Traitor Read online

  “He probably meant the UECs trained us, made us into their soldiers and pilots and surgeons — it’s not that hard to figure out.”

  “He said ‘made,’ not trained.”

  “The ramblings of a confused addict, Hoepe.”

  “But what if it’s more?”

  Leove tore his empty ration container into little uniform strips. “The captain’s symptoms go beyond mere addiction. There is a neurologic disorder at work. A brain lesion of some nature.” A piece disappeared into his mouth and he chewed it roughly. “The captain could pose a danger, Hoepe. I know you believe he knows more about this situation than he lets on, but we need to investigate his condition further.”

  Hoepe forced his jaw to unclench. “I’m not the only one.”

  “Yes, yes. Sarrin and the engineer.”

  Sitting up, Hoepe opened his mouth to argue, but thought better of it. The same argument had passed back and forth between them in so many ways already. It wasn’t an argument, though, he told himself, they were brothers. They were identical brothers. They simply needed to get to know each other outside the stress of the infirmary, to ‘bond’. That was why Hoepe had chosen to take his sustenance break with his brother, even if Isuma was present.

  “You should consume the entirety of your meal,” he told her, noting her barely touched rations. “The ratio of protein and complex carbohydrates is suitably balanced to help you recover from your recent trauma.”

  She paled, the muscles in her throat constricting.

  “Are you nauseous?” Hoepe reached reflexively for the injector in his pocket, certain there was an anti-nauseant among the doses available.

  Isuma shook her head once, turning instead to Leove at the same time as she started to stand. “I think I’m going to go.”

  Leove stopped her, gently tugging back on her wrist, and to Hoepe’s surprise, Isuma sat back down. The long, narrow muscles in Leove’s forearm flexed as though he was squeezing her hand gently as it disappeared under the table, and he held her gaze for a second before turning to Hoepe. He cleared his throat, starting apprehensively. “Tell me how you came to be on Contyna with your men.”

  Hoepe sat back. The expression he recognized on Leove’s face told him he had inadvertently stepped into dangerous territory, but Isuma was a patient, one who had been through significant trauma, shock, and suffered not only burns but a concussion and memory loss. “I simply meant it would be beneficial for her recovery. It would be wise for her to obtain more rest.”

  Isuma’s mouth dropped. “I am going to go.” She bolted from the chair. “Sorry.” She bent, her lips brushing quickly against the side of Leove’s cheek, calling, “I’ll see you later,” as she exited the canteen.

  As the doors closed behind her, Leove turned to Hoepe with a scowl.

  “I was only looking out for her health, as should you be.”

  “I was pleased when you asked to come for supper with me, I thought you were interested in meeting Isuma.”

  “Isuma?”

  “I told you I had hoped it wouldn’t come between us.”

  “I came to be with you. The pilot needs rest, not further examination.”

  Leove blushed, a deep shade of crimson creeping up from the collar of his shirt that was so incredibly foreign Hoepe felt he was looking at a perfect stranger. “My dear brother, are we not human after all, at our very core, allowed these feelings and imperfections?”

  Hoepe could only stare, his mind so jumbled that it was nothing but a complete blank. Of course they were human. He had imperfections, he had been blatantly reminded of that every time a child had died in his care. But Leove was talking of something entirely different.

  “We were cell neighbours when we were held on Junk,” he started to explain. “We formed a friendship, supported each other through difficult times. She’s very special to me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Have you ever been in love, brother?” His brother’s face had gone pink.

  The question startled him. “Love?”

  “Yes.”

  He frowned. No, of course not. There had never been time. As long as he could remember, he had been saving lives. Where would he have learned about love, anyhow? It wasn’t a medical condition, wasn’t in the textbooks. You learned about love from the people around you, from your friends, your family. He scowled.

  Of course, Leove knew what love was, he had known their parents. Spoken with them, treated them, while Hoepe had been alone. Another rift tore open in his heart.

  “What is it, brother?” Leove asked, his voice laced with an artificial concern. His brother loved Isuma. And Isuma could feel love too. How was Hoepe ever to compete with that?

  “You” — he stumbled on the word — “love her?”

  A silly grin passed over this face, so foreign that it was nearly repulsive. “I believe I’m starting to, yes.”

  Hoepe frowned. “Then perhaps we are too different after all.”

  The expression on Leove’s face softened and his arm reached across the table. “Of course we are different.”

  Something shattered within Hoepe, like a physical deflating followed by a million shards of sharp glass probing into every organ. When he had found Leove, he knew it was the thing he had always been longing for, the piece of him that he had always been missing. Now his brother sat in front of him, as distant as though they had never met at all. Or met again, as Leove remembered it.

  “There you are.” The harsh voice, followed by the closing of the canteen doors and the short Augment racing towards them, snapped Hoepe out of his reverie. A dozen Augments trailed behind Rami. “The shuttle wasn’t an accident, and I have the evidence to prove it.” He slapped a handful of wires and a large circuitry chip on the table in front of them, knocking Hoepe’s rations over so the purulent gravy splashed across his pants.

  “Rami!” Grant shouted, pushing through the Augments in pursuit.

  “I found this in the shuttle bay.” Rami pointed to the circuit board.

  Hoepe stared at the components. “This means absolutely nothing to me.”

  “It interrupted the position signals the shuttle uses to land, and provided enough of a feedback that the navigation controls in the shuttle exploded. We’re lucky the explosion didn’t rip the hangar apart or there would be no sealing it, and we would all be gasping for air right now.”

  Hoepe gulped. “It must have been an accident. Someone making an error with the wiring, like the convertors?” He looked to Grant.

  Grant sighed and shook his head. “It’s not likely. The work is detailed, there are too many crossed circuits for it have been an accident.”

  “Who would have this kind of knowledge?” asked Leove.

  Rami looked pointedly at Grant.

  “You think I did it?” Grant said.

  “I don’t think you did it, per se. You said you don’t know when they’re controlling your mind.”

  “I keep telling you, it wasn’t me. And it wasn’t anyone controlling my mind either.”

  “We can’t ignore the possibility. You know more about demolitions than anyone on this ship.”

  Grant crossed his arms. “Apparently not. It wouldn’t have even occurred to me to use the auto-landing controls to overload the shuttle. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” The last of Grant’s words came out slowly as he repeated the now too familiar phrase.

  “Then it could have only been one other person,” Rami said. “The one you always say you’ve never seen anything like.” He turned abruptly, his dozen Augments following him out of the canteen.

  “Rami!” Hoepe stood so fast, the bench he was sitting on tumbled across the floor. He bolted after them, Leove immediately following.

  Hoepe pushed his way to the front of the pack, his long legs moving him faster than the others as Rami led them through the corridors straight to the engineering bay. Grant flanked him on the left, Leove on the right, but Rami stayed squarely ahead.

  �
��This is cracked,” Hoepe tried. “Kieran is helping us.”

  Rami snarled over his shoulder, “We can’t afford to be so soft. What if he tries again, and this time he’s successful?”

  “There’s no evidence it was him,” said Hoepe.

  “You have to admit there is some evidence, Hoepe,” Leove said calmly beside him.

  He turned to his brother. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I know you feel indebted to him for the work he’s done in the past, but your theory that Kieran is a God is ridiculous.”

  “You think he’s a what?” Rami shouted.

  Hoepe felt a burning creep up his neck, but he held himself steady. “We need Kieran. I’ve never seen anyone do what he can do. It’s no secret that he’s strange — he acts strangely, he says strange things, like he’s not from our time. The Gods have come before to help humanity in our greatest need. Why couldn’t Kieran be sent for us?”

  “But to say he’s a God is blasphemy,” said Leove. “It’s the most cracked thing I’ve ever heard.”

  A knife twisted in Hoepe’s central nervous system. It had been placed there by his brother, by his identical brother, who was supposed to be his friend.

  The doors to Engineering parted, and they entered the bay. “Where is Kieran?” Rami snarled. Three Augments huddled around the central console pointed simultaneously to the back of the bay, and the pack pushed Hoepe forwards as they made their way to the small storage area.

  “This is spread,” Hoepe called out, even though he felt the futility of his words as they came from his mouth. “Kieran has saved our lives multiple times.”

  “Too many times,” Rami shot back over his shoulder. “We’ve been foolish to trust the soldiers — we should have left them at the first chance.”

  Hoepe ran a disturbed hand over his mouth. He had never been part of the war games in Evangecore, but he had a sudden sickening feeling that he was about to become part of one.

  “There’s no getting around it,” said Rami. “He constantly makes unusual designs, always flipping things around in engineering. This bomb isn’t something any of us could have come up with. It has to be Kieran.”

  Leove shot Hoepe a concerned glance, but they followed obediently, the mob drawing the other Augments in the bay to their flank.

  Hoepe bade his feet to stop, bade everything to stop, but like some horrible vid, it just kept rolling. Rami shouted for Kieran as they rounded the bulkhead into the wide storage area.

  Kieran jumped back, extracting himself from one of the lockers that lined the room. “Jesus,” he muttered as a spanner went clattering to the ground. He shut the locker door behind him, leaning against it. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.” Kieran brushed a hand through his hair casually, but Hoepe noted his hand was shaking. And the pulse in his neck was strained and far too fast — a myocardial infarction, however facetious, was not out of the realm of possibility.

  “We have to ask you —,” started Grant.

  Rami stalked forwards, fists clenched at his sides. “What are you doing?” In one rough motion, he threw open the locker door, sending Kieran stumbling to the side.

  “No—.” Kieran tried to stop him, slamming the locker shut again, but it was too late.

  There was a machine inside with a long cylindrical shape and a pulsing blue light. “What is that?” Hoepe asked.

  “It’s nothing.” But Kieran’s wide, dilated pupils, and the new tremor in his voice said otherwise. “Leave it alone.”

  “No, really, what is it?” Leove turned to Hoepe worriedly.

  Rami wrenched the locker open again, and Hoepe stepped forward for a closer inspection.

  Kieran paled, his mouth hanging open. The dark bags under his eyes and the sickly pallor of his skin only grew more evident. “Really. It’s nothing. It’s a … personal project. I was talking to Sarrin, and —.”

  Rami scowled, shooting a look at Hoepe. “We’re low on resources, trying to repair a cracked ship as fast as possible. What are you doing?”

  Kieran paled. “A few spare parts, some of my rest time. It’s nothing.” Kieran sent a pleading look in Hoepe’s direction.

  But now Hoepe was more confused.

  Leove was beside him, implacably calm. “What is it, Kieran?”

  Kieran pressed his lips and glanced back, a heat coming into his face. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Is it for Sarrin?” Grant tried.

  Carefully, Kieran nodded.

  “So, what is it?”

  He gave the machine a sidelong look, a shiver running through his entire body. “You have to trust me,” he blurted, the air whooshing out of him. “It’s nothing.” He buried his head in his hand and muttered something that sounded like, “Oh God,” — just one God. “Please. It’s not hurting anything.”

  “It’s a bomb,” Rami scowled.

  “What?” Kieran’s eyes snapped open.

  “Just like the one in the shuttle.”

  “Shuttle?”

  “Yeah,” snarled Rami, “Just like the one you set in the shuttle.”

  Kieran’s face turned white as the sterile rooms in Evangecore.

  There was a loud shuffle behind them, and Thomas pushed his way through the group. “What’s going on?”

  “The shuttle was no accident,” said Rami. “I found a bomb, a strange bomb like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

  Hoepe felt his knees go weak. “Rami, stop it.”

  “I didn’t set no bomb,” Kieran said, voice shaking as obviously as the rest of him.

  “Then what is this?” Rami pointed accusingly into the open locker.

  Kieran’s eyes met Hoepe’s, pleading, but like his brother, the eyes he looked into were not familiar. A barrier had fallen between them.

  “What does Sarrin say about this?” asked Thomas, his face contorted.

  Rami jutted his chin defensively. “Why?”

  Thomas glanced between the woman and two men who had come in with him. “Because… because she should be our alpha.”

  “What?” Rami snarled. “She’s spread-mad. And a common-lover. She’s sleeping with the enemy. He’s blinded her like he’s blinded all of you.”

  Hoepe gulped. Sarrin stayed in Kieran’s quarters because somehow he seemed to be the only one she trusted— that, along with her forty-three procedural marks, were secrets, known only by Kieran and Hoepe.

  With a roar, Kieran leapt at Rami. “She’s not crazy!”

  The Augment didn’t fall from the impact, but he stumbled backward. Kieran was on him again in an instant. Hoepe stared, feet rooted in place.

  Thomas rushed forward and pulled Kieran back.

  Leove held an arm across Rami’s chest, pressing him into the lockers.

  Hoepe stepped between them, his body numb. “Stop,” he said. But this close, he saw for the first time how bloodshot Kieran’s eyes were, the inconsistency in his pupils, the slight tremor of fine muscles in his chin and brow.

  Kieran hung his head. Thomas released him and he thumped into the wall, muttering at the floor, “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

  “How many stims have you taken, Kieran?” Hoepe put his hand over Kieran’s wrists, checking his pulse. It was erratic, empty and stringy, too fast and too weak to possibly be good. “Gods. Kieran, tell me how many?” He realized he was practically holding the engineer up, and Kieran sagged down the wall as Hoepe released his grip.

  Beside them, Rami pulled the machine from the locker and it crashed across the floor. Its blue light sputtered out.

  Kieran sucked in, a horrible, stilted sob. “It’s not hurting anything,” he said. “Please, just leave it alone.”

  “We ought to space him,” shouted Rami, “for being a traitor, for wrecking the shuttle, for planning to explode this entire ship.”

  Hoepe stood between Kieran and the rest of them, a barrier. “He didn’t set the bomb. He’s sick.” The words felt hollow even as they left his mouth. Could Rami be right? This was his fri
end, couldn’t they see that? Or had it all been orchestrated?

  “Brother,” Leove laid a hand on his shoulder, “I know you care about the engineer, but we have to face facts.”

  “No,” Hoepe whispered. Leove stared back at him, his expression cold and stony — the same expression Hoepe would have made if someone was being dangerously unreasonable. But the evidence, all the signs he had tried so hard to ignore and explain away, were too much. Kieran wasn’t a God, he wasn’t even his friend. A trillion shards of shattered heart stabbed into every inch of him until Hoepe wanted to cry out in pain. Kieran, like his brother, wasn’t at all what Hoepe had expected.

  He pulled himself to his feet. It seemed harder than ever, an eternity before his frame straightened himself.

  Kieran was bent over, his head in his hands, watching through his fingers as Rami pulled the machine apart. “It’s not a bomb,” he croaked.

  A tiny bit of hope stitched some of the fragmented pieces together, and Hoepe bent down. “Then what is it, Kieran? Just tell us.”

  Kieran shook his head. “I honestly can’t tell you. I can’t even think of an explanation that will make sense.”

  Hoepe pulled back. How could that be? “Try.”

  Beside them, machine parts clunked on the floor as they ripped it out.

  “You understand how this looks,” Hoepe urged. He wanted nothing more than for Kieran to give him an explanation. Kieran might be a God, maybe it was something to help them. But Kieran only slumped further, his hand clutching at the shirt over his chest.

  “Hoepe, we can’t trust him,” said Leove. “Look at all this. Grant says it’s the most complex bomb he’s ever seen. He doesn’t even know where the trigger is.”

  “It’s not a bomb.”

  “Kieran, if it’s something to help Sarrin, tell us.”

  He shook his head.

  It was irrational, but Hoepe looked up at the others all the same. “It’s not what it looks like.”

  “What about the bomb in the shuttle?” said Leove. “He’s the only one who could have done it.”

  “No,” said Hoepe.

  “I didn’t set no bomb,” said Kieran.

  Grant frowned, poised between rushing forward to help and teetering back with fear.