Traitor Page 4

The monster let out a surge of glee, a deep rumble that came for her chest, a hunter preparing to hunt. She could let the monster loose, for Halud, just this one time.

  But, like the coloured cube puzzle, lining up one row of blue meant confusing the green. And the red and yellow and white and orange.

  If Halud was still alive, he was being held somewhere, and she would need to save him. That meant more killing, more destruction. And if Halud was dead…. The monster surged, its anger ready to lash out — she couldn’t think of that possibility. Not now. Not ever.

  A sudden crash sounded from the front of the room, jogging her awareness. Augments in front of her ducked, their reflexes nearly as quick as her own. Splintered plastic shards flew at her while she braced against the wall. Then the shards stopped, hanging in the air, inert.

  Time slowed. Between one heartbeat at the next, Sarrin realized she had stopped the pieces, holding them with her mind.

  Telekinetics. Monster.

  The dark tendrils cleared, and she willed the plastic to continue forward, smashing harmlessly into her chest and making her grunt. At the sound, some of the nearest Augments turned. A girl Sarrin recognized — Annika — frowned, then waved quickly.

  “You fool,” Grant shouted, drawing their stares back to the front of the room. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting your attention, the only way I know how.” Rami proceeded to kick the table he had just smashed, its broken legs toppling over easily, even as Grant reached for him.

  Sarrin blinked sharply at the display of violence. Most Augments tried to bury any strength or ability they had in case the UECs took notice and made them a special experiment subject — but not Rami.

  “Gods Rami, we’re not in the prisons anymore,” said Grant.

  But his outburst had drawn the attention of the others, their gazes locked on him intensely, muscles coiled. Rami took the opportunity to push Grant aside, stalking back and forth.

  “We need to talk about the real problem here: the commons. I know how you feel, but it’s also something we all need to decide together.”

  Sarrin shifted uncomfortably.

  “There are commons all over this ship, and I don’t understand why we’re trusting them,” Rami shouted. “What’s changed? For all the years we were held in that prison, all the years of the war, the experiments in Evangecore, we always said we would never trust anyone besides ourselves. We couldn’t trust anyone besides ourselves.”

  In the war, there had been no one they could trust or depend on. The UEC propaganda had turned everyone, even the folk, even the little children, against them. But this ship was different. Halud had chosen Gal’s ship for a reason. And Kieran — there wasn’t anyone he trusted more.

  Rami turned, looking into the faces of the Augments around him who were starting to nod in agreement. “Now, we’re suddenly working alongside them, taking their orders, with our arms wide open. There’s no reason for them to help us.”

  “And yet they have,” answered Hoepe, voice iced with steel. “Times have changed. I know you’ve only been aboard a short while, but my crewmen are no UEC lovers, and the others — I’ve never seen an engineer do what Kieran has done for us.”

  Sarrin leaned forward, ears suddenly burning.

  “He’s a common, a UEC soldier,” spat Rami. “If you want my opinion, he’s slowing us down. Making us run all our repairs through him, using unregulated designs. It’s nonsense. And it’s dangerous.” He shook his head, addressing the entire group. “I’m an engineer — Evangecore trained me as an engineer. And the things he’s doing don’t make sense. Look at this.” He reached into his coverall pocket, pulling out a data-tablet, pushing it in front of Grant and Hoepe. Sarrin strained, but there was no way to see what was on the tablet.

  Hoepe peered at the screen and frowned. “This doesn’t meant much to me, Rami. I’m a doctor, not an engineer.”

  “Same here.” Grant shook his head.

  “These are schematics I showed your ‘chief’. Repairs for the power conduits that drive everything including weapons, shields, and the FTL — which I thought should be our top priority — but he turned them down. Asked me to work on the sensor array instead.”

  Sarrin’s heart thumped in her chest, her eyes flicking from each of the three men with each beat, time slowing.

  Hoepe’s frown deepened, the lines on his face cutting sharply. “I asked Kieran to work on the sensors so we can see when and if the warship returns.”

  “But we will still need to be able to attack when it arrives.”

  “We’re not going to turn on them, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” said Grant, causing Sarrin’s heart to falter for a beat, squeezing painfully. “He’s the chief engineer.”

  “And we’re not going to attack the warship,” snapped Hoepe.

  Grant glanced between the two of them, unsure. But he stepped up in front of Hoepe, making his shoulders broad. “We have to help the others.”

  “Not by getting ourselves killed.”

  The room erupted into shouting, the words blanking out under a heavy haze. Two Augments — trained to fight since they were small children — pushed each other, throwing the room into chaos. Dark tendrils wrapped across Sarrin’s vision, and she gripped the wall behind her, grounding herself. She had to get out of this room before the monster took control. But as quickly as it started, the din in the room quieted, only the sound of her heavy breathing and now-rapidly beating heart audible. She cracked her eyes open.

  Three dozen sets of Augment-blue eyes blinked back. In the middle of them, Thomas held up an arm, the finger pointed straight at her. “We can’t be fighting each other while the real enemy is still out there. Let’s ask Twenty-seven, the bravest and strongest of us all, what she thinks we should do.”

  Sarrin gulped, biding rising in her throat.

  “That’s Twenty-seven?” asked Rami. She’d never asked for the nickname, didn’t like anything it symbolized, but Rami was suddenly stilled from his rampage, his voice filled with awe.

  Another Augment caught her attention: a young man smiling reverentially. Her heart pounded as their eyes locked, and her mind pictured him as a boy. He was the same boy, she was sure, but how was he here after all these years?

  The memory played out unbidden as she stood frozen in the busy canteen: Sarrin — age twelve-standard — crept through dense underbrush, hiding, counting the minutes until the ‘game’ was over. She fingered a dull fork she had collected from breakfast and hidden in her pocket.

  She came, quite by accident, upon another child, a small boy curled on the ground hiding under the leaves of a bush. His face was smeared with dirt, his scent rich with fear, and his heart pounded so loudly she needed to cover her ears. Tears left pale streaks along his cheeks.

  She reached forward without thinking, to comfort him. He flinched away — a child afraid of another child.

  Whatever had possessed her, as she sat squatted next to him in the brush, the actions she took next were the work of a demon. It had changed her life instantly and forever.

  Before that moment, she had been nothing, just another subject in an experiment. A kid walking through a simulated battlefield, hiding from other kids. They wanted them to fight, to hunt until there was one standing, but she hadn’t so much as spit at another person, not once in the nine years before that day. There was no reason for anyone, any of the researchers to think she was anything special.

  A group of teens walked through the artificial jungle, their faces smeared with others’ blood, heavy clubs in their hands: hunters. Children of an opposing team, set to task for this particular exercise-slash-game.

  Sarrin lifted her head, her gaze directed above the older children. They were watching, they were always watching — the doctor and his researchers would be observing them all, recording little notes on their little charts. She wondered if they had ever felt anything close to the fear the boy felt now.

  She gripped the fork.

  A tall t
ower, cleverly masked behind trees in the artificial landscape, stood in the centre of the arena. The training area was large enough you wouldn’t notice unless you thought to look, but the colours didn’t quite match the surrounding landscape, the shadows on the trees falling not quite where they should.

  Wild, vision tunnelled and barely in control of her own body, Sarrin sprinted across the forest floor. She ran right in front of the hunters drawing them off the boy. They chased, but she was faster.

  She threw herself up the side of the tower, fingers digging in as she scaled the side of it. She sense the researchers immediately on the other side of the one-way window, debating whether or not she could see them, their voices tight with panic.

  Sarrin drew back a fist and slammed the fork through the shallow illusion, permaglass shattering around her. The fork went through a guard’s eye, and she strangled two before picking up the shard of glass. Something pricked the side of her neck, barely noticeable.

  The rest of the researchers fell in the massacre, her movements gradually fading until she collapsed in a slump, the world going dark. She had been inches from him, from Guitteriez, glass shard in her outstretched, bloody hand, when the drugs had taken her over.

  When she woke, it was to Guitteriez’s fearsome grin, a crooked scar fresh with stitches oozing blood that dripped onto her face. “You killed twenty-seven of my men, Sarrin. They were good men, they were just doing their jobs trying to help you because you’re sick.”

  Her hands were chained. A gravity-trap pulled down on everything, crushing her chest into her spine. Her heart raced so fast she thought it was going to explode in her head.

  “A nice girl like you shouldn’t kill. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”

  A single droplet rolled down her cheek as she struggled to move.

  “At least, not until she’s told.”

  He stood, his ornate cane tapping on the floor, and dabbed at his face with a handkerchief, blood blooming through the white material. “I think you could be very special, 005478F. Now it’s time to see how much you can do.”

  “Sarrin?” Hoepe called her name. The dozen of eyes were still watching, and she shifted in the uncomfortable silence.

  A chime sounded from one of the consoles embedded in the walls, cutting through loudly. The call came through, an unmistakable drawl instantly clearing her dark fog: “Engineering to Hoepe. Where are you? Where is everyone?”

  Hoepe glared around the room, as though daring the others to say anything against the engineer. “I’m in the Mess. How are the repairs?”

  “The sensors are online again.”

  “Thank you. Run a scan. We’ll meet you on the bridge.”

  “Alrighty.”

  Hoepe clicked off the communications program. His voice carried an edge like a knife, “Kieran is our chief engineer because I don’t know anyone else who can fix a starship like him. Should anyone disagree, you can come to me directly. Understood?”

  “Or me,” Grant added, folding his arms across his chest.

  Rami opened his mouth to argue, but the others had already turned toward the door, shuffling out efficiently. Instead, he pressed his lips together and turned towards Sarrin, studying her.

  She stepped back, ducking out of his gaze, letting herself get caught up with the Augments who filed through the door, into the hallway, and up to the bridge, their ripped clothes and black marks bobbing confusingly around her.

  * * *

  Gal stood comfortably beside Rayne, staring at the black viewscreen. It was nice to pretend that it was truly just the two of them in the universe, that the sensors weren’t broken but the universe around them ceased to exist.

  The doors to the bridge opened, and Kieran bumbled in, ruining the illusion. Rayne stepped to the side, putting a professional distance between her and Gal. Definitely not alone in the universe.

  Kieran headed straight for the engineering console to the side of the bridge, barely looking up. “Hey, guys,” he mumbled. He tapped a few controls, and the viewscreen suddenly flashed, revealing a dense galaxy of stars around them.

  Gal groaned inwardly, the demons lining up on the consoles, sitting as though they were ready to watch a vid.

  Shortly, the doors opened again, and a stream of Augments poured onto the bridge, walking in a neat line that screamed of military precision. Hoepe nodded curtly before seating himself in Gal’s captain’s chair.

  But it wasn’t really Gal’s, he corrected himself, he was too cracked to command a starship. It was far better someone else be in charge. Besides, nothing really mattered in the end, so long as Rayne was with him and she was safe. He stepped off to the side, blending out of the way.

  He stood amongst the Augments easily — he’d never believed they were ruthless killing machines, at least not because of the virus — it was only their presence that made them dangerous. At least there wasn’t any way for it to get worse.

  “Scans are almost done, Doc,” announced Kieran.

  “Let’s see.” Hoepe inclined his head at the viewscreen.

  The display changed, separating itself into six separate views, each a zoomed in portion of the stars around them. They changed quickly, showing a brief view of different regions. Images flashed by, and Gal found himself studying them intently, the same as he had years ago when he’d first come to this region working for Exploration and searching for new planets to terraform.

  “Wait, what was that?” said Grant, pointing.

  Kieran adjusted the controls, and the viewscreen cycled back to the last set of images. In the upper left corner, something drifted across the screen, big enough to see and fast enough to notice. The image shifted to fill the whole viewscreen.

  Gal felt his heart stop. It wasn’t possible.

  Hoepe sat forward in his chair. “It’s a planet.”

  “There’s no tag on it,” said Grant.

  “This sector has been thoroughly explored,” said Leove. “I don’t understand.”

  “It can’t be a planet.” Grant squinted at the screen. “What’s it orbiting?”

  But it was a planet, Gal knew it even before Kieran tipped the controls, and the image zoomed in again revealing a green-blue dot dashed with white. Gal stared to shake.

  “Run a detailed scan,” ordered Hoepe.

  Rayne stepped forward, her data tablet held in front. “Look at these readings.” She glanced at Gal, eyes filled with glee.

  Gal shut his eyes and prayed. Parameters told part of the story, but there was no way to tell a good planet from a bad one without exploring it. And there was no way he would set foot on this particular body ever again.

  “It is a planet,” said Hoepe.

  “Really?” Grant cried joyfully.

  “It must be unexplored,” said one of the doctors, “but this sector was mapped years ago.”

  “It must have an irregular orbital pattern,” said the other twin.

  Kieran let out a low whistle. “I don’t know much about planets, but those readings look awfully habitable.”

  “Perfect,” muttered Sarrin from behind Kieran.

  Rayne shoved her tablet into Gal’s hands, forcing his eyes to open. Her own eyes twinkled at him. “What do you think?”

  He sighed, but it was inevitable, his eyes fell to the readings like gravity. He scanned the data with practiced ease, knowing what each would say before he read it. Each parameter read in the green. It was as good as Earth. Better.

  But this planet was something else, something inexplicable entirely.

  The tablet fell from his hands, clattering across the ground.

  Beyond him, the conversation continued: “It could be a safe haven from the warship.”

  “How long for us to get there?”

  “Without an FTL, a week maybe.”

  “No!” Gal screamed, stopping them short. The bridge went silent, dozens of eyes tearing into him. “No!” he screamed again. “Never. Never. Never.” His eyes met Hoepe’s, he had to make them see
. “Never speak of it. They can’t know. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Gal?” started Hoepe.

  Blindly, he stumbled from the bridge, tripping and leaning on bodies as he passed. Demons shrieked with laughter. “Never again. Never, never again,” he warned them.

  “Gal!” Rayne cried, but he pushed past her. The doors sealed behind him. He heard them open and close again, Rayne calling his name. He ducked his head and ran.

  THREE

  HOEPE SHARED A LOOK WITH his twin brother, Leove, all the muscles in his broad back stiffening as the door from the bridge sealed and Gal and Rayne disappeared. The captain’s recovery from his Jin-Jiu addiction had seemed swift and easy, but he made a mental note to examine him again.

  He glanced again at the tablet in his hand. “I don’t understand. How is there a planet out here that is completely unmarked? This region has been explored thoroughly.”

  Beside him, Leove shrugged. “It would seem the Gods are on our side.”

  Hoepe raised a single eyebrow. “Indeed. An unmarked planet — somewhere the Central Army has never been to, never named or explored — it’s more than we could have hoped for. We can hide on the planet and the warship will never find us.”

  “Wow,” said Grant, stepping beside him and staring up at the screen. “We have to go there.”

  “Yes.” Hoepe smiled.

  “Agreed,” said Rami.

  “What?” Hoepe’s good mood deflated instantly.

  “It will be a perfect base for an ambush,” Rami said to Grant, the other nodding happily.

  “No.” Hoepe clenched his fists by his sides. “We should use the planet to hide, so we can recuperate and finish our repairs.”

  “Hoepe, there are others out there who need our help. It isn’t right what they did in Evangecore, and I’m telling you it’s worse now than it ever was,” said Grant. “What if Leove was still out there? Would you want to play it safe and hide?”

  Hoepe paused, flustered by the logic of Grant’s statement. “I was unaware that I had a brother, let alone that he was being held on Junk until after his rescue,” said Hoepe. But he had always had a hole he felt within him, a hole that had filled when he laid eyes on his identical other half. As though he understood exactly what Hoepe was thinking, Leove met his gaze with a quick quirk in the corners of his lips. Hoepe made an attempt to return the smile, although it felt awkward and unusual on his face.