusted — though he was less sure about vouching for the others. And, as we had you already sedated, it seemed like a good opportunity. The others seem much more invested in the Federation, and we couldn’t risk them finding out, and then questioning us as to why we never brought it to them.”
“And why didn’t you?”
“An army of Tenshi-grade soldiers? The Federation are already an unstoppable force. We need not make them any more fearsome.”
“You design their weaponry, though — their ships, their mech?”
She cracked a smile. “You think that oversized robots and guns that fire bullets are the best we could come up with?” She laughed. “They satiate their blood-lust, and they cause as little damage as we could make them without being unconvincing.”
“And our mech? Out there?” I looked at the wall separating the hold from the living quarters.
“An improvement over what you’re used to, that much is certain.”
“And what makes you think I won’t spill my guts to the Federation, huh? Tell them about the nanites?”
“We don’t — we can only take Greg at his word. Minds like that are honorable, and wouldn’t lie to their own. And anyway, should any of you show any signs of anything other than commitment to your word, then…” She trailed off and looked at her feet before meeting my eye again. “Well, we have assurances in place.”
I had to grin as she said it. She was trying to be coy, but I could see through it. “You, you mean? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To chaperone us, make sure we don’t go off-book? If we try to take these fancy mech home, don’t follow through with destroying the Free… Think about telling the Federation about what we’ve seen or what we know…”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said sympathetically, but with enough clinical coldness that told me if it did she’d have no problem putting a bullet in any one of us.
I laughed a little, folding my arms. “So was it really a good idea then to make me as strong and fast as you?”
She rolled her eyes and laughed herself. “If you think that little show just then was me at full-bore…” She shook her head and slapped me on the shoulder. It nearly bowled me over. “Eat your food, or it’s going to get cold.”
The door slid shut behind her but my grin didn’t fade. I kind of liked her — she was sharp.
As I pulled open and devoured the second bag I thought about it, and about what lay ahead. Powered up or not, this wasn’t going to be an easy ride. I just hoped I was up to it.
13
We dropped out of hyper a few thousand clicks off Aerra and Rhona pulled us up behind what looked to be a huge chunk of a moon.
The curved side caught the sunlight and shone brightly against the canvas of space, distant stars shining all around.
She piloted us up close and hid us among the cracks in the shattered side.
As the moon rotated slowly, drifting in orbit of Aerra, it turned us to face the Free’s fleet, and we all came to terms with exactly what we were facing.
Hanging outside Aerra’s atmosphere was the station we’d seen when we’d arrived at Jokka — a hulking chunk of metal that looked to be their base of operations. Surrounding that was an armada of other ships, including the destroyer that had taken down our Tilt-wing. It looked so benign just floating there, torpedo-shaped and idle, but I knew that as soon as it spotted us it would rear up like a goddamn snake and show us its fangs again.
Other than that, the other ships seemed to be pretty small, but there was more than a few of them.
“Alright,” Mac said with a sigh, holding onto the back of Alice’s chair and staring through the cockpit window at what lay ahead. “I’m just going to say it — this is fucking stupid.”
“You can say that again,” Alice growled.
“That’s a lot of ships,” I muttered, trying to count them before the moon chunk turned us away again. “And you want us to blow them all up?”
“Yes,” Rhona said flatly. “Though you will have my help.”
“Gee, that makes me feel so much better,” Mac announced emphatically.
“Humph, think Everett got out at the right time,” Alice sighed.
“Okay, Rhona — now what?” I pushed back from her chair and walked in a circle. “We’re here. How are we doing this? Glaavus and you were awfully quiet on the details of how ex
actly we’re going to bring down a galactic fucking armada! This ship got some special fucking weapons we don’t know about, or—” I cut off, seeing the serious look on her face.
“All of their data will be stored locally to prevent hacking,” Rhona began pragmatically. “How many copies of the plans for those wormhole generators there’ll be, I don’t know. We can safely assume that at least ninety-nine percent of the people on board those ships won’t understand how the generators work, anyway, and out of those who do understand, I’d bet that very few actually have access to the information, or even know where it is. The Free and the Federation have been warring for millennia, and espionage has been a big part of that. They’ve managed to keep this tech secret for a pretty long time, so it means that they’re keeping things tightly under wraps. But, they’re not stupid, either. I’d guess there’s a copy on a bunch of those ships, along with their commanders — Tenshi, probably, who know where the plans are and how to get access to them. So, where does that leave us?”
“Fucked,” Mac answered coldly. “Red already tangled with one of those Tenshi bastards and got his ass handed to him — while in his fucking rig, I might add—”
“I wouldn’t say handed to me,” I interjected.
“I would,” Mac replied scornfully. “I really don’t feel like this chick is taking this whole thing seriously. She’s all talk, but it’s easy when you’re all the way out here, and we’re the ones getting into the thick of it.”
I wasn’t sure whether to defend her. She didn’t seem like she needed it.
“MacAlister,” Rhona started, unfazed by Mac’s observations, “attacking the armada head on would be disastrous, and would cost far more lives than is necessary. As well as the fighters, there are also children and the elderly, innocents and bystanders, runaways and orphans — the Free do not only amass armies; they offer a home to those who don’t fit in anywhere else.”
“Or those with a bone to pick with the Federation,” Alice chimed in.
“You seem awfully familiar with these bastards.” Mac’s eyes narrowed at Rhona.
She looked briefly at me and then back to Mac. “We’re very familiar with a lot of things, MacAlister. We may stay out of the affairs of biologs, trifling and petty as they are, but we stay up to date with how their wars are going. Aelock may be far away, but it is not out of reach. It pays to know who is doing what, how they’re doing it, and why.”
He snorted. “Didn’t know about their wormhole tech, though, did you?”
Rhona hardened and turned away. There was no arguing with Mac when he got like this. When something riled him up he was incessant and indomitable. “While you go down to the surface, I’ll infiltrate their station, find and destroy their data, and deal with anyone who gets in my way. Once I’ve completed that objective, I’ll pick you up from the surface, and we’ll tie up any loose ends. Our main priority is to destroy the devices, their plans, and to make sure that anyone who knows anything about how they’re made is dealt with. I’ll do what I can, but I would think that when they discover your presence on the surface they’ll rally their ships to retaliate. The station and the destroyer are both too large to enter the atmosphere, so I’ll deal with them.”
“You’ll deal with them?” Mac was out for blood. “And how do you propose to do that, huh? Just going to waltz onboard that fancy station, delete their data, bing-bang-boom, and then what, rinse and repeat for the destroyer?”
“No one wants to prevent this situation from worsening more than we do. It is our top concern that this mission is completed successfully, and if I thought that sending you would be a better option, then I would do it. But it is not. We have to get this done quickly, and quietly, and I’m the best person for the job.”
He folded his arms and squeezed out a derisive smile. “So what, you’re some kind of first-class android-infiltrator then?”
She met his baleful gaze. “Yes — in fact, I was made for it. My very purpose was to do exactly as you say — walk into places I wasn’t supposed to be, pretending to be people I wasn’t to get information I wasn’t supposed to get.”
“That include the Free?” Mac’s nostrils were flaring.
“As well as the Federation — and a dozen other posts that have kept Aelock up to date with all of the nefarious, terrible, and evil things going on in this goddamn universe.” Rhona was starting to rise now. Mac was getting what he wanted. He took some sadistic pleasure in grating on people — in picking fights just for the hell of it, it seemed.
Mac scoffed and shook his head, tossing his hands up. “A fucking spy — of course. We’re out to save the universe with someone who lies for a fucking living!”
“Mac!” I snapped, aware suddenly that my fists were clenched at my sides. “That’s enough.”
He looked at me and then at Alice, who was staring out of the window at the fleet ahead of us, inspecting them minutely.
Rhona sighed. “Look, MacAlister, we’re all here for the same reason. If you didn’t think that what we were doing was as important as we did, then you wouldn’t have come.”
“Getting a bullet in the back of the fucking head if we didn’t wasn’t much of a choice.” He seemed to be cooling off but his voice was still laced with bitterness.
“Be that as it may, you’re here, and we’re going through with this. Glaavus didn’t want our involvement known in this conflict, which is why he sent me — because I can pass for one of you.” She said it with a touch of scorn, but I let it slide. “I’ve played Free before — I know how they work, and I can get this done. I know the layouts of their ships — where to go, and what to do. We prepared for this, planned it all out while you were on Aelock. The surface is going to need less finesse and more brute strength. What you’re going to find down there I’m not sure — but the armada is here, so it means there’s definitely something there. If it’s an old foundry, or knowledge store, I don’t know. I’ll run some scans, see what we find, but the longer we stand around talking about this, the longer they’ll have to detect us, or to do whatever they came back here for, and then, if they jump again — who knows where they’ll end up. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, their plans are changing. We need to strike, and we need to strike now.”
No one said anything for a few seconds, and then Alice broke the silence. “Okay. I think we can do this. We’ll make a stink on the surface, draw them in for a fight — you sure you can take down that destroyer?”
Rhona nodded. “I can. I’ll hit the station first, wipe the data, burn their system, and then slip across to the destroyer and do the same. Once it’s disabled, at least then we’ll have a decent shot at making it out of here. The smaller ships… We can deal with them as we go.”
“Slip aboard,” Mac mumbled, tsking. “Wipe their data… Burn their system. You can do that, too? What about their security systems, huh?”
“I’ll bypass them.”
“You say that like it’ll be a cinch. How is it, then, that you can—”
“For fuck sake, Mac!” Alice yelled. “It’s because they built the fucking things! Haven’t you been listening? They designed the ships, and the mech, and the stations that the Federation use! Fox stole that station, and that destroyer, too, probably, from us — so whether it’s Federation colors or not, it’ll still be the same ship.” She was on her feet now. The tension was building. “Come on. Let’s get ready — I can’t fight in this fucking monkey-suit, and my trigger finger is getting itchy.” She pulled at the Aelock garb we’d all been given and strode off toward the hold.
Mac cast Rhona another scornful look and then followed. Fish did the same, minus the look. He was stoic as ever, but I was grateful for that. He was like a gun — point and shoot. He didn’t care at who or what for, he just needed a direction and an objective and he was good to go. I met his eye as he passed and nodded to him. He returned it and then went after Mac like it was just another day at the office.
I let out a long sigh and slumped into the chair next t
o Rhona. “You really think it’ll be that easy?”
“Nothing about this will be easy, but we don’t have much of a choice. Glaavus was speaking the truth about our people — blissfully unaware of what we do to keep things as they are. Sure, we could have raised a force and stepped in. We’re not fighters, but there are enough among us who can handle ourselves.”
“Like you?”
“Like me — not like me. We’re as varied as you are. But, if the Federation were to find out about our involvement, as they would eventually… It was never our intention to kill every person here — it would be the simpler answer, but we don’t hold life in such low regard — biologs or not.” She fired me a half smile. “If we attacked them and did this by brute strength alone, then our involvement would be widely known, and that would break the treaty with the Federation. We can’t risk war finding its way to Aelock. Our hands are tied.”
“And here we are.”
“You came, miraculously, at the right time. We never rely on biologs for anything — you cannot be trusted.”
“But needs must?”
She smiled again. “But needs must. The Free will be on alert, but they’ll be looking out for the Federation. Slipping aboard the station will be the easiest part. Once their system is breached, then things will get tough. If that happens, and I don’t succeed, then we will have to revert to alternative options. They don’t bear thinking about right now, but I want you to be ready if it goes that way. To lose all that life would be heinous, but the fate of the universe is more important.”
“What’re you going to do, blow the whole thing up?” I laughed, but she didn’t. “Well shit.” I sighed. “I’d better go and get ready then.”
14
The Raptor was definitely better equipped than our Tilt-wing. For a start, it was much, much faster.
There was only one spot on the whole planet that had any activity at all on it. The crust was broken and scarred and huge pools of magma welled into rivers of molten rock, flowing down over the blackened earth. Plumes of smoke billowed out of the ground and hung low and thick in the air.