Traitor Read online

  Kieran bit back a sudden wave of nausea — he’d known the Earth was destroyed in the war, but never how. It didn’t matter, it was the only way to build enough energy for the FTL jump drive to work.

  “He’s going to kill us all. Himself included.”

  Thomas glanced down at Sarrin, and Kieran knew Thomas was helping him only because of her. But at the moment, his faith was stretched to its limit.

  “We should have thrown him out the airlock when we had the chance,” said Rami.

  Kieran bit back his angered shout. “You might not like me, but you’re the one who pulled the FTL apart beyond repair. The most advanced warship in the fleet is out there, and it wants to destroy all of you. There are two ways this ends: one, they blow the ship to pieces. Option two: they catch and board us and capture all of you. If that happens, I’ve heard the best you can hope for is death, but that probably won’t come. Me, I’m not like you, they won’t fuss with me too much — bang, I’m dead, peaceful-like.” He stalked over, jamming his finger in Rami’s chest. “I don’t work for the UECs, and I never have. I’m sick of all this and you and… at this point, I don’t care if we get caught, but I’m trying to avoid it for you.”

  Rami gritted his teeth, pressing into Kieran’s finger with his chest and bending it away.

  Thomas stepped between them. “There isn’t time for this. We can’t be fighting each other.” He sighed, glancing at Sarrin, still humming and pulling wire. “We don’t have any option but to try Kieran’s plan.”

  * * *

  Bright lights dazzled Sarrin’s eyes. She heard screaming — a woman, a horrible high-pitched wail of pain.

  She heard a deeper voice screaming her name, somewhere closer and more immediate. Green eyes caught her gaze and she fixated on them, used them to ground herself. “Stay with us.”

  Below her she felt the cold hard floor, the solid grey surface of Engineering, the tangled mess of wires still clutched in her hand.

  Around her she saw the pristine white consoles of the warship’s bridge. She focussed here, everything else fading away.

  The pilot tapped quickly, calmly at his control panel.

  Two tacticians worked in unison, their heads bowed over a single large console. A large 3D holographic display shining in between them.

  She — Amelia — was still in the command nest. She was kneeling, holding herself up by her arms. Outside the closed circle was a man, his face painted with distaste.

  The crumpled up little freightship floated helplessly on the display, close enough now to take up nearly the entire view screen.

  “Destroy it,” she heard the man say, his voice emotionless.

  No, she thought, and heard the woman’s voice say it.

  The green eyes swam back into focus. Her heart leapt at the sight. Everything would be okay. She was exhausted, her body in so much pain, but she could just disappear in those eyes and never surface again.

  “Sarrin?”

  Vaguely she registered that she had been turned over, was staring up at the ceiling instead of down at the floor. Hard to tell, they all looked the same. Something held her head.

  “Is she okay?”

  The green eyes blinked, turned away, tearing the blissful calm away with them. “I don’t know.”

  The freightship, they were on the freightship. “You have to jump,” she told him.

  “What?” he turned back to her, her heart skipping again.

  “I can’t hold them much longer.”

  “Sarrin?”

  He was gone, the whiteness blinding her again.

  “Stop,” she said. “Amy.”

  The woman gasped, her own voice looked up at the man and said, “What’s happening to me?”

  The distasteful man frowned down at her, and Amelia coiled, making herself small.

  The green eyes, the grey ceiling peered down at her, and Sarrin gasped. Why wasn’t he moving? “You have to…,” she panted, “get away.”

  Amelia wasn’t going to help them. Couldn’t help them. She tried to roll herself over, heard herself shout out as she did. The pain threatened to make her vomit and she rolled up on to her elbows.

  With a grunt, she lifted her arm. In the other half of her mind, she saw the arm lift from where she crouched on the warship, saw it make contact with the master console as her own hand slapped down, randomly, on the console in engineering.

  She held on for dear life.

  Kieran was quiet. “Wire the gravity into shields.”

  Madness.

  “You can’t be serious,” said Rami.

  “We don’t have another option.”

  A pause, footsteps as the others ran to switch over the conduits.

  “Kieran, come on.”

  A pause. “I can’t leave her.”

  She turned her head. Green eyes shone with concern as he stared at her.

  “Go,” she breathed. “We don’t have long.”

  “Sarrin, what happens if…?”

  She shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “Are you okay?” His face looked sick.

  She shook her head again. “I can’t do this much longer.”

  His eyes flared wide.

  She turned away. When she looked back, she was on the bridge of the Comrade, her arm outstretched.

  “What are you doing?” the angry man demanded.

  Sarrin felt the tenuous fibres of the connection, a bond that carried across time and space — weaker now than when they were children, but still there. She felt them strain, felt it nearly snap, but the tether held.

  She stared defiantly into the eyes of the angry man. Noted in him all the finest qualities of the UEC soldiers: dull, dark eyes, small cranium, slack face. The men who were the deadest also went the furthest. His pips said he was a captain.

  She rose up to her full height, which, even when they had been young, was significant in Amelia.

  Fear flashed in the captain’s eyes. He turned away, pointing at two officers. “Secure her.”

  They moved toward her, throwing themselves on her. But Amelia was strong. Another two and then three leapt forward.

  The angry man shouted, “Finish the freightship. It shouldn’t take this long.”

  Amelia’s hand reached for controls in her command nest that nullified all their laz-cannons, her palm signature all the code that was required to shut down the ship’s offence.

  Sarrin closed her eyes. Hurry, Kieran.

  She was back in Engineering, the air frantic.

  The ship rocked violently, throwing her across the floor.

  “Sarrin!” she heard Kieran scream.

  “Kieran,” Thomas shouted behind him.

  Everything moved too slowly.

  The engineer blinked, staring at her.

  She blinked back.

  Rami ran up, dragging a conduit.

  Thomas touched Kieran’s arm, saying something that was lost to the buzzing in her head. He turned, taking the conduit from Rami. Their faces were too serious.

  Rami argued, but Kieran took the conduit. His eyes grazed over her again, his face pale.

  And he went to make the junction.

  A shout erupted, the ship shook again. The electrifying buzz reached its fever pitch.

  Kieran rammed the conduit into the plug.

  A terrifying crack-sound bit through the darkness, charging the air around them.

  Kieran rolled away as white-blue voltage arced around the conduit, amplified in the dark emergency lighting.

  She closed her eyes against the familiar feel of gravity swallowing her whole.

  And then complete darkness, the only sound Kieran’s deep maniacal laughter that was miles away.

  FIFTEEN

  SARRIN BLINKED, WHITE LIGHT BLINDING as she laid on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. For a minute she worried she was back on the warship, but her eyes settled on a strong, grey-brown lump set on an operating table, wires dangling from him. The steady sound of beeping came i
nto her senses.

  Grant.

  She was in the infirmary.

  The dark clouds were gone. Her heart beat steadily, rocking her body gently as it did so. Slowly, her senses and perception returned to her.

  She stared at Grant, at the ugly suit that covered his entire body. Guilt washed through her, and regret. She’d held onto her hatred of him for far too long, left him alone in a dark cave in the middle of nowhere to fend for himself.

  All because she was convinced he had taken Amy away and killed her. But he hadn’t.

  When they’d escaped Evangecore, there was no time to think. She had been in isolation for months, no idea if her squadron was still alive or where they were. Grant had found her, taken her into their group. They wandered, slowly meeting up with more and more of the Augments.

  Sarrin had been overjoyed to see the girls from her dormitory again, but Amy wasn’t with them. She had fallen, had been captured while they tried to fight their way out, they told her.

  But then Amy came, a year later, wandering across the desert with a group of others. They claimed they had been running for days, managed to escape from the UECs.

  So the Augments let their guard down, ushered them into their secret hiding spaces. And the others, their minds turned by some trick of the Army, attacked. It was a trap laid out by the UECS: deadly weapons made to look like friends.

  They lost many, their secret hiding places compromised, and they had been forced to kill all their brethren.

  But Sarrin took Amelia, captured her and sedated her and smuggled her far away. Grant had helped. For a month they had fought the brainwashing, Amelia had spent most of that time wildly vicious or heavily sedated. And Grant had gone along with it, knowing Sarrin needed more time to let go. Sarrin was certain she could bring Amy back. But they had run out of sedative. The brainwashing had gone too deep, there was nothing they could do to bring her back.

  On morning, when Sarrin woke, Amelia was gone, Grant returning guiltily to the cave. He had talked about killing her, euthanizing her to end the danger she posed to them and the horror she must have endured to end up so lost.

  Maybe they should have killed her — a deep pang ripped open her gut. The brainwashing did go deep. Amelia had apparently returned to the UECS and become the Commandant of the warship, hunting Augments, hunting Sarrin.

  Without thinking, Sarrin ran a hand over her matted hair. Amy had been the one to keep it straight for her, now it was a tangled mess.

  “Sarrin?”

  She turned, one of the tall doctors leaning over her, scanning her. There was still an ethereal quality, her senses not fully returned. “You passed out,” said Hoepe softly.

  She nodded.

  “How do you feel?” No, not Hoepe after all, Leove.

  She didn’t answer him.

  “I didn’t know it was for you,” he said, “when Guitteriez asked me what I thought the effect of the weapon would be on someone so sensitized. I thought it was hypothetical — it never caused anything but mild discomfort to any of us. I’m sorry.”

  She frowned. Of course it wasn’t his fault, Guitteriez had made them all do terrible things. “What happened?” her voice was gravelly.

  He smiled a little. “Kieran managed to force a grav-jump so we could escape. You collapsed, but you haven’t been asleep long. You’re going to be okay, nothing physical, just the stress from the bio-weapon.”

  “Where is Kieran?” she interrupted.

  “He’s safe as well. Confined to quarters for now until we figure out what happened.”

  Her mind shifted, replaying a young girl brushing another girls’ hair. And then Grant saying, “We can’t take her with us, it’s too dangerous. She doesn’t even know what she is anymore.”

  Sarrin stared down at her hands, blood dripping off them.

  Shocked, she turned to Leove to ask if he could see it. He stared mildly back at her, his smock covered in blood.

  She blinked.

  The blood on her hands disappeared, but his didn’t.

  A new sound reached her ears, a quiet metallic clacking.

  “Rest for now, Sarrin. We escaped the warship.” He reached his hand out to touch her shoulder. She flinched away, seeing now his operating gown and gloves, the blood on him real.

  She turned to the clacking. Hoepe was bent deeply over the short bench, his concentration intent. From beneath the drapes on one end were standard UEC-issue grey boots. On the other, partly obscured by Hoepe’s frame and operating clothes, was the telltale curly hair of Rayne Nairu.

  The only one who could reach Gal — the only one who had a chance of bringing the man back — lay injured, the doctor operating deep in her chest.

  And somehow she knew it was Gal. Knew that Gal was too far gone, the way that Amelia was. Knew that Gal was never going to save them.

  For all that they’d been through, all the sacrifice. In the end, their saviour would be the one to kill them.

  “Sarrin, are you okay?” Leove asked, suddenly reminding her he was there.

  “Fine,” she answered reflexively.

  But her mind was not. The edges of her vision started to narrow again. Her hands coated in blood and glinting silver.

  Grant lay dying. Rayne lay dying. And Gal — who knew about Gal.

  Abruptly, she stood, knocking the doctor back. Her feet carried her out the door and sprinting down the hallway.

  But there was no where to run. The whole thing was a cage, a desperate trap laid by Guitteriez and the UECs. The infirmary, the ship, even the stars seemed to close in, her fate sealed as death followed.

  Still, she ran and ran. Hoping for something, anything. Blindly, she ran, until she was stopped, her path blocked by something — no, someone. They both went sprawling to the deck.

  * * *

  A demon appeared in the corridor ahead of him as he rounded a corner.

  He wasn’t surprised. They had died before, mass deaths that occurred over and over again. But they could never really go.

  He lost track of where he was. His mind flashed between the Valkas, his apartments, Hap’s office with its wall of death, the Speakers’ Complex, and the Central Army prisons. His feet moved one in front of the other, but he was trapped. He moved forward, but with no where to go, he circled around and around and around.

  He had no idea how long. Long enough to relive Hap banishing him to the deep of space. Long enough to talk his way in the secret hacker organization, and learn to set bombs for them. Long enough to hack into the UEC systems again and again, each revelation more damning than the last. Long enough to see Earth destroyed. Long enough to see the white walls of Evangecore and see them tumble to the ground.

  It cycled over and over, no matter how he screamed or staggered or slammed his head into the wall.

  So lost he was that he didn’t see it coming: something slammed into him, something small and sinewy and dark that sent him flying back. His demons scattered to avoid being crushed.

  Was it there to kill him, finally?

  He climbed to his knees, gasping for breath only when his body forced him too.

  Crystal blue eyes met his, fear wild in them.

  They stared at each other, Gal and the skinny girl who this was all about.

  She moved first, almost too fast for him to see. “You were supposed to save us.” He didn’t see her lips move, but heard her voice echo around his head.

  “I — I — I —,” he gulped. Her eyes had him locked in place. “I tried.”

  He tore away from her gaze, afraid. Instead, he looked at her. Really looked. Pale skin peppered with faint scars. Ratty, dark hair matted in long strands. Dark circles and hollow cheeks the prominent features on her face. They contrasted her eyes, which were filled with a ferocious intelligence.

  Another memory struck him: explosions in the dark of night. Running amidst the chaos — it wasn’t random to him, it was exactly as planned. Walls tumbled. Sirens blared, and helicopters with search lights scanned the ground
.

  He slipped unnoticed into a platoon of foot soldiers.

  From the rubble, kids climbed and ran. A teenager poked her head over the edge, bewildered and confused, their eyes meeting.

  His hand flew up, grabbing her arm.

  They were the same eyes he stared into now.

  Could it be? Was it possible that under all the stars, the girl he had seen across the rubble was the one right in front of him now?

  Something inside of him cracked — not in a painful way, but like a crust, dead and burnt, had been peeled off, light seeping through.

  Her eyes shifted, the fear in them plain as she glanced at his hand. She pulled away, leaving him sprawling on the floor — the kids always were strong.

  “Wait,” he called after her.

  She disappeared into the wall, slithering away almost so quickly he could have imagined the whole thing.

  He took a deep breath, filling parts of his lung that hadn’t expanded in years, the crushing weight lifted. An Augment had escaped one of Hap’s secret research facilities and found her way onto his ship. And from there, they had found more. Dozens of the kids, still alive. Saved.

  But the UECs still hunted them. Hap would have sent his elite squad. He wanted them. But the question was why? What use could the Central Army, the Speakers of the Gods, have for so many infected children? What did they still want from them?

  He sat alone in the middle of the corridor, surrounded by unfamiliar silence. There was not a demon, not a titter joining him.

  Only memories.

  His mind worked slowly, he had been wandering. The ship had been attacked and made a gravity-jump. And before that?

  Oh no. His heart fell. Rayne.

  * * *

  Gal sprinted, nearly slipping as he turned into the infirmary.

  The twin doctors rose as one, staring at them with identical expressions of confusion. “What are you doing here?” Hoepe asked.

  Gal panted — had he really gotten so out of shape? “Rayne,” he breathed, his eyes drifting automatically to where she lay, propped up on the bench that served as a makeshift second bed. A large bandage covered her left chest and shoulder.

  “You’re meant to be locked in your quarters,” said Leove.