Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
When Arin finally escaped the Senate Chambers, the sun was throwing long shadows across the forecourt. Her hand flew to her pocket, but then she remembered she hadn’t smoked Juvi in years. Smoking had been prohibited on Fortuna Tau, helping her to finally break the addiction.
Stupid old habits. They always resurfaced when she was stressed.
Arin tore off her formal navy blue jacket, which felt tight and constricting, and took a deep breath. She’d forgotten how sweet the salty sea air smelled. It refreshed and calmed her as she strode across the plaza, making her way towards the hoverail station.
Nova Terra hadn’t changed since she’d last been here.
It was the same old sterile, pristine, boring, soulless place.
It was a world in a bubble, far removed from the harsh realities of the Universe.
Its only saving grace was the fact that the azure ocean surrounded it on all sides, blessing it with the perfect balmy tropical climate.
On this tiny island, decisions were made that determined the fate of the human race.
As she rode the escalator up to the platform, Arin became painfully aware of the discreet electronic eyes that watched her from every angle.
Constant surveillance was a Federation thing; everyone who lived here accepted the fact that their public movements were watched and monitored, but it was still an unnerving feeling.
The South train pulled up as she approached the departure point. It was a sleek, noiseless vehicle made up of five cars. It followed a trackless route through the Diplomatic Zone and out to the southern tip of the island, where the peacekeeper barracks were situated.
That niggling feeling that she was being watched and followed; it never went away.
Arin took her seat and stared through the floor-to-ceiling windows as they sped away from the station, leaving the Diplomatic Zone behind. The hovertrain carved a route along artificial concrete cliffs, and out to one side, the glittering ocean stretched beyond the horizon, azure and endless.
By the time they reached the barracks, there were only military personnel left on the train. Some were in uniform, while others just had that look. They all got it after a while; there was a certain hardness about them that told of sleepless nights and intimate brushes with death.
A faint buzz resonated through the cabin as they glided through the security checkpoint. That strange sensation told Arin their biological signatures were being logged as they passed onto the base.
The hovertrain pulled into its final stop, Nova Terra South, the entry point to the largest peacekeeper barracks in the Southern Hemisphere. As Arin stepped off the train, she found herself flanked on both sides by a couple of government types in suits.
They stared at her for a moment, studying her through dark datalenses. The man was short and stout, with a thick, jowly neck and thinning blond hair. The woman towered over him, tall and angular, her dark hair cut into a neat bob.
“Can I help you?” Arin asked coldly as the hovertrain pulled away, creating a sucking vortex of wind that momentarily ruffled their clothes.
“Sergeant Varga,” the woman said, as tiny lights flickered across her datalenses.
No doubt they had access to every single bit of data the Federation had on her, from her shoe size to her favorite brand and the ice-cream flavor she liked.
Incidentally, that was pistachio choc-chip.
“We are from the Department of Planetary Security. Nonhuman Affairs. We need to speak with you.”
“I gathered that,” Arin said dryly as she started to walk. Now and then, she’d see a familiar face and offer a sharp nod in greeting. She passed out of the station with the two officials trailing behind her, their synthetic shoes echoing loudly on the pavement.
“It would be best if we spoke somewhere private,” the man added as they reached a black bot-car with darkly tinted windows. The doors slid open as they approached, and he gestured inside. “Let’s ride.”
Arin stopped dead in her tracks. “You haven’t even identified yourselves properly, and you expect me to just ‘hop in’? How do I know you are who you say you are?”
The woman pulled out a datapad. “Our names aren’t important, but for convenience, you can call us E1 and E2.
We have the highest level of clearance. Clearances beyond clearances.
You have no idea. We have informed your CO, and he’s aware.
Even your mother’s aware.” She recited the words in a tired monotone, as if she’d delivered the same speech a hundred times before. “See for yourself.”
She activated the datapad’s holographic display, and two biological signatures appeared. Arin held her link-band up to the signatures to verify them. It was no surprise that they checked out.
One was from her Commanding Officer on Earth, Major Singh. The other was a very familiar, very irritating bio-sig.
It belonged to her mother, General Alison Varga.
Arin stiffened. Not many knew that she and the general were related. Most people, including the squad under her command, thought their common surnames were just a coincidence, and she preferred to let them think that.
Orders were orders. Arin sighed and nodded. “Fine.” She slid into the car. That was the problem with returning to Earth. Everyone wanted a piece of her. She hadn’t made contact with her family since she’d arrived, but of course, her mother knew she was on the ground.
Not that her mother was anywhere near Earth right now, but the general, bless her soul, always seemed to know what was going on, even if she couldn’t summon the balls to break fucking protocol and get her own daughter off a doomed mineral freighter.
That was why Arin preferred the relative freedom of space, even if it meant sharing a freighter with a group of rather scary and very dangerous aliens.
There was less drama in space.
She almost missed Rykal’s easygoing nature. It sounded stupid, but when he wasn’t killing Xargek, threatening humans, scaring the living shit out of them, or blatantly pursuing her, he was rather easy to get along with.
He was chillingly, effortlessly lethal, and at the same time, rather nice.
Nice looking, too, in an unearthly kind of way. He was the prettiest one out of all of the Kordolian warriors, and that was no mean feat. They were all so exotic looking, like characters out of some dark fairytale, but Rykal was downright ethereal.
Looks could be so deceiving.
As the bot-car pulled away from the curb, she stared back at the two agents, wishing she were back on the Hendrix II, as crazy as that seemed.
“So,” she leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees, her ceremonial jacket draped across her lap, “what do you nameless folks want to know, and what exactly do you want me to do?”
The woman leaned forward as the man sat back in his seat, watching her through his datalenses. He was probably recording their conversation.
The woman removed her datalenses, revealing cold grey eyes.
These two were just like the agents Arin remembered from her childhood.
They had the demeanor of people who dealt so deeply in secrets and lies that they lived in a distorted version of reality.
As a child, she remembered sneaking out of her room late at night to eavesdrop on conversations she hadn’t understood.
They had always visited her mother late at night, interrupting her as she’d pored over countless classified documents, the smell of Juvi and strong black coffee lingering in the air.
And now, they’d come after her.
“Somehow, you’ve become a diplomatic asset, Sergeant Varga. That’s what we’ve learned from our sources.”
Arin raised an eyebrow, waiting for further explanation.
“We all know that war and conflict can create unlikely challenges, pushing us into roles and responsibilities we never thought we’d have to assume.”
Do you really know that, lady? She didn’t like the sound of that. Where were they going with this?
“Our sources tell us that you’ve become something of a bridge.”
“A bridge?” Was this some sort of coded intelligence-speak?
“Major Dimitriou’s death on Fortuna Tau was regrettable. Our sources inform us that out of all the sergeants on the freighter, you’ve been the one to assume the most responsibility in his absence.”
Arin sighed. The major had been one of the first to fall victim to the Xargek on Fortuna Tau, leaving the peacekeepers without an off-planet CO. “I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary,” she shrugged. “Just what was necessary at the time.”
“You’ve been able to negotiate with the Kordolians, and you’ve successfully been involved in a large-scale emergency evacuation. Now, they’ve sent you to Earth as part of the negotiation process. For whatever reason, the Kordolians seem to be able to work with you. They trust you.”
“I did what anyone else in my situation would have done.” Arin didn’t think she’d done anything special.
She’d just been in the right place at the right time, and for some reason, the Kordolians, particularly Rykal, had insisted she be the one to travel to Earth to convey their demands.
The deal was simple: allow the Kordolians safe passage to where the Xargek were, guarantee them impunity on Earth, and they would let the humans on the Hendrix II go.
That deal was proving very difficult for the humans to accept, because like half of the known Universe, they didn’t trust the Kordolians one little bit.
“Earth is facing a major crisis, Sergeant. The appearance of Kordolians and Xargek in our airspace is ominous. We need to make critical decisions fast, but the wrong decision could result in the loss of lives. That’s why we need you.”
“You need me,” Arin stated flatly. “For what?”
“In the next few days, it’s highly likely that the Senate will agree on a course of action.
We’ve obtained footage from Fortuna Tau’s datafeed, and we’ve seen what the Kordolians are capable of.
We need them to exterminate the Xargek, and right now, that seems to be their main objective anyway.
” The woman’s lips curved into a mirthless smile.
“But we need more information. What are their weaknesses? What are their true plans? Is Earth in their sights as a potential takeover planet? We need you to continue to work with them, but at the same time, you will be gathering information for us.”
“So you want me to be a spy,” Arin said dryly.
“It’s not a request, Sergeant. It’s an order, from the highest levels of the Federation.”
“We need you to observe them and report back to us.” For the first time, the man spoke, his voice low and monotonous.
He didn’t remove his datalenses. “Get close to them. If you can get us a bio-sample of their DNA, even better. We’re going to use them to get rid of the Xargek, and then we’re going to figure out how to get rid of them.
In the long run, they’re nothing but a threat to us. ”
“Uh,” Arin opened her mouth, thought twice, and closed it again. One didn’t just ‘get rid’ of Kordolians. Or Xargek, for that matter. Those weird, terrifying insectoid aliens had survived a nuclear explosion in the vacuum of space.
Now they were on Earth, and if what Rykal had told her was true, they had the capacity to multiply like fucking cockroaches.
“We’ll set you up with an undetectable communication node for when you’re on Earth, and a supercode for the satellite line on the freighter,” the woman said.
“There’s some basic intelligence training you’ll have to do before you depart.
I’ll give you a DNA collection kit as well.
We’ll take anything you can get. Blood, hair, even skin cells.
For now, you’re what we call a bridge, but soon you’ll be one of our most valuable assets. ”
Arin didn’t want to be an asset. She couldn’t think of anything worse. But orders were orders, and she was a peacekeeper, first and foremost.
“I won’t do anything that puts my people at risk, and I won’t do anything shady,” she declared as the bot-car slowed. They had reached the block where her quarters were located. “I’m going to get them off that freighter at all costs.”
Rykal and the other Kordolians had told her that if the Federation allowed them smooth passage to Earth so they could hunt the Xargek, her people would be freed and returned to Earth.
She wondered whether Kordolians were as good at keeping promises as they were at killing.
“I’m sure you haven’t forgotten the penalty for insubordination, Sergeant.
” The female agent put on her datalenses as the car’s door slid open.
She dismissed Arin with a small tilt of her chin.
“We know everything about your military history, Varga. Just make sure you do as we say, or you’ll end up spending the next decade assigned to an even more remote mining station. ”
Arin didn’t bother to tell the agents that she liked being in space.