Chapter 3 #2
Sensation flooded Kira as she slammed back into her body. Exhaustion pulled at her. It felt as if she’d run ten miles and then lifted three times her body weight.
Raider’s concerned face appeared over hers. “Kira? You back?”
Kira’s answer was a groan. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a space ship.”
She would know what she was talking about. She’d actually been hit with one before.
Raider took her arm to help her sit up. “You and Jin are testing my very last nerve. What the hell were you two thinking?”
“We weren’t. I think that’s the point.”
Kira reached over to set a hand on Jin’s arm, wincing as her muscles protested the movement.
To her relief, there were no further signs of seizure. It might be some time before he regained consciousness though.
“Easy,” Raider urged as Kira tried to push to her feet.
“There’s no time for that.”
Caius was a problem that wasn’t going away. She needed to figure out what was going on before people like Sariah decided to blame her for his crimes.
Aggravation showed on Raider’s face as he forced Kira back down. “I’m not telling my daughter that her favorite aunt and uncle got their brains scrambled just because you think you have to do everything.”
Grumbling, Kira relaxed then tensed as she focused on Isla. “You said something about them being impersonators earlier. How did you know?”
She’d probably already said but Kira hadn’t really been listening what with everything that was happening with Jin.
“Their armor was fake,” Isla answered.
“How could you tell?” Raider asked.
Isla frowned as she sorted through her thoughts. “The color wasn’t right.”
“The pattern of scales was also wrong,” her fellow oshota volunteered from the hallway.
Raider’s gaze met Kira’s. “The color of Caius’s armor seems off, doesn’t it?”
Kira nodded. “I was about to say the same thing.”
It was a minor detail but an important one. Oshota were known for their meticulousness. Lives depended on them.
“Roake’s armor is midnight blue,” Kira added softly.
The one Caius had worn was cobalt.
The shades weren’t very far off each other, but for a Tuann the difference was an ocean wide.
Sariah rolled her eyes as Isla hurried to examine the fallen body. “You’re grasping at straws and trying to redirect blame for this incident. Who cares what color his armor is?”
She should. Especially since Roake’s armor wasn’t the only thing these impersonators had faked.
“Would someone do this on purpose?” Kira asked, ignoring Sariah. “Wear the wrong synth armor?”
Dylan shook his head. “The color and design of your synth armor proclaims your allegiance. It can’t be changed once it’s set.
The process is closely guarded by Houses to prevent enemies from replicating the armor to try and infiltrate other Houses.
No oshota would ever make such a mistake.
They’d quite literally be taking their life in their hands. ”
Then why—
A loud harrumph interrupted Kira’s chain of thought as Isla yanked something free from the armor at Caius’s chest and held it up for them to see. “That’s why. This isn’t synth armor at all.”
The small patch of armor had been cut to look like a lu-ong scale and painted to resemble Roake’s colors. And not very well either.
The paint only covered the front side, leaving the metal on the edges and back visible. In true synth armor, you could cut all the way through one of the scales and not see a single variation in coloring.
Kira was betting that if Isla’s partner were to do the same to the dead oshota in the hallway he’d find them wearing cheap imitations. Easily seen through upon closer inspection.
Disgusted, Isla tossed the piece away like it was trash.
“Caius is an oshota, right? Why would he wear anything other than synth armor?” Raider asked.
“He wouldn’t,” Isla said.
Raider glanced at her. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. Caius wouldn’t be caught dead in that travesty.” Isla spun the severed head to face them. “But this isn’t Caius.”
A stranger stared at them. His features slack in death, eyes rolled into the back of his head and his mouth hanging open.
“Someone tell me I’m not crazy.” Raider had a spooked expression as he looked around at the rest of them. “That was Caius, right? I’m not the only one who saw that?”
“You’re not crazy,” Finn assured him.
Raider let out a shaky sigh of relief. “Oh, good.”
Kira squinted at the head, studying it closely. Although there was a certain resemblance around the man’s eyes and jaw line that could excuse a case of mistaken identity from a distance, that was where it ended. His forehead was broader than the real Caius’s and his nose narrower.
The most damning piece of evidence that proved that this wasn’t Roake’s military commander were the stranger’s rounded ears. This man was human. Though how he’d managed to pull off a deception of this magnitude was a very interesting question.
“How is this possible?” Amaris’s oshota asked.
Kira had a theory.
To confirm it, however, she needed to get closer.
She tapped Finn on the shoulder and pointed.
“No,” he told her firmly. “You’re injured.”
Exasperated, Kira rolled her eyes at him. “I’m fine now.”
The way he and Raider were acting, you’d think she was an invalid.
“You have blood coming out of your ears,” Finn said flatly.
Kira blinked and frowned. “No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.” Raider, anticipating her disbelief, nodded at the ears in question. “See for yourself.”
Hesitantly, Kira did as he suggested, surprised when she found something wet waiting there.
Blood, she realized a second later.
“Oh.”
That’s—less than ideal.
She sent a troubled frown in Jin’s direction as she absentmindedly rubbed the blood between her forefinger and thumb.
“Tell us what you’re looking for,” Finn ordered, distracting her as he walked over to the body.
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
Kira swiped at both ears with her sleeve, attempting to wipe away any evidence of red.
“Detailed, as always,” Raider said, squatting next to Finn.
The two fell silent as they scanned the torso and limbs. When they found nothing suspicious, they flipped the body onto its stomach to examine its back.
It didn’t take long before Finn and Raider spotted something protruding from a spot between the shoulder blades.
It looked like a spike, almost blending in with the synth armor around it.
“Is this what I think it is?” Raider asked, looking sick as Finn pulled the spike off the body. Tendrils with feelers and suckers came loose with it.
“If you think it’s a Haldeel mimic, then the answer is yes,” Kira answered, keeping her hands in her lap as Finn held it up for the rest of them to see.
Although it had Haldeel in its name, it wasn’t actually of Haldeel origin. Not entirely anyway.
The mimic was something the criminal underworld of the Consortium had reverse engineered for their own, less than upstanding, use. In actuality, it was a pretty interesting piece of tech. The mimic enabled its user to take on the appearance of their target.
Being of human design, there were limitations, of course. There needed to be a certain level of resemblance for the device to truly map the original’s features onto the copy’s.
Raider eyed the spike with fascination. “I’ve never actually seen one of these in real life.”
“That’s because they’re outlawed on all Consortium planets.”
The only way Raider would have run across one was if someone was using it to try to infiltrate any of the ships he’d served on. In that event, it was unlikely he would have realized unless the mimic got caught.
Raider slanted Kira a questioning glance. “You act like you’ve run across a mimic before.”
“You could say that.”
It wasn’t something she wanted to discuss in present company.
Raider was smart enough to know that. He left the subject alone as he took the Haldeel mimic from Finn to examine it closer.
“We need to inform Harlow of what happened,” Kira told Finn.
It made her uneasy to think of the doppelganger in their Nexus. Who knew what other places he’d visited before their interruption?
“I was thinking the same thing,” Finn said, already tapping on the forearm of his synth armor as he stepped away to contact Roake’s Overlord.
Kira listened with half an ear as Harlow’s deep voice filled the room.
“Speak.”
“We’ve identified the person who infiltrated the Nexus,” Finn murmured.
“Who is it?”
Finn glanced down at the doppelganger’s body with a grim expression. A House was defined by the loyalty of its members. Questioning that loyalty, even tangentially, would put a bad taste in the mouth of everyone involved.
“You need to find and lock down Caius.”
Stark silence echoed down the line.
“Do you have any idea what you’re suggesting?” Harlow rumbled in a carefully controlled voice.
Finn turned away from them and lowered his voice. “A few minutes ago, someone wearing Caius’s face attacked the emperor’s son.”
“Is the boy still alive?”
“Alive but unconscious. The lookalike is dead though.”
Kira heard her uncle’s relief in the quiet sigh that followed. An attack on Jin didn’t only place the entire House in jeopardy. Harlow knew Kira and Jin’s bond meant that any harm that befell him would affect her as well.
“I’ll shut down the House and have the oshota do a top to bottom search,” Harlow said.
“Have them check for others as well. Caius’s identity might not have been the only one stolen,” Kira instructed.
“Understood.”
Kira started to tell him to be careful when an explosion shook the palace. A percussive force punched her in the chest. At the same time the windows exploded inward.
Instinctively, she threw her body over Jin’s. A heavy weight landed on her back as Raider covered her, shielding them both.
The hum of ki lit Kira’s peripheral senses as Finn and the other oshota activated their shields.
“What the fuck was that?” Raider yelled as the boom repeated. This time it sounded like it was coming from further off.
Kira tapped Raider’s shoulder, signaling him to get off.