Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
“ T hree minutes until we exit jump-space, Captain.”
“Thanks, Qek.” Elias paused with his finger over the general comm. He’d been about to announce the maneuver to the rest of the ship. Habit, and unnecessary when the only other crew member was already strapped into the seat across from him.
Perhaps sensing his moment of hesitation, Nessa reached across the narrow bridge and gripped his hand. “We’ll find them.”
He flashed her a quick smile. “Yes, we will. Hey, Qek, do you need someone at the copilot’s console?”
“Only if we meet a hostile reception in the Leonis System. Even then, it would depend on whether we face the threat of immediate destruction or have time to formulate a plan and implement evasive maneuvers.”
“Let’s go with no.” And hope. Possibly pray.
The transition from j-space to regular space was mercifully brief, leaving his gut wondering which body it belonged to, as always.
Like most remote, unchartered systems, Leonis had a deserted and unassuming feel. No jump queue, no glittering rings of station modules and docks. No ex-orbital relay point with a timely message packet. Nothing. They had emerged near the second planet of the second sun, the coordinates taken from Fix’s last communication. Near being a relative term. They were well outside the planet’s exosphere and the distance gave a good view of the visible side of the near-Earth-sized orb. It looked as if someone had sprinkled the surface with purple dust and set it spinning, then somehow trapped the dust inside a field so that it swirled forever through the upper atmosphere. Were Fix and Zed down there? If they were, the question of their lack of comms had been answered.
Think positive.
“I am detecting no satellites on this side of 83 Leonis Bb,” Qek reported. “Initial scans indicate the upper atmosphere is made up of…”
Elias tuned out Qek’s chemical analysis. He didn’t need to know what the purple dust was to understand what it meant. “Any other ship signatures?”
“Not as yet.”
If the Apex Rapere was in orbit, they’d have heard from them—if not over the past week, then as soon as they exited j-space. Comms had been silent. Elias didn’t expect to find Fix and Zed’s ship above the planet, however, and he hoped not to find a debris field. He did hope to see the Blythe .
They’d been in touch with Marnie and Ryan via jazer for much of the trip, reporting back and forth. Suspended in j-space, the Chaos didn’t have much news to share, but Elias had wanted regular updates from the asteroid, just in case the Blythe had decided to visit the source rather than return home. Marnie and Ryan hadn’t seen a soul. It was possible the Blythe was still en route from an illogical direction. But Elias had an idea the asteroid’s relative proximity to Petrel had always been coincidental.
“Should I approach the planet so we may start dropping remote satellites?”
Qek had retooled a couple of their gas field probes to act as small communications relays. If Zed and Fixer were on the planet surface, the relays would form a net helping to boost any signal through the upper atmosphere.
“Yeah, let’s do it. The sooner we get back in touch with Fix and Zed, the better.”
“Plotting a course.”
Nessa unbuckled her harness and rose from her seat. “I’m going to go sit with the satellites until we’re ready to start cycling them through the auxiliary ’lock.”
Launching them by any other means would have required retrofitted apparatuses similar to a missile tube. Fixer could have figured something out. Ryan and Marnie had made suggestions and Qek had been willing to try her hand at the puzzle, but in the end they decided cycling the remotes through the auxiliary airlock was the easiest and most cost-effective solution. And Elias didn’t like the idea of attaching anything resembling a weapon to his ship. He was a peaceful trader. Mostly.
“I’ll be there soon,” he said. “Just going to keep an eye on these scans with Qek for a while.”
Elias unbuckled his own harness, dropped a kiss to Nessa’s cheek and slid into the copilot’s chair. He should have been sitting here all along. Ten minutes later, they had established the fact Leonis Bb had three moons. Qek had pinged two with no result. The third was still some distance away. They’d found no satellites, no debris and no residual ship signatures. They had one quadrant left to scan.
“We’ve got the right system, haven’t we?” Elias asked.
“Yes, though I understand your question. I have confirmed the source of Fixer and Zander’s last message twice. The coordinates are accurate. They were here.”
“Can we get closer to the planet?”
“We need to drop the remotes into a geostationary orbit at forty thousand kilometers. Any closer and our satellites will fall into the atmosphere.”
“But what about us? Can we go in for a closer look? Scan the surface of the planet?”
“I estimate we can get as close as fifteen thousand kilometers.”
A soft chime sounded and one corner of the navigational map lit up. “What’s that?”
Qek’s fingers flew across the console. “I am not sure. It is at the very edge of our sensor range.” The ping lit up the console again and Qek adjusted their course. “I believe it is another ship.”
“How long until you can identify it?”
“Running scans now. It is a small craft, probably not military.”
So it could be the Apex Rapere , the Blythe or someone else. The console flashed and a second signature appeared next to the first.
“Is that a second ship?”
“It appears so.”
“Can we go any faster?”
“I recommend approaching with caution, Captain.”
Bugger caution. To Elias’s mind, the two ships could only be the Blythe and the Apex Rapere .
“I have identified the signatures. One is a Guardian ship. The second is the Blythe .”
The Guardians? What were they doing here?
A wave of unquantified energy passed through the Chaos , toying with his insides in an unsettling manner. Elias should have been used to the way the Guardians greeted all denizens of the galaxy by now. They scanned first, spoke second. The comms panel lit up.
“Human vessel Chaos . Please disengage all engines and reduce power to all systems.”
It was nice to be asked for once. The Guardians often followed up a scan with a hard freeze on all systems, rendering a vessel all but dead in space. But being asked didn’t make Elias any more inclined to follow the request.
Qek beat him to the comms. “Guardians, this is the Chaos . Message received. Proceeding to disengage and shut down as requested.”
Elias shot Qek a glare. Felt wrong, but he was the captain of this tub, damn it. “Are we in comms range of the Blythe ?”
“Yes, but?—”
Elias’s wallet lit up, ship’s channel. Nessa’s voice floated through. “Was that a Guardian scan?”
“Yeah, hold on a second, Ness.” Elias touched the console. “ Blythe , this is Elias Idowu, Captain of the Chaos . I demand the return of my data and information on the whereabouts of the Apex Rapere .”
Another wave of energy passed through the Chaos . The bridge went dark, the ship fell silent and the small lift against his restraint—accompanied by another squelch of his poor gut—informed him they had no gravity.
“ Human vessel Chaos , you have been disabled. This is your only warning .”
Warning?
Qek woke her wallet display and pulled up a diagnostic holo. “We have life support and…life support.”
“Nice of them to leave us with air. What the fuck is this all about? Why are the Guardians issuing us warnings?”
Qek opened a second holo display. “We are just close enough for me to continue tracking the two signatures. I do not recommend trying to contact the Blythe again, however. In fact I do not recommend any action other than breathing.”
Nessa arrived on the bridge a moment later, floating, bulky medical wallet held out in front of her. “Did we do something the Guardians didn’t like?”
“I don’t know. Here—” he gestured to the seat behind him “—get strapped in. Qek, can we get power to a forward view screen?”
While Nessa pulled herself back down into her seat, Qek closed her wallet, folded it and fitted it into a slot beneath the main panel. A new holo display opened, this one larger but still limited to wallet functions. Qek opened a series of small displays and fiddled, her fingers moving too quickly for Elias to follow. A moment later, the larger display fizzed, popped and became a replacement forward view screen.
“The power signature is extremely low. The Guardians should consider it negligible,” she reported, her tone just a little smug. Pulling one over on the Guardians was dangerous, possibly stupid, and something to be proud of.
With another series of commands, Qek enhanced the display. Two ships came into view. From this distance, Elias couldn’t tell one from the other. As they watched, one of the ships seemed to shimmer and expand. Then it was gone. Elias blinked at the screen, trying to make sense of the smudge where the second ship had been a second ago.
“Did one of the ships just leave?” Nessa asked.
“No. That is a debris field.” Qek’s face lost its last wrinkle. “The Blythe was just destroyed.”
Zed pounded around stumpy trees and dodged medium-sized boulders, Flick at his side. His world narrowed to the jolt of his feet on the ground, the burn in his lungs, the sting of branches he couldn’t avoid. He wasn’t moving as fast as he normally would, even without the Zone—his body felt sluggish, slow to respond. Getting caught by the assholes hunting them would be almost a relief. At least they could stop running.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind when something—someone—slammed into him. Zed flew off his feet and thundered to the ground, skidding along the rocks. They bit into his skin, but he couldn’t spare a thought to wonder how badly the fall had torn him up. Flick was shouting—then grunting in exertion, sounds of fighting Zed recognized as he struggled to draw air back into his lungs.
Someone pounced on him—the same person who’d bodychecked him? Zed blocked a punch to his head, then another. The blows were coming faster than they should. Harder. Had to be one of Preston’s soldiers.
Fuck.
“You little prick!” The pain-filled shout echoed through the forest. Not from the guy hitting Zed—from farther away.
“Preston wants him alive and intact.”
Another hit rattled Zed’s brain, stealing whatever response the first guy might have made.
“Zed! Let me go, you fuckers—” Flick’s shout was cut off with a garbled groan.
“Stunned?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Zed dropped into the Zone and phase-shifted out from under the asshole hitting him. He rolled sideways and pushed to his feet, adrenaline and the Zone evening out his breathing, making his vision clear, keeping everything in perspective. The pain and fatigue he’d been feeling drained away—not erased from existence but something he could ignore. Something he would ignore, until his body ceased to work.
Review later.
He jumped at his attacker, one of the ex-AEF guys he’d trained the day before. Fists, arms, elbows, knees, feet—Zed used all of them as he fought to subdue him. The asshole might be well rested and uninjured, but Zed had a wealth of experience on his side. And if eight years of war had taught him anything, it was that experience won over enthusiasm any day.
“Zanderanatolius.”
The whisper in his mind distracted Zed long enough for the asshole to get in a good hit to his jaw. Zed stepped back, shaking his head, and phase-shifted to buy himself a second. The ex-AEF guy didn’t follow, whether it was because he wasn’t confident in it or he didn’t realize he could intercept him, Zed didn’t know.
“Zanderanatolius.”
“Fighting,” he managed to send back. Part of him wanted to know how the Guardians had conquered the planet’s atmosphere. The rest of him was consumed with his battle.
He shifted back into the regular reality behind his attacker and drove his elbow between the guy’s shoulder blades.
“ZANDERANATOLIUS.”
Zed staggered sideways at the force of the mental communication. Something warm seeped over his upper lip—he knew before he’d even swiped a hand over it that it was blood. His attacker hadn’t struck him there, so it was a Guardians-induced nosebleed.
Awesome.
The asshole dove for Zed, but Zed rolled sideways—no phase-shifting this time, he could feel the edges of his ability fraying there—and spun to sling an arm around the guy’s neck. He squeezed and held on, wrapping his legs around the guy as he struggled. The Zone was starting to sputter, but enough of it remained to give Zed the focus he needed, the determination not to let go. The asshole’s struggles grew weaker, then stopped. Zed held on for a moment longer, then let the body drop.
He cast a look around, but there was no one else. Had Preston thought one guy would be enough to subdue him? Maybe the others were guarding her prize: Flick.
“I’m here,” he said, grabbing the Zone tighter. He needed the heightened senses for just a little longer. Closing his eyes, he listened, turning ever so slowly in a circle, trying to pinpoint the direction the other assholes had taken Flick.
“He stabbed me with his fucking fingers!”
“I told you to grab that arm first.”
Got it. Zed reached into his pocket to grab the stunner, only to find it gone. Where? He didn’t have time to waste on a search. A gun lay beside the body at his feet, but a quick check confirmed it was bio-locked and useless. He started after the faint voices.
“An army of Zanderanatolius is not permitted.” The anger that had flared from the Guardians earlier was now simmering, an uncomfortable warmth, but controlled. Beneath it…Was that fear? Jesus Christ, if the Guardians were afraid…
Zed compartmentalized that worry for later review. “It’s a small group. Not all of humanity wants this.”
“It will not be tolerated.”
That proclamation…sounded very final. “What do you want me to do?”
“They must be destroyed.”
Destroyed? As in…murder?
Zed shoved the thoughts aside as he caught up to Flick and his two guards. One of them—another of the big ex-AEF guys—had Flick slung over his shoulder, limp and unresponsive. Even the Zone couldn’t fully hold back the rage Zed felt at the sight. He jumped the guy, slamming his foot into the back of his knee. The asshole stumbled forward and Flick slid from his shoulder to the ground.
The surprise didn’t give Zed the advantage for long. In an instant, the second guard—one of the station rats who could Zone—leaped on his back, trying to get a purchase around his neck. The first guy climbed to his feet, murder in his eyes.
Footsteps presaged new arrivals on the scene. Zed caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of his eye as he scrabbled at the guy hanging off his neck. He recognized Andy and the colonists’ leader, Todd. They had guns.
Goddamn it.
He stopped fighting. The asshole dropped to the ground—then crashed his foot into the back of Zed’s knee. With a grunt, Zed collapsed to his knees.
“Put your hands where I can see them,” the ex-AEF guy growled. Zed noticed he was favoring his side, his black SFT darker in one spot.
Zed raised his hands to his head. Was this it? No—maybe he could wait until Andy got closer, grab the gun. He wouldn’t go down like this. A familiar wash of energy passed through his skin. Eyes widened and postures stiffened as everyone in the clearing felt the intimate brush of a Guardian scan. Zed barely had time to convince his balls that outside was better than in before two simultaneous shots rang out. Both of Preston’s soldiers toppled, dead before they hit the ground. Zed stared at the body of the ex-AEF guy for a moment, then looked up at Todd.
“Kind of tired of these fuckers squatting in my colony,” he said gruffly. “But tickling my gonads with some weird scan is just the withered end.” He stepped forward and offered Zed a hand.
“Zanderanatolius. We have confirmed the presence of the unsanctioned army.”
Yeah, that explained the scan.
Zed grabbed Todd’s hand and levered himself up. He stood quietly for a moment before heading over to check on Flick. His mind raced even as he verified that Flick’s breathing and pulse were steady and strong.
He couldn’t say no to the Guardians. Hell, he didn’t even disagree with them. Meeting in battle was one thing, but premeditating the murder of Preston’s soldiers made his stomach churn.
“Son? You all right?”
Zed brushed his fingers over Flick’s cheek and turned back to Todd. “I’m fine. Thank you for helping.”
“Any clue what Preston’s up to?” Todd shifted, adjusting his balls.
“That scan wasn’t Preston. The Guardians are in orbit.”
Andy’s brows jerked upward. “The Guardians? You mean, the Guardians?”
“You think they’re gonna call someone else the Guardians, boy?” Todd scoffed. “Sounds like you’ve got some more stories to tell. C’mon. I’ve got a place another couple of kilometers down the ravine. Your friend is going to need a while, anyway.”
Zed bent down to pick up Flick, but Andy waved him off. “You look like you’re about set to keel over. I’ve got him.” He handed Zed his laser carbine and hefted Flick over his shoulder with a grunt.
“Right. Let’s get walking,” Todd said. “And you can fill in some blanks, yeah?”
Zed wasn’t entirely sure he could trust Andy and Todd—but they’d trusted him with a weapon, and right now, he didn’t have much of a choice. He heaved in a breath and started talking.
Paradise seemed a little less like the fifteenth circle of hell after a shower, food not shaped into tasteless gray cubes, and a surprisingly decent cup of coffee. Blowing steam across the top of the delicious brew, Felix surveyed the interior of the cabin. Zed had probably already marked every possible ingress and egress, defensible positions and hidey holes. Wouldn’t have taken him long. The cabin was five meters square. One entrance, one exit. Only place to hide would be under the lower of the two bunks hanging from the side wall, or in the waste/wash cubby tucked into the corner at their end. The galley folded out of storage along the rear wall, and the rest of the space was given over to a table with four chairs and a depressed-looking sofa. It was like every other single-family prefab Felix had ever seen—except it was alone. Colonies usually needed more than two genetic samples to thrive.
Felix regarded Todd again. The man didn’t look to have reached his first century yet, which made him less than middle aged in human terms. A healthy man could live more than a hundred and fifty years with all the proper treatments. The idea of living that long wore Felix out, but he’d had an active couple of decades. Todd was probably around eighty.
“This wasn’t supposed to be a colony, was it?” Felix said.
Todd’s brows lifted and Andy looked questioningly at the older man. Zed gave no reaction at all, which meant he’d already figured it out.
Brows lowering and crooking together, Todd took a moment to prepare his thoughts before answering. Then he shook his head, dipped his chin. “No.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Zed said.
Todd gestured at the galley. “Sure you don’t want some coffee? This might take a while.”
Did they have a while? The Guardians were agitated. Zed hadn’t shared a lot of detail regarding his brief communication with them, but having the peacekeepers of the galaxy upset meant something was going to happen. Had to happen. What was the question.
Andy shifted uncomfortably, then got up to help himself to more coffee. Felix tracked his movement but didn’t pay him much mind. Todd had started talking.
“When you both first showed up, I figured you were something like me. Men who’d served, or done their time as I like to say, and were worn out. I figured maybe you’d heard of Paradise. There’s word out, if you know where to listen.”
Served? Todd was AEF?
As if he’d heard the question, Todd answered, “Sergeant Hendrick Todd, not reporting for duty.”
Felix felt his mouth drop open. “You’re a deserter.”
“In simplest terms, yeah.”
“How would you describe yourself in more complex terms?” Zed’s voice had an edge to it and his posture had changed.
“Tired, defeated, too old for this body but too young to die, suffering from an unknown number of undiagnosed psychoses, and sick to fucking death of looking at the world through a weapon sight. Sick of seeing people die, my friends, my family, the men and women I served with. Sick of feeling like a piece of trash, or worse—flotsam. A byproduct of my environment that’s destined to be tossed against the shore over and over again. Never properly recycled.”
Felix glanced over at Andy, who stood by the open kitchen cubby, hip braced against the counter, fresh cup of coffee in hand. “What about you?”
“Lost my home to the Human-Stin War.” Hence his attachment to Paradise. “I suppose I coulda tried another station, another colony, but the stin were tearing shit down as fast as we could build it. When the AEF weren’t preemptively leveling stuff to make a new battlefield.”
“That only happened once,” Zed growled. “And we evacuated all the colonists we could before…” He shook his head. “We don’t have time to debate the ins and outs of the war, or the AEF.”
“Not enough time in the world for that,” Felix said. A small part of him wanted to spit over his shoulder toward the floor. Show his disdain for something. But the greater part was a whorl of confusion. He held little love for the AEF, but like most former soldiers, had even less empathy for deserters. It could have been his back Todd left unguarded.
Then again, he’d been happy enough to accept his medical discharge, hadn’t he? Regardless of the terms. And if he hadn’t been discharged, he’d probably have found a way to get mustered out. He’d been broken too thoroughly to get back in the fight. So…he did understand.
Todd took a sip from his cup and set it back on the table, right into the faint ring permanently staining the surface. “I came out here alone. Fully expected to die alone too. I brought enough stuff to make sure that happened later rather than sooner, though. This prefab, enough dehydrated crap and substance to last me a hundred years, water…” He waved vaguely. “Bought one of those standard colony-in-a-box kits, right?”
Felix had seen them listed. The idea of buying ten pallets of everything someone thought he might need to see out twenty years or more in a remote location appealed from time to time.
“I was here for six months before my first neighbor showed up. Not AEF, just someone else running from the war. I wasn’t too worried. This place is far enough off the map it’d take determination to get here, plus some serious capital. I figured anyone who made the journey and survived the atmospheric entry was welcome. It’s a big planet.
“Our third colonial was the one who wanted to see this place populated and chartered. She arrived with a horde of kids, all with heads stuffed with some whacked-out religion. Thankfully, the heat sent her packing before she could try to convert us. We weren’t so lucky with the next group, but they arrived with a shit ton of their own equipment. Prefabs and the like. Eventually we got to seeing eye to eye.” Todd aimed a smile at Andy. “Some good folks mixed in with them.”
Before Andy could pick up the story, Zed interrupted. “That’s what Preston has on you, isn’t it? A court martial for desertion.”
“Yup. She showed up about a year ago with a squadron of soldiers and enough heavy equipment to tunnel through the core of the planet if she wanted to. She already had surveys, though. Musta had her eye on this place for years.”
“So much for hidden corners of the galaxy,” Felix muttered.
He eyed Zed, wondering if he’d be able to discourage him from meting out his own form of justice. Zed’s posture remained rigid—no, coiled, as if he were a trap waiting to be sprung—but his expression was thoughtful. Maybe even sympathetic.
“She left shortly after that,” Todd continued. “Was gone for a couple of months, came back, left again. Always brought more of her recruits.”
“Did you know what she was up to?” Felix asked.
Andy opened his mouth and Todd shook his head. “We figured it out soon enough when she invited us to join in.”
Zed looked up at Andy. “You weren’t tempted?”
Andy’s back straightened. “Soldiering ain’t for everyone.”
“Plus she’s mad as a loper after it’s chewed through a battery pack.” Todd put both hands on the table, palms down, one to either side of his coffee cup. “So, you know Preston pretty well, huh? I’m hoping that conversation you all had in the mess the other night means you don’t like what she’s doing any more than I do.”
“You didn’t once think of packing up and leaving?” Felix asked.
“Packing up what? Craft that brought me out here is next to yours at the bottom of that sea.”
“You crashed?”
“Nearly everyone crashes on Paradise, son.”
“But surely some of the ships are salvageable.”
Todd smiled and it wasn’t a happy expression. “There were a couple you could call salvageable. Preston collected those and processed them for scrap. The one working ship we had? It’s in the crater. Preston requisitioned it soon after she arrived.”
“And no comms equipment?” Zed asked.
Todd shrugged. “Wasn’t never a concern. We came out here not to be found.”
“And got trapped by the same thing,” Felix said.
“Pretty much.” Todd leaned back in his chair. “So, the question is, what do you all plan to do about this setup?”
“Before we answer that, I’ve got one more question for you,” Felix said. “Why were you out there to intercept Preston’s soldiers?” Their rescue had been nothing short of miraculous and Felix didn’t believe in the divine.
“Once we heard you’d escaped, we figured the signal towers would be your first stop. What with you being a mechanic and all. We’ve been up there regular-like, keeping an eye out for you.” Todd glanced at Andy.
“So you knew the towers were up there.”
“Sure. But you caught the part about us not wanting to be found, right?”
“We have to shut it all down,” Zed said.
“If Felix can disable the field again?—”
“No, the whole program. Preston’s facilities, her soldiers, everything.”
Felix looked up from his half-empty cup of coffee. All of it? “How the fuck are we going to do that? We’ve got one stunner, two rifles—” he nodded toward Todd and Andy’s weapons stacked against the door “—and…that’s it. You’re good, Zed, but you’re not that good. Preston has a small army. A company of you. And she controls the two biggest assets on this rock—the comm towers and the only craft capable of leaving orbit.”
Even as he spoke, Felix started evaluating the problem, though. Rearranging the odds, stacking up the pros and cons, figuring their assets and counting them. Jiggering shit in his mind as any engineer might. If he could get his hands on enough power cells, ordnance wouldn’t necessarily be a problem. But the scope of the operation was beyond him—them—even if they could recruit from Todd’s colonists.
“I’m all for kicking her ass off my planet,” Todd said, “but your friend here is right. We got next to nothing against a super-powered mercenary outfit.”
Zed glanced over at Felix. “We’re going to have to think quick and smart then, because if we don’t take care of this situation, the Guardians will.”