Unstoppable

By Georgia Knight

This is the sixth book in the Hadrian’s Gate series.

Whilst enjoyable in its own right, it is recommended that you first read the previous episodes, available to download:

Episode One:  The Cairo Accord

Episode Two:  Three Zero

Episode Three:  The Voice

Episode Four:  Broken Bottle

Episode Five: Kragenfeld Mass

Chapter One

They had been told contact with the water was best avoided.  Radioactivity levels were extremely low, but it was better to be safe than sorry.  Avoiding the drips was easy enough, until they came across a crack in the roof of the tunnel where a sheet of water poured in.

“Corridor sixteen impassable,” Professor Bisham reported back.  The others could hear the dull drone of the reply, but the words were lost behind the rumble of the cascade.  “Yes, we’ll turn around and try corridor fifteen,” he said into his identifier.

“Are the other group making good progress?” Elvin asked.

Bisham nodded, tapping the hand-held radiation detector against his palm.  “Seems so,” he said, “it looks like they will get there first.”

“Oh,” she was disappointed.

“There is no need for disappointment!”  His words were full of passion.  “It is not a race, we will all get there, and you will find it was worth the effort!”

A murmur of anticipation passed through the group.  The professor was damn good at drawing enthusiasm from his students, damn good.  In the build up to this field trip, every one of them had, at some point, struggled to sleep, such was the excitement.  To visit here and stand on the same hallowed ground as the infamous; to be in the spot where it all started.  Bisham’s fervour lit the way and his superb knowledge, delivered with exhilarating energy, brought the experience to life.

“Right kids,” he called - the group were all in their early twenties but did not mind being called ‘kids’ - “we need to back up, carefully!  Head back to that last junction and take a right, corridor fifteen.  Rodger, will you lead the way?  But please, all stick together, and stay out of the puddles!”

“Is the water even that dangerous?” Elvin asked.

The professor glanced down at her doe-eyes.  After thirty years of students looking at him this way, the adulation was wearing thin.  He had previously dabbled, taking advantage of several young women, but he had no interest in that anymore.  On a couple of occasions, such shenanigans had almost cost him his job, and it had cost him a wife.  It was not worth it.

“Who knows?” he teased, but only a little, and his smirk was too obvious to keep up the pretence. “No,” he clarified, “it is extremely unlikely.  We should still be careful though, but it really is ‘just in case’.  All the exposed radio-active materials were removed a couple of years ago.  Low level radiation remains in pockets, and the water could have picked it up as it flows through the chambers above, but it is doubtful there is enough to do harm.”

“Is it true there are still bodies up there?” called McShane.

A favourite question and one Bisham was sure the same student had asked several times in the preceding weeks.  The macabre fascination of this place was a huge part of the popularity of these field trips, any historical and scientific interest secondary.

“Quite possibly!” the professor declared.  “Five workers were never recovered.   Likely, they were incinerated in the explosion, any remaining body parts swept away when the bulldozers moved in.  But hey, where would the sick fascination be in that?  There are still some chambers locked down thick in concrete sleeves; they could be in there.”

“Mummified!” McShane laughed.

“Don’t be stupid,” Elvin scolded, rolling her eyes at the professor in a ‘I’m so much smarter than that fool’ kind of way.  “These are hardly the right conditions to mummify!”

“Durrr,” mocked McShane as the tail of the group started to move.

Bisham ignored them, peering over the group to check they were shifting back.  Rodger, the appointed leader, was one of the sensible ones.  He was also tall and easy to see.  He was taking his guide duties seriously as he shepherded the others along.  That was good.  All jokes aside, this place still held some danger for those who chose to disrespect it.

Soon, the group had retraced their steps and were heading along fifteen.  In places water ran down the walls, but there were no cascading waterfalls to hamper progress.  A couple of minutes later, Bisham now back in the lead, the corridor ended.  One by one they stepped through an oval doorway and into the space beyond.  The huge cylindrical chamber that met them was partially lit with a red glow.  Partially, because at two hundred metres high and at fifty metres across, it was difficult for the lights to penetrate.  As predicted, the other group had arrived first.  They were standing silhouetted in the centre, peering up into the dark.  They were eerily silent.  The whole place was eerily silent.

“Wow,” Elvin gasped, tucking in beside the professor.  “Unbelievable.”  She had seen it before, virtually, but to stand here was awesome.

With waves of excitement flurrying through the group, Bisham gestured his students to gather.  Eager, red-bathed faces, clustered around.

“This chamber is at the base of the main ventilation shaft,” Bisham began, “and is where they set the explosives.  They got in through an access hatch just over there.  You can see, its barely big enough to crawl through.  The network of ducts they used goes on for almost a mile.  They must have been on their hands and knees for over an hour.”

“This place is huge!” a student exclaimed.

“Above us, the shaft runs to the full height of the plant.  The steam produced in cooling the main generators passes over turbines up there - secondary power generation - and then passes through various venting points, and into a final filtration system before being released safely into the atmosphere.  Cheap, efficient energy generation.  Safe too.  A modern powerplant designed with a multitude of safety systems.”

“Huh, well they didn’t work!” scoffed Rodger.

“Well, yes,” explained Bisham, “to an extent, they did.  During the design phase, the engineers ran all the scenarios.  They spent months scrutinising what ifs.  You will recall the archive footage we watched, testing the structure against tremors?  All the scenarios they could think of, but nobody expected such an audacious attack.”

“How did they evade security?” doe-eyed asked.

“Officially, the terrorists identified a blind spot and sneaked in under the cover of darkness, but many accounts contradict that version of events.  There has been much speculation that perhaps there was an insider working with them, and they lowered the systems, that or a sophisticated hack…”

“Did Freedom have that capability?” another quizzed.

“Don’t forget that apart from their own claims, there has never been any collaborating evidence to link this attack to Freedom.  The official line is that at the time, Freedom were nothing more than a bunch of unorganised anarchists, without the resources or the skills to launch such an attack.  It was in the Union’s interests to have us believe that; they did not want us all to fear that the group could carry out such atrocities.”

“Three Zero proved otherwise!”  It was a voice from the back.

“Exactly!” exclaimed the professor.

“So, it was Freedom, right?  This was McGann?”

Ah, the million-dollar question.  The question that reverberated around lecture rooms and coffee shops alike.  Chat shows, debate forums, even immersive comedy experiences - it was the question the galaxy kept coming back to.  It was, wasn’t it?  It was her?  It had to be her?  This location, and countless other locations too.  The crimes changed, but anywhere there was terror, it always came back to that same question.

For the millionth time in his career, Bisham gave the same stock answer: “No one knows for sure.  Before Three Zero, speculation on who had carried out this attack was rife, with many factions vying for the credit.  Freedom was only one of them.  But Three Zero focused Union attention and elevated Freedom to prime candidates for this, and just about every other raid that had gone before.  Was it them?  All we can conclude is… it might have been!”

An excited yelp from the other group echoed around the chamber.  It was unmistakably Ricardo, in his usual flamboyant style.  He liked to put on a show even in the most mundane of settings, and here was an exhibitionist’s heaven.

“I’ve found it!” he screamed in a voice far too high-pitched for the large male body he occupied.  “It’s here!  I’ve found it!”

“Yeah,” mocked McShane, “of course he has, who else?!”

With every field trip, there was always this moment.  Sometimes the professor would get ten minutes into his rehearsed lecture.  Sometimes, like today, he would barely manage a couple of sentences.  Legends, he thought, did not wait around for academics.

Eager feet scurried across the chamber, keen to see what the other group had found.  Elvin held back, beaming up at the professor.  It was a little pathetic but endearing all the same.

“Go on,” he told her, “I know it’s the only reason you came.”

With a giggle and a flick of her golden hair, she turned and skipped after the others.  Her hesitation had placed her at the back of the twenty strong throng and she was far too short to see over them.  Trying not to bang into others, she stooped and stretched, peering under armpits and over shoulders, but she could not see the wall.  Gasps from the front taunted.  She pushed high on to her tiptoes until she lost balance and stumbled into the student in front.  Thankfully, the sturdy McShane easily absorbed the impact.  Glancing back, he saw the desperation on her face.  He squeezed his arm between two others, forcing a gap to appear in the group.

“Small one coming through,” always the jokes with McShane.  “Come on, let her through guys, we all want to see.”

Sure enough, they parted, and Elvin snuck in.  She spotted another gap and cheekily stole that one too, and then a gentle hand on the arm of Gainor encouraged her friend to let the shorter woman squeeze to the front.  Suddenly, the metal wall, charred and rusting, was only inches away.  Glistening under the red lights, scraped clean to expose the base metal, was a patch about the size of a dinner plate.  The professor had been right in his assertion; this was the only reason Elvin and the others had come.

“Wow,” she gasped.

“It’s amazing,” Gainor agreed, “so incredible.”

Elvin did not respond.  She was lost to the wall; everything else was just background noise.  It felt like she was alone in the chamber. With a hand outstretched, she stepped forward.  One finger boldly reached towards that seductive, shiny surface.  It was cold.  This metal would have once glowed white as explosions ripped through the ventilation shaft, but now it was as chilly as a killer’s heart.  That single, brave finger sensually slipped over the smooth material until it met with a groove.  It was scored deep, carved just before the explosion.  It was made by a laser cutter, probably the same device that was used to open the maintenance hatch. She traced the groove until it met with others, forming an initial.  The infamy of the person who had allegedly made this mark vibrated along Elvin’s arm like an electric current.  She did not move back; she could not move back.

“Here,” she breathed, “she stood right here.”

“So the story goes,” Professor Bisham was at her shoulder, “but remember, never proven.  The explosions and radiation destroyed any evidence there might have been, even wiping all the surveillance records.  We do not know for sure if McGann was active back then, she would have only been nineteen.  We do know she was already with Malcolm Gomez though, so it is possible.  As for the initial, there are rumours that the clearance team thought it would be amusing…”

“No,” Elvin interrupted, “that is not what happened.  She was here, alright.  She cut this initial.  I can feel her through my fingers…”

Behind her, McShane childishly sniggered.

She glared back at him, her eyes burning.

“I can feel her,” she scolded, “I can feel Kayla McGann!”

+     +     +

The estate needed investment; so did everything in this shit-hole town.  It was not quite abandoned, but it was hardly on the Union’s Christmas list.  The elite lived just a few short miles along the highway, but far enough that they could happily ignore this squalid neighbourhood.  Had it always been thus?  Certainly, it had during his lifetime.  Marion scraped the chips off the plate and looked out across the small fenced off garden.  It was just about the only greenery around, a supposed centrepiece for the estate.  There was rarely anyone on it; it was weed-infested and covered in litter.

In the next room, he could hear Monica playing.  He never should have had her, but his partner had insisted.  This was not a good world to bring new life into.  And where was that partner now?  The dog had fucked off at the first dirty nappy, leaving this fool to fend for the child alone.  Marion had gotten by, but god knew how.

“God knows nothing,” he scoffed.  The food disposal unit glugged in response.  It was probably starving; there was not much to throw its way.  Waste was a luxury he could not afford.

Out along the edge of the park, at the other side of the railings, two children were playing tig.  They lived a few houses down but Marion had never met the parents.  He watched them for a moment and allowed himself a little maternal smile.  He had played similar games when he was a little girl.  That was a long time ago, back before the iron boots of the Union had slammed this town into the ground.  Such was the price of resistance.

“Pop,” came the call from the next room, “Pop, we’ve won, we’ve won!”

Marion ran his hands under the blower.  He had better go and see what she was so excited about.  Hopeful thoughts that maybe they had won the lottery did briefly burst into existence, but they did not blossom beyond a burgeoning idea. Monica probably did not even know they had a ticket.  Whatever his daughter was referring to, it was unlikely to be him winning anything.  Any luck that had ever come his way had always been bad.  Maybe there had been that one moment when he felt a winner, when he had looked down at the bloody new-born lying across his chest, but even then, that had turned into a loss in the end.

Marion peered into the small lounge.  Monica was squatting on the floor in a position only a child could manage.  Her blonde, youthful locks were tied in pigtails, but one had loosened, and a straggling clump of hair rested on her shoulder.  Too engrossed in her game, she had not noticed.  It bothered him that his daughter played alone, but the rules on gatherings were tightly enforced.  He feared what would happen to them if they broke them.

“Who has won, honey?” Marion asked.

“We have!” the girl proclaimed.  She did not look up.

Marion moved closer, coming around the side, knowing which game the child was playing before she saw the cluster of tell-tale blocks.  These cuboid toys were mostly red, with a splattering of blue, yellow and a few other colours thrown in.  They were scattered all over the tiled floor like a destroyed city, a damaged building standing at the heart of the debris.  In this isolated existence, it was a good thing his daughter had a strong imagination.  He was thankful she could escape into these fantasy worlds.

Half a dozen small black cats lay scattered around the city.  Their scale to the blocks made them giants, but they were still no match for the heroine of the hour.  With over-enhanced feminine curves and a black, flowing mane, that figure was clasped tightly in Monica’s hand.  Several inches tall, this warrior was clad in military-style trousers and a black top.  Monica paraded her in the centre of the devastation, left, then right, occasionally kicking out at one of the blocks or stamping on one of the vanquished cats.

“Who has won, honey?” Marion asked again, already knowing the answer.

The four-year-old raised the doll high.

“We did it, Pop!” Monica said.  “Me and Kayla, we smashed them!”

+     +     +

The wind would turn soon so they could not stay out for long.  Already, it was whipping dust spirals across the forecourt.  The battered old entrance sign clattered back and forth with every gust, threatening to break free of its moorings at any moment.  It had clung on for many years though, somehow.  Sooner or later one of the storms would bring it down, but not until it was ready.

Old-Man-Albi was on his last legs too.  Those limbs, only one of which was his own, still seemed willing to carry him on his daily pilgrimage to this place, but for how much longer?  His grandson was happy to walk at the slow pace, which helped, but like the sign, eventually nature would prevail.

This ritual wander down to the base was observed by many, mocked by most, and understood by only a few.  These were the handful who remembered Albi from before.  To the rest, he was just a crazy old man, out in all weather’s, dragging the child along.  He would keep going though, despite them, until those legs of his could travel no more.  He would not let his daily devotion falter.

The words of the boy’s mother rang fresh in Old-Man-Albi’s ears.  She gave him a daily warning to keep her son safe, and sometimes, those warnings stung more than others.  Today’s had been particularly wasp-like.  Anniversaries, birthdays, celebrations, and days like today, remembering a wedding ten years passed, were always particularly challenging.

“We better head back,” he growled down to young Beye.  The cancer was getting worse and his throat had refused to give him much more than croaks in recent weeks.  Each morning was harder to get up than the last and each bite more difficult to swallow.  Sooner or later, one of these storms was going to finish him off.

“I love this place,” Beye winced as the wind blew into his mouth.  He snapped it shut and smiled up at his grandfather.  Such innocence, to love a place as dark as this.

“You love the walk down,” his grandfather tried to correct, “you love the trips out with Old-Man-Albi!”

There was a touch of confusion on the boy’s face, perhaps unable to categorise his love in the manner his grandfather suggested.  His mind was purer, having not suffered the bitter blasts of the past.  It had not been buffeted by these winds for these last years.  It did not have to remember what had happened here, what had really happened here.

It was time to go.  Without speaking, he tucked Beye’s hand inside his own and turned away from the fence.  The sign gave one last, loud clap as they started back.  Old-Man-Albi had to help the boy with a little tug as the wind bit.  It was a struggle with his legs, but he never showed it.

It took them fifteen minutes to stumble the relatively short distance home and both were red-faced and exhausted as they stepped over the threshold.  Beye’s mother, Gab, was waiting for them, nostrils flaring.  With her heavy shoulders hunched, and iron-girder arms folded under a fat bosom, she looked like she was ready to fight.

Old-Man-Albi really struggled to find what his son had seen in her.  The woman scared him.  How had she managed to convince any man to marry her?  Albi was thankful he did not have to live with her for much longer, and then he immediately scolded himself for such a mean-spirited thought.  She was a warrior, her stance showed that, but she was also a caregiver.  With his terrible health, that was not an easy role for her to take.  Underneath the cold exterior was a good heart, he just wished she would tell her face to smile occasionally!  He supposed with everything that had happened, her lack of cheer was understandable.  So was her worry over Beye.

“You only just made it back before the storm,” she said.

“But we did, didn’t we?” he unhooked his coat and hung it up.  “As always?  Maybe that is the problem?  You expect me to let you down, but I never do?”

She frowned as he hobbled by, heading to his room.  His cough briefly bent him double.  The sound was awful, dragged from the centre of his chest.  It was painful to watch.

“Albi?” she checked.

He held a hand up and took a moment.  A shallow nod suggested he was okay.  “Maybe, one day,” he rasped, “I will not come back.  Maybe that would be better for everyone.”  And then he was gone, closing the door behind him.

A deep soulful sigh escaped Gab; she wished it were not like this.  It should not have been, but fate had dealt them a terrible blow.  She wished she could change things, but fate insisted on having the last word.

“What’s up with Grandad?” the boy asked.

“Oh, it’s just his legs again,” she lied, “playing him up.  You know what they are like, always giving him trouble.  It does not stop the daily walk though!”

“He likes to pay his respects,” Beye said.  “He likes it there.  He says it’s a good place.”

“Does he?” she was surprised.  “He says that?”

“Yes,” the boy said enthusiastically.  “It’s where the Union got beaten, where they got kicked off the planet!”

She smiled back, hiding the pain beneath.  Her son would accept the smile at face value, recognising only the up-turned corners of her mouth, missing the hurt in her eyes.  It was true, events at the base did trigger the end of Union governance, and the bare shelves in the pantry ever since had been testament to that.

“And she is free again,” Beye added, “isn’t she?”

“Free?” Gab was thrown at first, but quickly caught up.  “They are reporting so, yes,” she said, “although not free, as such…”

“Escaped!” he corrected himself.  “She kicked some Kamdo butt and escaped!  She is going to show the Union now, isn’t she?  Just like she did here?”

These were not words borrowed from Old-Man-Albi, she was sure of that.  It was likely Beye had picked this up from some over-excited school friend, building up the freedom-fighters.  People around here tended to do that.

“Well, I don’t know,” she sighed, shepherding him to put his coat and boots by the doorway, “but I guess if anyone can, she can.”

A gust of wind rattled the front, shutters shaking against the windows.  It felt like a bad one was brewing tonight.  Perhaps a hurricane was heading their way, much as it had the night Freedom had paid this town a visit.  That had been a terrible night, a night so dreadful she had never really found the words to talk about it.

“It is time for us to eat,” she told the boy, changing the subject.  “It is your favourite.”

“Is Grandad eating with us?” Beye asked.

“No,” she said softly, “I doubt it.  He’s tired.”

“He is always tired.  Was it the wind?”

“Yeah, it was the wind, it’s always the wind,” she ruffled his hair.  “Let us eat, Beye, and then we will have an early night too.  Sometimes it is best to sleep through the storms.  Sometimes, it is best to just pretend they are not real.”

Chapter Two

“One hundred and nineteen,” the voice said.

He heard it; he could never escape it.

Even when sleeping, that monotonous count swept into his subconscious, the numbers swamping his dreams.  After a couple of years resting in this same chair, listening to that same voice, his mind had learnt to take the numbers and play with them.  The games were rarely fun, turning his dreams into nightmares, where beasts shaped like sixes tussled endlessly with the horned number fours.

“One hundred and twenty.”

Long before he became the last, this programme counted all the way to a thousand, now it was down to six hundred.  At some point soon, another ten would be deducted from the tally and the time between each intervention would reduce again.  Eventually, it would reduce all the way to zero, but he would be long gone by then.

“One hundred and twenty-one.”

In his dreams, a mythical horse-like creature told him that his feet were no longer under the sheets.  He shuffled, sure they were covered, but the horse was right.  Twisting his ankles, he wrapped himself back up.  The heat was uncomfortable, but he had no choice.  Anxiously, he turned over, turning his back on the horse.  It was to no avail, a blink and somehow the creature was back in his line of sight.  Impossible, of course, but this was the realm of the bizarre.  The horse was laughing at him, laughing at his situation, laughing at his hellish life.

The last one standing; all the others gone.

In this expanding human empire, one in ten people still originated from Earth or one of its immediate satellites.  He was amongst that group, born and raised on a Fossae base just like the one blown up by terrorists four years before.  Except in this dream, he found a different version of that childhood.  Here, his sleeping mind conjured up a hellish twist on what had been an okay upbringing.  In this perversion, he found himself sitting in class, his face covered with a mask, the air heavy with a cloudy gas.  He peered out through a narrow black-framed eyehole, unable to see beyond those classmates immediately to his left and right.  They were unmasked and choking, and there was nothing he could do about it.  He would watch them all die, just as he had here, destined to be last.

“One hundred and twenty-two.”

How many until…?  Do the maths; he should have known all the sums instinctively by now.

His feet were uncovered again.  How?  How?!  The anxiety was growing into a panic, as it often did.  A lurking worry could turn into a flurry of racing heartbeats and sweaty palms in seconds.  Heat filled his body and his mind.  Like a pressure cooker on overdrive, he was ready to pop.  Anytime now he could explode and blow the whole thing sky high.

“One hundred and twenty-three…”

His internal command trigger, honed over these months of disturbed sleep, sounded.  ‘Wake up!’ it screamed.  Exhaustion was a constant in his life, and it did not matter how tired he was, those words were able to snap him back.

Wake up!

And he was awake.

The last one, alone in his usual chair.  No horses.  No blankets to cover his feet.  No gas masks and suffocating school friends.  In this waking reality, his school days were a long way behind him.

“One hundred and twenty-four.”

+     +     +

“Five hundred and ninety-eight.”

In the early days of human expansion, interstellar jumps were unpredictable.  With error-ridden calculations, the pioneers were never quite sure if their vectors might take them through the heart of a star.  It was only the brave, foolhardy or outrageously ambitious who attempted it.  To compensate for the risks, the early pilots demanded high rewards, and greedy benefactors would only fund expeditions if there was a high probability of success.  The aim was always to claim a world from the list of ‘prime planets’, those identified as likely to sustain life, with atmospheres, moderate climates and prime for exploitation.  This garden world, Araureo Delta, was amongst those on that list, but being so far out, it was another two centuries after the first jumps before humanity made the leap to this system.

As he pulled on his boots, Jorg Vaalters, the last one standing, frowned at the irony of the ‘prime’ label.  Oh, it was prime when measured against those desirable characteristics, of that there could be no doubt.  It was oxygen rich, was wet and warm, and was home to a wide variety of mostly harmless vegetation and wildlife.  The first settlers had struck lucky when they popped out of the void, landed, and then claimed Araureo in the now defunct Explorer’s Planetary Registry.  And for the first few decades, the planet flourished under its new landlords.  This new opportunity had drawn the interest of many, with hefty premiums paid to stake a claim on this paradise.  The population had grown, and so had the local economy, fuelled by trade in the rare and exotic plants and fruits.  Within sixty years, there were over sixty thousand people living here and its desirability was still climbing.  And then, that one stupid mistake, and it all went wrong.

“Five-hundred and ninety-nine.”

Jorg fastened the latches on his boots and checked the seals; they were tight.  On a handful of occasions his failure to check had left a gap and one particular incident haunted him.  It had been close, so terrifyingly close.  He still could not reconcile how he had gotten away with it, but he was still here and still breathing.  He pulled on his trousers, sucking in his modest gut to tug them tight.  When he relaxed, his stomach pushed painfully against the waistband.  It was a reassuring feeling.  Next, the gloves, well-worn, but the only ones he had.  There was a small repair on one finger where fabric cut from another garment had been stitched over a hole.  It was not ideal, but in the struggle to keep these old things going, other patches would soon be added too.

“Six hundred.”

He dropped his headgear into place.  It was heavy canvas with weighted frills that rested neatly around the shoulders, back and chest.

“End of cycle.”

He was ready.

“Preparing to recalibrate.”

“Recalibrate away,” he told the disembodied voice.  “I’m going outside.”

The same words, always the same words.  Whether groggy from broken sleep or lively from a rare bit of exercise, every six hundred intervals, he told the empty room the same thing.

“Recalibration complete,” the automated message wrapped up with a smug self-satisfaction.

He gave a slow nod of acknowledgement, as much as the weight of the headgear would allow.  Wiping a piece of fluff from the thick visor, he stepped into the air lock and activated the exit procedure.  Behind him, one door closed.  There was a hiss of escaping air and then the door in front opened.  Bright green reflections flooded the chamber.  He scooped up his zapper and stepped out into the glorious sunlight of Araureo Delta.

The last one standing.

“Cycle reset.  Countdown recalibrated and will remain unchanged at six hundred intervals.  Countdown commencing.”

The door closed behind him.

+     +     +

One swing was enough to clear the vines from the vents.  He waited for the suckers to wither before pulling the smouldering remnants clear and then moved on.  A couple of steps and another squeeze, the zapper exploding in a flurry of white sparks. More foliage turned into black ash, neighbouring vines recoiling as their friends burned.  It was like the plants possessed intelligence, and the high-pitched screams that accompanied their demise only served to strengthen their animal-like qualities.  They were plants, his mind insisted, nothing more.  Former colleagues, all now departed, had suggested the screams were merely gas escaping from the stems.  He was not sure he believed that, but he guessed it mattered not.  If anything, he enjoyed the idea that these plants felt pain, it made his own pain more bearable.

Yet another flurry of sparks.  A small cloud of black dust floated away as an acrid wisp of smoke found its way under his headgear.  There were more screams too, but they could call out all they wanted, he saw through their fake tears.  These dreadful vines had brought such horror to this forest and stolen his days and nights.  It was an around the clock battle to keep them at bay.  At night, without the sun to keep them on full throttle, he managed to burn back further, knowing that once daylight returned, the more ferocious battle would resume.  Right now, with the sun at its height, you could almost see the bastards growing.

He looked down, checking around his boots.  A quick blast put pay to a couple of stray vines that were edging across the polymer exterior of the complex.  The charge briefly illuminated the white surface, but it quickly cooled back to its original state.  Once, this three-storey building had stood proud in the middle of a clearing, a glistening beacon to those thriving homes and establishments clustered around. Now, the entire ground floor was consumed by the forest and all the surrounding abodes were lost to the dense undergrowth.  If not for his daily battle, the plants would quickly advance over the next floor too, getting into all the vital systems that kept him alive.

This part of the deck cleared, he stood back for a moment and looked out into the heart of the forest.  There was nothing but the damn vines, wrapped around the trunks of long dead trees.  Those trees were still standing, held in place by the mass of growth around them.  Devoid of their own foliage, they were still resplendent of greenery, cuckooed by a parasitic plant that had drained every molecule of nitrogen from those bark husks.  On one level, this was not an unpleasant scene, but that beauty was not something his mind could see.  All he saw in that dense foliage was hell.  He was staring into the depths of some all-consuming beast and he was sure he could hear it breathing.

They had arrived two years earlier - that was a guess, he had lost track of time – during an evacuation.  They had known everyone was clearing out, but that had presented ideal cover to lie-low and wait until the authorities had forgotten about them.  That part of the plan had worked well; they were undoubtedly forgotten.  Riding out the evacuation order, though, had proved less smart.  When this building vacated, they took ownership, keen to get their hands on the communication system and landing pads.  Wary of the consequences should they break their cover, they stayed in hiding even when they became the last dregs of humanity left on the planet.  With six of them, keeping the plants at bay was not initially a concern, the workload manageable.  But the six soon became five when Malem was careless, and as the months rolled by, the others followed.  Now, he was fighting this perpetual battle alone, never able to stop, never able to rest.

He tore his gaze away from the forest, rechecked his feet, and headed back to the hatch.  Safe inside the airlock, he tossed the zapper to the floor in disgust.  That was part of the routine too and every time he did it, he cursed his stupidity.  Whilst it was not the only zapper he had, he could not afford to break it.  Next came the headgear.  As always, it was a relief to lift it clear.  Beneath, his thin, white hair lay plastered to his forehead.  He peeled off the boots and suit, and finally the gloves.  Stripped back to his shorts and vest, he stepped through the second door, the air-conditioning a delight against his sweat-soaked body.

“Fifty-three,” the voice told him.

He flopped into his chair with a huge huff of exhaustion.  He had been out there for three of four intervals longer than ideal and would have to catch that back up over the next couple of trips.  For now, though, it was time to catch up on his sleep.

Chapter Three

“So, you are standing in this hospital at the end of the galaxy, right?” he asked himself.  “And these four suits walk in, badges on the lapel, immaculately presented, shiny shoes, clearly Union, and clearly packing by the bulges under their jackets.”

“You will find no guns in the Warehouse,” he replied in a slightly lighter tone, imagining some salesman bestowing the benefits of this establishment.

“Not usually,” the conversation with himself continued, switching between the two voices, “no weapons of any kind, screened on arrival, but these were Union Agents and different rules apply for their kind…”

“But the Warehouse is safe, it’s a harbour in a storm, a church when you think the devil is on your back, even the Union cannot…”

“Yes, well, this time it seems they did.  They were definitely packing.”

“But if that gets out, this place will be ruined, no one will ever trust them again…”

“Later, later,” Messiah told his other self, “back to the main issue.  We have agents here, in the same place as Kayla. That cannot be good news.  Are they here for her?  They must be!  But even if they are not, if she discovers that one of them is the same agent who paraded her old friend across the airwaves…”

Could he keep it from her?  Surely, he should at least alert her to their presence.  Had someone tipped them off?  The Union being here could be co-incidental, but that specific agent?  All this space and all the agents out there, and one directly involved in the hunt for Kayla turns up in the same location?

Too many questions and he could ponder those at leisure later.  The smart immediate move would be to get them both back to Spirit and away from this place as fast as possible.

The agents had been checking in a patient Pike.  Messiah had not captured a second name, too distracted by the female agent scanning the waiting area.  Shortly after that check-in, the group had been led in the opposite direction to Kayla’s suite.  That was a glimmer of hope amongst this maelstrom.  Perhaps if they acted fast the route back to the Noche would be clear.  Of course, if the Union were here for her, then the Warehouse was likely already on full lockdown, but there was still an outside chance that if he acted now, and avoided unwanted attention, he could extract Kayla.

“So, what do I tell her?” he asked the water dispenser.  It did not reply.

He glanced around.  Apart from a couple of visitors, a single receptionist, and a security drone, the waiting area was quiet.  None of them, not even the eager electronic eyes of the floating guard, would spare the quiet mumblings of this unimportant man a second’s thought.  Except he was important, wasn’t he?  He was damn important!  He was the friend of the infamous McGann, an infamy that was so powerful that it could smash open the secretive doors of the Warehouse and allow in armed Union agents. And he should not assume he was invisible.  His broad description, taken from the grainy still captured in the loading bay at Petang, was in circulation.  Had the cameras in this clinic now added much clearer images to the Union’s files?  This hunt was not just for Kayla, it was for her only known associate too.

Yet, here he was standing, in full view, unchallenged.  Did that make sense?  The female agent, the one with the unnervingly smooth body movements, had looked right through him.  Surely, if they were looking for Kayla, they would have been looking for him too?

“So, I go find Kayla and I tell her…”

“Tell me what?”

He jumped, almost spilling his beaker.  For a second his brain rushed to the conclusion that the imaginary other self he had been talking to for the last ten minutes had somehow materialised behind him.  That crazy thought was quickly replaced with the more alarming conclusion that it was the real Kayla.  He turned to her, mouth agape, feeling like he had been caught picking her pockets.

It was two weeks since the fugitive’s remarkable escape from prison.  In that short period, she had shown incredible determination to get back to full fitness.  The brutal clash with Nazia had set her back, leaving both women with serious injuries, and he had brought a battered and bloodied Kayla to this place.  He had thought she might die.  Now, amazingly, here she was standing, tall, shoulders straight, chest out, power oozing from her.  The restoration was complete.

Although much shorter than Nazia, she had proven she was every inch the warrior.  If previously presented with this version of Kayla, he would have not harboured surprise at how well she had matched his former lover.  This Kayla looked like she could get the better of most.  Save for the gash still on her temple, she looked incredible.  Even her hair seemed more alive, with deeper, more vivid tones of black.  The wonders of a full body re-gen!  She was dressed in new clothes too, dark blue jean trousers and a white and grey striped top.  The tight-fitting stretch materials clung to every contour and muscle.  She was looking quizzically at Messiah.  Her captivating green eyes sparkled with double the vigour they had back in that cargo bay.  If she had managed to enchant then, on half power, what chance did he have now, with her burning like a sun?

“Well?” she questioned.  “Tell me what?”

“I was just mumbling to myself,” he said.

“Oh, I got that, but what were you going to tell me?”

Earlier, the clinicians had allowed Messiah in to see ‘his partner’.  Neither of them had corrected that label, but he had considered at the time that a less drowsy Kayla would have certainly highlighted Burke’s error.  Now, that drowsiness was gone and it was a sharp, determined inquisitor who challenged him.

“Well?” she asked impatiently.  “Tell me what?”

“That it’s time to go,” he said quickly.  “It’s time we left this place and got you back to safety.”

“It’s safe here, you said so, you told me it was safe,” she reminded him. “Burke assured me too.”

“Yes, but…” he left the ‘but’ hanging for too long and she was on it.

“But what?” she asked, suspicion creeping in.

“It’s just time to leave, that’s all.  You are all fixed up now…”

She frowned at that phrase.

“… the good doctor has signed you out, Spirit is waiting, it’s time to head back to the base.”

“But what?”  she asked again.  “What are you not telling me?”

Leaning against a pillar, beaker of water in hand, was not the most dynamic stance.  It did not convey the authority he needed if he were to convince her to follow him.  He ditched the beaker in the relevant bin and stood straight, trying to appear in control.

“Come on,” he said boldly, making as if to leave.

Kayla was having none of it; he would have been surprised if she had.  Caught on the hop, with his guard down, she smelled a rat.  She was not going to let him lead her anywhere without an explanation.

“Tell me the truth, Messiah.”

This was a version of Kayla he had not seen before. It was not the scared woman – feigning fear or otherwise - from the cargo bay at Petang.  It was not the desperate version either, who had nearly blown off his arm as they fled her captors.  Nor was it the forlorn, distressed figure, reacting badly to Luca being paraded across billions of screens.  And it was not the snarling hurricane, last seen tearing across the mezzanine deck on a collision course with Nazia.  This was a confident Kayla, and she was testing him, testing his honesty.  From those early exchanges on the Noche, it had never been the case that she was the only criminal and the one to be treated with contempt and distrust at every turn.  They were equals when it came to their illicit pasts, and both had to earn the trust of the other.

“There are Union agents here,” he blurted, doubting the wisdom of his words even as they left his mouth.

She visibly tensed.  “How many?” she asked.

“At least four,” he said, “less than an hour ago, checking in a patient just over there.”

Kayla followed his gesture to the reception desk.   It was currently quiet, staffed by a single young female, with a drone floating diligently nearby.  Kayla rolled her tongue over her teeth thoughtfully, noting how marvellously clean they felt.  It was in stark contrast to how her mouth felt and tasted when incarcerated and working down the mine.  Physically, she had no worries, but the fear of being taken back to that Kamdo hellhole lay heavy.

“They are here for me,” she frowned.

“You do not know that,” Messiah disagreed.

“You said this place was beyond the Union.  Burke confirmed the same.  So why are they here?”

“I told you, a patient, they brought a patient…” Messiah trailed off.  He had just reached an obvious conclusion that he had previously overlooked.  A familiar agent… the check-in of a highly secretive patient at a highly secretive clinic…  surely not!  There was no way he could conceal this sudden revelation; it was written all over his face in big neon letters.

“One of the agents,” he blurted, “the lead agent…”

Furrowed brows waited for him to complete his sentence.  He momentarily seemed unable or unwilling to explain further.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“He introduced himself as Agent Felipe Victor…”

Kayla’s nostrils flared and she inhaled sharply.  The name had not initially meant anything to Messiah, but he had not watched that broadcast on repeat three dozen times.  Right at the start of that sham press-conference, the agents were introduced, and that name had played in Kayla’s thoughts ever since first hearing it.  The connection Messiah had taken an hour to make, she made instantly.

“Jed is here,” she said.

“That was not the name of the patient, it was Pike someone.”

“An alias,” she quickly determined, “it has to be.  But why bring him here?  Do they know we are here too?  Are they here for me?  How could they know?”

“Too many questions!” her companion exclaimed.

“Perhaps they do not know we are here at all, but that is a huge co-incidence…”

“It is, but there are not many places you can take a fugitive who needs treatment, not many places you can avoid the gaze of not only the Union, but the media too.”

“Especially if that treatment is unconventional,” she agreed, “perhaps even illegal, and you need to keep it secret.”

They were both racing towards the same conclusion.

“Jed has been all over the airwaves,” Messiah said.  “If they want to keep him hidden, they could not take him to anywhere public.”

“You would need a place that guarantees anonymity.”

“I know this sector pretty well, and the neighbouring ones too,” divulged Messiah.  “There is no other top-class medical facility that sits outside the jurisdiction of the Union or local governments.  There is no other that offers this range of treatments and the privacy that goes with it.”

“The Union like their secrets,” pondered Kayla, “and the outer sectors are where they keep them.  They would never take a so-called terrorist anywhere near a first world clinic, never.  If someone paraded on every channel turned up in ward sixteen, nurse Smith would soon be talking, and the whole galaxy would soon know about it.”

“Yeah, they are not beyond silencing the press, but sometimes the story is so big, and would be off and running before they could stop it.”

“So, to avoid taking that risk, what can they do with a high-profile prisoner who needs treatment, but bring them somewhere like this…?”

“Do you think Jed is here?”  Messiah asked.

“I am sure of it,” she said.

“And the natural conclusion then, is that they do not know we are here.”

“Which is why they haven’t tried to apprehend us,” Kayla agreed.

Messiah nodded.  “Victor has not got a clue he is only metres from the prize.”

“For now,” Kayla said, “but I will be instantly recognised.   Burke recognised me when I was battered and covered in blood.”

Messiah scanned the reception area for the umpteenth time.  Since the agents had been shown away, there had been no sign of the Union.

“I was going to suggest I settle the bill and we leave…” he left his words floating, knowing that idea would be a no-go.

“No way,” said Kayla sternly.  “This is a gift.  If there is a chance Jed is here, we are going to find him.”

“I thought you might say that.”

The post-op calm that had enveloped Kayla was showing signs of slipping.  As she glared at Messiah, he was yet again faced with the reality that the rules governing his life had changed, and he had little say in the shape of the new regime that was forming.  He was no longer the loner, safely tucked away from his past, able to come and go as he liked.  Not only had he mortgaged his soul to Xi Cha, he had sold it to this woman too.  And this was not a trade he had consciously sought, nor was it a deal he remembered shaking on, but it was one he could not now escape.  The contract was formed the moment he helped the bedraggled mess in the loading bay.  She had willingly accepted his assistance and, in doing so, she had taken over his life.

That dependence on him when fleeing Petang was gone.  Here stood a strong woman far more capable than most at looking after herself.  If she no longer needed his help, did that mean he could tear up that contract?  What if he told her he was leaving?  What if he were to tell her he was off back to the Noche, and she had the choice to join him, or he would leave on his own? He had form on walking out on people; Nazia could testify to that.  But this was not people, this was Kayla McGann.  He could not leave her and, truth be told, he did not want to leave her either.

“You can go,” she challenged, as if she could read his thoughts.  “If you don’t want to help me with this, you can go.”

“It’s dangerous,” he said.

She shrugged.

“If I go, how do you get away from here?”

“I will figure it out,” she said.

“If Jed is here,” Messiah explained, “and that is still a big ‘if’, but if it is him that’s this ‘Pike’, then we still have no idea where he is, and he will be heavily guarded.  All four agents I saw were packing and we are unarmed.  It is going to be impossible to get to him!”

“Go, I don’t need you.”

Her stubborn dismissal prompted him to smile, those glistening white teeth beaming through.

“Oh, you might not need me,” he said, “but we both know it will be easier if I stick around.”

Kayla offered no reply.

“What you want to attempt, in freeing your old friend, will be as dangerous as it gets.  Quiet possibly, it is suicidal.  But I can do danger!” he boasted, not trying to impress, but reminding her of his past.  “Have you forgotten what I used to do for a living?   And gunrunning to the Kamdo is hardly a safe line of employment.  I am staying, but, genuinely, this is crazy, and I have no damn idea how we will get to him.”

“I get into places, I get out of places, it’s what I’m good at,” she said, her lips tightening into a rare smile, “or have you forgotten what I used to do for a living too?”

+     +     +

Desperation can lead a person to make rash decisions.  When that person is a senior agent in the Union Intelligence Services, rash decisions can have significant consequences.  As Agent Felipe Victor watched them wheel more equipment into the room, he had a sense this whole expedition was one rash decision after another.  He had no idea how big the consequences would prove to be, not only to his own life, but also to the lives of many across the galaxy.

His dislike of Doctor Schmidt continued to solidify as this disaster unfolded.  Somehow, when he had lost two good troopers in the pacer crash, that lucky piece of shit had survived.   One of the troopers had collapsed in the desert of Meridian Rise, his helmet inexplicably removed.  The other was missing, undoubtedly dead, probably buried under the mountain of sand that had covered the crash scene.  With terrible conditions still prevailing, the rescue team were yet to gain full access to the site and establish exactly what had happened, but it seemed likely that the missing pilot had wandered into the desert, perhaps looking for help.

Schmidt’s story matched this version of events too, her recollections now conveniently including the concussed memory of an injured trooper staggering from the craft.  The testimony fit, but Victor did not trust her.  His job was to interrogate criminals and he knew a lie when he heard one.  But his hands felt tied.  Sure, he could have challenged her more vigorously, he could have even strapped her to an interrogation bench, but that would hardly help him solve his current problem would it?  He needed the old witch to restore the prisoner, then he could rescue his floundering career.

In the wake of the assassination attempt on the president, others further up the chain were being pressured for results too.  This was his last roll of the dice.  His boss had granted Victor the authority to try a different approach.  Reluctantly, back at the base on Meridian, he had turned to Schmidt for ideas.

“What might Luca still be hiding?” he had asked her.

“Nothing, deliberately,” she had told the agent, “not with all the Midazolepine running through his veins.”

“But?”

“But he is only about ninety-eight percent restored,” the doctor had explained. “He has gaps in his own memories where Macey can poke through.  The drugs help him to manage by calming his brain. They help him to reject those things that don’t quite fit.  Without them, it is likely he would suffer serious episodes of psychosis.”

“Two percent not restored…?”

“It’s a figure, I’m guessing.”

“So, two percent of his memories still lost to him?”

“Not lost,” she had advised, “just not connected.”

“And you can connect them?  You can do that?  You can give me access to that two percent?”

“Not here,” the doctor had told him, “not with this equipment.”

It had been a ploy, of course it had, he saw that clearly now.  If he was honest with himself, he had seen it then too.  It was all part of her attempts to control the situation and wrestle back some degree of freedom.  If she could disrupt the agent’s expected modus operandi and take his plans along a different path, a path of her making, then she felt like she was winning.  Victor did not care about her games, he just needed to get results, and so he had agreed to bring the subject to this clandestine clinic at the edge of the Dark Zones.  It was a place Victor had heard of before; most agents had.  The Warehouse operated in secret, yet, in certain parts of the Union machine, it was very much on the radar.

The fact Schmidt knew of it too should not have surprised him.  She had spent decades in confinement, quizzing her wardens for hour after hour.  She would have also eavesdropped on many conversations and occasionally they allowed her access to the network to support her ongoing scientific research.  In all that time, a woman as clever and as manipulative as Schmidt would have gleaned significant intelligence of her own.  And before the ethical cleansing programme, the doctor had many research associates.  Across the intervening years, tracking those down would have been an interest, if not quite a priority.  It seemed she had certainly been able to follow the activity of at least one of those, and it was that old friendship with Director Burke that had put the Warehouse top of her list when it came to the options for advancing Luca’s recovery.

A few hours after that initial conversation, two pacers had left Meridian Rise destined for an unrecorded location.  Aboard the first were agents Sapphire and Asperik, escorting the untrustworthy Schmidt.  On the other, Victor along with agents Dell and Nesbit, accompanied a groggy Luca.  Nesbit had waited with the pacers when the others disembarked.  They were now all in the allocated medical suite, except for Sapphire, who was standing guard outside.

In the crowded room, medical staff were busily setting up the equipment to Schmidt’s specifications.  She was watching, arms folded under her saggy old chest, huffing and puffing impatiently.  Victor’s contempt-filled eyes never left her.  There was something intrinsically wicked about this woman.  This freakish science of hers bothered him; he was convinced she must have cut a deal with the devil.  And like a dark, twisted demon, she carried the stench of death with her, even after he had insisted on her freshening up before the journey.  It was now a day since they had left Meridian Rise and her pungent breath and body odour were back to full force.  She was a fucking monster.  Victor glanced across at Agent Dell and he knew she was thinking pretty much the same.

“Does she even know what she’s doing?” Dell made no attempt to lower her voice, clearly not caring if the doctor heard the disdain.

“She probably knows about as much as we do about successful interrogation techniques,” he frowned.

“I told you,” Dell shrugged, “you should have let me at him.”

Luca was sitting in the corner of the room, looking remarkably disinterested in the goings on.  It had been a horrendous couple of weeks for this man and there were physical signs of the trauma suffered, the most obvious of which were the calluses peeking through stubbly hair, but his general demeanour showed little sign of stress.

“You are an enthusiastic rookie,” Victor calmly told Dell.  “Know your limits and, more importantly, know your place.”

She glowered at him with overt petulance and that annoyed him further.  Once this was over, if she still had a job, he would be recommending her immediate deployment to the military.  She needed some action under her belt, not just a cosy interrogation.  There was nothing like a bit of personal jeopardy or seeing a colleague fall at your side to provide a more balanced perspective on the value of life.

“It is conventional to recognise your senior officer when he speaks to you, Agent Dell,” he pushed, “not just scowl at them like a scolded teenager.”

With significant reluctance, the young woman straightened up, clicked her heels, and saluted.  “Yes, sir,” she barked obediently.

Victor nodded his acknowledgement and turned his attention back to Schmidt.  The doctor was giving the technicians the benefit of her stinking wisdom, and they were wincing at every word.  There was a minor disagreement over one piece of equipment which, if he could follow the conversation, was a higher specification than the one she had requested.  After some dismissive arm waving, the doctor seemed to calm to the suggestion that perhaps they could configure it to the earlier operating system.  Agreement reached, they set about changing the software.  A minute or so later, the technicians stepped back, seemingly satisfied.  A nod from Schmidt and they started to gather up their tools.

As they went to leave, the doctor caught hold of one, her bony fingers hooking into his sleeve.

“Burke?” she enquired.

“Yes?” quizzed the technician.

“I never agreed to this!” injected Victor, but she ignored him.

“I want to see Burke.”

“Director Burke does not usually…”

“Just tell him his old friend, Schmidt, would like his help,” she said.

Victor moved to intervene, but his words fell away.  What was the point?  Petulance from his agents and now petulance from the detainee doctor.  This farce of an assignment continued to play out and, whilst he could be frustrated at his bad luck, he was starting to wonder if this was not just his own incompetence.  Failures were, after all, failures.

“Will you tell him that?  That Klarrisa Schmidt is here?  He will want to see me.”

“I don’t…” the technician started to explain.

“Just tell him!” the doctor insisted.

“Oh, just fucking tell him!” an exasperated Victor exploded.

The technician was shaken.  The words of the sharp-suited agent carried far more menace than those of the frail, old woman.  Unsure how to react, possibly mimicking Dell’s recent example, he attempted a salute.  It was embarrassing.

“Yes, sir,” he mumbled, awkwardly backing out of the room with his colleagues “and sorry, ma’am.”

“And do not call her ma’am!” Victor bellowed.

Schmidt cackled.  “Clearly, the boy recognises my seniority.”

“Just get Luca strapped in,” Victor hissed.  “And no fucking about! You had better fix him this time and quickly, my patience is wearing thin!”

“Ah yeah,” she smirked, “I will be sure to work just as fast as I can.  I’ll work super-fast so you can send me back to some shitty outpost sooner, once I have served my purpose.”

“Oh, that is the least of your worries,” Felipe Victor snarled, “there are far worse places I can send you if you fuck me about!  Now get to work!”

+     +     +

Somehow, along the way, and despite never crossing back to the right side of the law, Messiah had become unexpectedly compliant.  Not with everything, of course.  Not with customs declarations, or blockades, or trade regulations, but when it came to the small stuff, he toed the line.  This was a shift in attitude from his time with Hab Cyrus, Nazia, Fatboy and others, when any rule, no matter how insignificant, had been there to be broken.  It had not mattered how irrelevant the rule was, it just had to be flaunted.

Since working alone, with the peer pressure removed, Messiah had become accustomed to just doing what was easier, which usually meant obeying instructions.  Of course, to fund his lifestyle, he still had to ignore the laws on trading weapons and the embargo with the Kamdo, but there was value in breaking those.  There was little point running afoul of the authorities on minor things where there was no reward to be had.  So, when he walked through the holographic “No Entry - Authorised Personnel Only” sign, it felt uncomfortable.  It felt like every electronic eye in The Warehouse was watching him.  Quite possibly, they were.  Indeed, Kayla’s plan relied on it.

Chapter Four

“I knew you would get around to me eventually,” he said.

The line was silent, but he could visualise her sitting at the other end, face seething, a whole host of things she wanted to say just bubbling to escape.  Perhaps she even had her key points noted down, alongside a reminder of just how indignant she needed to be.  Seething, indignant, what else?  No doubt she had a whole lot of patronising to throw in there for good measure too.

“There was no point calling you before now,” came the reply, “not until I had garnered the opinions of others, and you had done likewise.”

Oh, he had garnered in buckets - councillors, senators, journalists, household staff, even, heaven-forbid, his wife.  Very few had given him straight answers, most just playing back the same imponderable dilemmas that had already blighted his thoughts a hundred times.  The only ones brave enough to give clear opinions were probably still back on the satellite station arguing amongst themselves.  Faced with the biggest crisis to befall the expanding human empire in centuries, he was no closer to finding a unifying solution.  If he had managed to glean one definitive view from all the conversations he had endured over the week since the assassination attempt, it was that there was no easy way to fix this mess.  Hundreds of lightyears from Earth, out beyond the edges of the dust cloud known as Hadrian’s Gate, casualties were mounting.  Closer to home, across the inner systems, rhetoric and blame were growing as public opinion swayed one way and then the other.  And amidst all that, the president was consuming more alcohol than he had since being a young man.  That was not, as Chef reminded him daily, doing his blood pressure any good.  Once he gotten through this, he would need a damn good detox and a week in health stasis.  That was assuming he did actually get through it, which was a big ‘if’.

“I have their opinions,” Chilake said, “I just am not sure which ones to value.”

“Based on your track record, the wrong ones,” came the somewhat hostile reply.

“Thank-you for your faith in me,” the president sighed, “it is much appreciated.  Here I was, thinking I was struggling to somehow keep things together in these almost impossible circumstances, and there you go, building me up, giving me the confidence boost when I was starting to question…”

“This is not about you, Mister President.”

He almost swore.  How dare she?  He could not recall seeing her standing alongside as he cowered under that domed forcefield, the auditorium exploding into a fireball.

“I know it is not about me, Councillor Steph, and I do not believe I have ever tried to make it so.”

Silence again from the other end, as well there might be.

“Let’s get to why you have called,” Chilake asked.  “Let’s get to the point.”

“I want you to call off Meyer and cease hostilities,” she said.  “Hundreds, thousands, are dying needlessly.  Stop it now.  Stop this catastrophe.”

“I cannot do that, councillor,” he said, “it is not that simple.”

“Are you not the president?” she growled; he could imagine her snarly face spewing forth those words.  “Are you not commander-in-chief?”

“Which is exactly why I can grasp the complexity of the situation,” he snapped back, “which you clearly cannot.  This is a broad issue and how we proceed will not only decide the fate of our brave troopers on the ground and the pilots and technicians aboard the battlecruisers, but it will dictate the future of the frontier worlds too, those facing the Dark Zones.  There are millions live in those far away settlements.  We cannot have this explode in such a way that they are put at risk, and nor can we ignore the ongoing threat that an unchecked Kamdo regime would pose to them.”

“And that is why the only way forward is to forge a lasting peace!” insisted Steph.  “We need to bring them in from the cold, loosen the sanctions, show them that the Union is not the evil regime they believe us to be!”

“Spitak,” said the president.

“What?” she asked.

“Spitak,” Chilake repeated.  “Betrayers.  That is what they call us.  In their cultural psyche, that is what we are.  That belief is indoctrinated into their children as soon as they leave the womb!  The nasty Union, the nasty ‘others’, who cast them adrift, banishing them to barren worlds around weak suns, without access to the technologies of the inner sectors.  They live miserable lives by comparison to ours, and they blame us for that.”

“As they should, it is true!” said the councillor. “We did abandon them!”

“Ah Steph,” Chilake sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose to ease a building tension, “you really should try to broaden your historical perspective.  A little more balance to your bedtime reading.  Less of the Marx, Haiwan and Patrice, perhaps?  There was no abandonment.  During the third wave of the Great Expansion, a few nations, but notably those from the Korean peninsula, headed beyond the Gate.  Other nations shied away from that region, taking advantage of the many more suitable places much closer to Earth…”

“I do not need a history lesson!” she snapped.

“Oh, but I think you do,” the president insisted, with annoying calmness.  “Others shied away because all the analysis showed those systems were not hospitable!  A cluster of failing stars, a slag heap of feeble suns, almost like they had all been thrown out of a defective factory.  The chances of finding prime planets out there was low, but they jumped there anyway, ignoring the recommendations of others…”

“The larger nations and alliances had already claimed most of the choice sectors, the Kamdo were left with slim pickings.  It was in desperation to expand their culture and avoid being consumed by the imperialism of expanding empires…”

“Propaganda and poppycock!”  Chilake scoffed.  “They were pursuing a policy of isolationism!  The Union pumped trillions into their economies, propping them up, and yet still they chose to snub the rest of humanity!  And for a long time, the other sectors continued to support them financially.  Surely, you remember all the fundraising?  It was still going on when you were a kid…”

“Of course, I remember,” Steph confirmed.

“To help pay for terraforming, to pay for high yielding crops, to send them the tech they needed to increase carbon and oxygen levels in the atmospheres, to put more nitrogen into their soils!  And then…”

“Then they were betrayed.”

“And then the galactic economy nose-dived, and the cost of expansion finally caught up with the taxpayer.  Funding dried up overnight.  No betrayal, just hard, economic realities.”

“Tell that to the children dying of starvation and diseases eradicated in the inner sectors centuries before!”

Chilake sighed and considered terminating the conversation.  His finger hovered over the ‘end’ button.  She was infuriating, but he was not going to let her disrupt his calm morning.  Instead, he reached for the coffee his wife had delivered shortly before the call.  It was good stuff, grown on the hills of Cuba, not far from their holiday retreat.  Home comforts like this mattered immensely when the galaxy was going to shit.

“So,” he said, composed, “where does that leave us?”

Steph took her time to reply but Chilake did not mind.  He added a drop of cream – more good stuff – and savoured the first sip.  Damn, he loved quality coffee.  The aroma and taste were perfect blockers to Steph’s silliness.

“We need to convene the council,” Steph said, “and run through the options. Then we should consider each in turn until…”

“… ‘consensus can be reached’…” mocked Chilake, rolling his eyes to the empty room.

“… and until then, until we find that way forward, we must suspend all military action!”

Chilake took another sip.

“Not happening,” he said coldly.

“Which bit?”

“All of it,” he said. “Look, I know you have been calling others and trying to win them over to your way of thinking, and I have no problem with that, we live in a democracy, but I also know your call for a ceasefire has limited support, not in the council, not in the senate, not in the homes of our citizens.  Let us not lose sight that the first shots in this conflict were fired by the Kamdo.”

“That is not true.”

He ignored her intervention.  “When they illegally boarded Porthos and slaughtered hundreds of our troopers, they declared war.  Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters.  They have to be held to account for that.  No one wants innocents to suffer or get caught up in this, but we have to bring the Kamdo regime to heel.”

“Because they humiliated the Union by overseeing the escape of McGann?” scoffed the councillor.  “Is this revenge for that, or are we blaming them for the assassination attempt too?  The bomber had no affiliation with the Kamdo, you will have seen the files just as I have.  As for McGann, well, what the hell was she doing in a prison like that anyway?  It breached so many of the Union’s own intergalactic laws!”

“We are not going to go back over decisions taken in the wake of Three Zero…”

“Oh, conveniently brushing that under the carpet!”

“We are at war, Councillor Steph, please respect the need to focus on resolving this crisis and not picking over past events.”

“I will not fall silent!” she hissed.  “I will not stand by as peace is ripped apart!  We have enjoyed centuries without major conflict and now all that is going up in smoke.  There are those who stand with me.  I cannot pretend it is a majority, or even close, but I am not alone, and I will not fall silent!”

And didn’t he know it.

“And in my other ear,” he said, “I have Delaney, calling for their obliteration.  This is not an easy line to walk, councillor, not easy at all.”

A pause in the conversation left Chilake wondering if there was some creeping empathy for his difficult position from the other end of the line.  Whatever her opinions, Steph was a decent person and he hoped she could see this through his eyes.  Boy, did he feel the need for some sympathy right now.

Another sip of coffee.

“I tell you this in confidence,” he said, “please keep it to yourself.”

It was a lie, others knew what he was about to reveal and soon, no doubt, the media would too.  For now, though, it was perhaps useful to bring her in close, make her feel trusted.  It was a stretch to believe he could win her over, but even if all he did was shift her perception one or two steps towards the middle ground it would help.  Whilst not as obviously dangerous as the hawkish Delaney, her ideals were as equally founded in ignorance.  The stance of the Kamdo was, and never had been, one seeking harmony.

Spitak.

“Go on,” said Steph, suspicion in her voice.

“Athos is positioned in the Cheonmin system and soon a fully operational Porthos will join it.  They will keep a respectful distance from Ikkal.  Communication channels are already open with the Kamdo High Council and, on arrival, Commander Meyer…”

He heard a mumble of distain down the line.

“… on arrival,” he continued, “Commander Meyer will despatch a delegation.  They will go with demands, but it is an opportunity to broker a ceasefire.”

“You are putting peace negotiations in the hands of a warmonger,” Steph scoffed.

“The Commander is at the front.”

“The Commander is a warmonger.”

“You know only his reputation,” replied Chilake, frustration bristling in his tone.

“And what else is there to know?” snapped Steph.

“The delegation…”

“Do not treat me like a fool, Mister President!  If this were a genuine attempt to broker peace you would not start with demands, and you would not leave it to a soldier!  Tell me, what exactly are you going to ask of the Kamdo as the prerequisite to talks?  How ridiculous will you make those demands?  Something tells me they will be things that you know the Kamdo will be compelled to reject.  Succumb to Union rule, perhaps?  Very Genghis Khan at the gates of Baghdad!”

“I cannot give you anymore,” Chilake declined, “I have told you too much already.”

“You have told me nothing!” she snorted angrily.  “Pointless platitudes, that is all.  Pointless platitudes, a pointless delegation, more pointless deaths and this, a pointless conversation.  You disappoint me, Mister President, and history will judge you.”

Yes, he was acutely aware of that.

“Well, let us end this pointless call then,” he said.  “Your protestations are duly noted, but I have more pressing matters to deal with.”

“You should call a council…”

“You did not even bother to respond to the Oracle when summoned for the last emergency session, so you can stop your demanding.  I have considered the options open to me and chosen the path most sensible in the circumstances.”

“Then we are done,” Steph began to say, but he had already terminated the call.  The room fell silent as the controls shrank away to a palm sized panel, which he then flicked back into his identifier.

Another sip of coffee.  It had lost its taste.  Now it was just brown, warm stuff like the ones from the machines.  Angrily, he threw it down his throat, glugging when he should have savoured.

“Chef,” he said to the empty study.

“Yes, sir?” asked the female voice.

“What I need right now…” he pondered.

“Yes, if I can be of assistance?”

“Get me Councillor Bahir,” he said, “I need someone who can talk sense.”

“Yes, sir,” the computer obediently replied.

“Oh, and fire me up a blue lagoon,” he glanced at the dispenser over by the door, “and make it double strength.”

“Yes, sir.  Coming right up.  Also, Mistress Chilake would like to know when you are joining her for breakfast?”

“When I am ready,” the president replied, “just tell her that.”

He knew as he said it, that his wife would eat breakfast alone.

+     +     +

“Are they sure it was her?”

The hologram on Ryn Grayling’s desk was scratching his face.  The image was sharp enough that the media mogul could see that the caller had not shaved for a couple of days, nails scraping over the stubble.  Grayling did not like looking at this hefty man at the best of times, but he could have at least made himself more presentable before dialling.

“I suppose it could have been a projection,” pondered the ten-inch-high Delaney, “but given the circumstances, the place, the people involved, it seems very unlikely that such clever trickery was deployed.  The witnesses are credible too, I trust them.”

“And who are these people again?” asked Grayling.

Delaney paused his scratching.  There was enough fidgeting from the small figure to make it obvious that the next words spoken were, at best, not the whole truth.

“Oh, you know,” he said, “associates, business partners, part of the money-go-round that keeps us all fed and watered.”

“How big a part?  How big a risk is this?”

The councillor rolled his eyes and then looked beyond Grayling, as if he were listening to another person in the room he was transmitting from.  Was Delaney actually trying to be annoying?  Grayling really did not like the fat, corrupt oaf.

“You had better be alone,” Grayling challenged, “this is meant to be a private conversation.”

“I am alone,” said Delaney, but it felt like another untruth.  “Look, this is not ideal, and it is a risk, quite how big, only time will tell.  Gagan Kragenfeld has had exposure to operations, he knows things, but not a lot, thankfully.  He may have a few names, a few files; this bunch are not the tightest administrators.  What we do know is that your old friend is as resourceful, clever, and determined as ever.  She also, apparently, has sexual history with Kragenfeld, so she can probably extract exactly what she needs from him.”

Grayling did not like that last piece of insight one little bit.

“But you know her better than most,” the councillor reflected.  “You know the capabilities of the woman.  She seems to have an uncanny ability to get her hands on the things we would rather she did not!”

“You can say that again,” Grayling sighed.  “So, what now?  Do these people of yours know where they might be heading?  I take it their ship is being followed or tracked?”

“The ship they used is described as a modern, interstellar cruiser, but no, the group on Skalgen C will not have had a vessel capable of following and I doubt they had the tech to track either.  They did capture images of the craft from drones.  I am waiting on them being reviewed by our friends at the agency, see if there are any identification numbers or anything else that gives us a lead.”

“And then what?” asked an exasperated Grayling.  “Why bring this to me?  Another useless sighting and Roan still up to her games.  So what?  I’m sick of hearing stories like this, stories about that bitch. What do you want me to do about it?”

“I brought it to you because she’s your fucking problem!” snapped the hologram.  “Twice before this bitch has threatened to bring the Guild crashing down, twice!”

“And I sorted it…”

“If you had sorted it, she would not still be out there.  All you managed was damage limitation.”

“And if I had not, we would have all paid dearly.  This is not my mess, none of it!  I am constantly sweeping up other people’s shit!  She is only out there causing chaos because of the games you and the Guild continue to play. I’m just the janitor, always have been.  And if it isn’t you, it’s the fucking president.  I just clean up your messes, just like McGann!  I’m the one fixing that problem too, the one finding the leads, the one having the good ideas like offering the bounty, whilst you politicians sit on your arses concocting corrupt schemes in your quests for power…”

Grayling trailed off, realising he was hardly beyond reproach when it came to corruption.  In his frustration, he could try to place the blame on others, but he was here through conscious decisions he had taken many moons ago.  He did not like Delaney’s assertion though, that he was somehow to blame more than others, but now was perhaps not the time to push this argument further.  Tact was needed, and he had more tact in his little finger than the councillor had in his entire bulbous body.  When he next spoke, Ryn’s tone was calm and measured:

“Look, we can all point fingers.  I could challenge you on the inadequacies of your operational network - inadequacies and gaps that Roan has exploited – but what good will arguing do?  What we need to do is learn and focus, or complacency will be all our undoing.  We are only ever one slip away from disaster.  We cannot forget that the majority of the Union works against us.  We cannot forget the strong legal frameworks and the numerous enforcement agencies that crawl all over this galaxy.  The president may be compromised on one level, but only superficially, not down to the levels of depravity you sink.  Chilake would not turn a blind eye to your seedier activities; he could not.”

“Yet you do,” Delaney mocked.

Yeah, and he was a fool to have ever done so but he was in too deep to change that.  He had had enough of listening to this despicable man.  If he were to sleep at some point this evening, he needed to end this conversation before his stress levels started to soar.

“Just sort your own mess out,” he told the councillor, the calm veil slipping, “before you try to pass the blame this way.  If this backwards tribe you are so friendly with manage to obtain anything useful from the drones, let me know, but otherwise, do not bother me with it again.  I am a busy man, the largest media empire in the galaxy does not run itself!”

And with that, he ended the broadcast, denying the gesticulating Delaney the right to reply.  Ryn Grayling wished it were that easy to silence everyone who irritated him, especially the one with red hair.

Chapter Five

Four hundred and sixty light years from the Union senate building in New York, was a government building of a quite distinct architectural style, and with an outlook that could not have been any more different.  Built atop a craggy hillside, over-looking a seemingly endless sea of cultivated fields, sat the Citadel of Kee Doo Son.  It was only a century old, but already the fierce winds and acid rain had aged the stone construct considerably.  In parts, some of the original ornate pillars and ramparts were already crumbling.  Only rusty scaffold, haphazardly deployed, prevented significant chunks of masonry from tumbling down the hill.

Today was a rare day of bright sunshine and the various crops were soaking it up.  The wheats and other grains billowed in a modest breeze, just as they did across much of the colonised galaxy, only here the plants were shorter than average and yielded stunted kernels.  More reason for these people to hate their betrayers.

This was Ikkal, the home world of the Kamdo.  Although not the first planet settled in this cluster of dark systems, it was now the administrative centre and the home of the High Council. The citadel, basking in the unusually bright day, also basked in the universal admiration and unerring loyalty of the Kamdo people.  This was not a government held together by tyranny, whatever the Union propaganda machine portrayed.  Democracy may not have had a place, but the feudal system, underpinned by holy beliefs, worked well in getting the people through the bleak winters.

Twelve days ago, Athos had popped out of jump and sent the detectors in the citadel wild.  Since then, the battlecruiser had hung outside the planet’s atmosphere, a new star in the night sky.  On the same day it arrived, news had already filtered through of a similar menace in the skies above Eropidous.  Soon after, the local authorities on that planet had taken the decision to launch a surprise attack, much to the frustration of the leadership here.  Now, fire reigned down across much of the Kamdo Empire and the reports coming in from the other worlds were catastrophic.  Days long prophesised were now upon them and called on the promises of every citizen.  It was the time of Ultimate Commitment.  It was the time of Ultimate Sacrifice.

Along with many from the surrounding areas, believing an imminent offensive was inevitable, the High Council had taken to the shelter of the catacombs and caves in the mountain.  Twelve days later, and the citadel still stood unchallenged.  Despite the bloodshed across other worlds, including its own moon, the Union had not yet attacked Ikkal. In the war rooms, staff sat vigilant, monitoring the consoles and displays, watching the skies, gathering updates from across the beleaguered empire.  Today, like every other day, Chancellor Doogon-Lee had ventured out of hiding to join them.  He spent some time with the team, listening to the reports of pacers buzzing nearby settlements.  These sorties could have been to assess the defences, although the Union could do that without coming in so close.  More likely, it was all part of their intimidation tactics.  After an hour observing, a forlorn chancellor withdrew to the cabinet room and summoned the deputy chief-of-staff.

Panettak had barely made it through the door before the leader was quizzing her: “Update, comrade?”

Doogon-Lee spoke one of several regional dialects common amongst the Kamdo.  They were all derived from the same source language, and the variations were subtle. Panettak had no difficulty in understanding him, despite being from a different planet.  Unenviably, she was Eropidean.  When she replied, her voice was shaky, the update starting with the latest from her home world.

“The city of Nunhaka has been flattened,” she said, “and with it, Eropidous has all but fallen.  Casualties are high, estimated at over twenty thousand in that one city alone.  Other major settlements have all suffered heavily too.  Spitak forces are showing no mercy and no restraint; there are very few reports of survivors.”

The chancellor had already concluded that world would be used as an example.  The premature attack on Porthos had been a foolish mistake.  Ultimately, it had failed and had stung the enemy into action.  The Union’s response was extreme; he feared there was no coming back from this for his people.

“The surface of Eropidous is crawling with their forces,” Panettak continued, “and more re-enforcements are flooding the system.  They already occupy most of the planet and have established it as their base of operations.”

She was nearly in tears as she spoke, fighting the emotions as best she could.  Below the brief headlines was a list of all those towns now under occupation.  Her own town was there, added in the last few hours.  She had no idea of the fate of her family.

“Our people,” she pushed on, “are powerless against their weaponry.  Their firepower is incredible, their ferocity beyond our comprehension and expectations.”

“Yet they do not have our technology,” Doogon-Lee said hopefully.  “They cannot transition.”

“Our soldiers have protected our secrets well.  So far, it is reported that all transition units have been destroyed rather than letting them fall into enemy hands.  Many have sacrificed their lives to make sure the tech could be captured.”

“And beyond Eropidous?” the chancellor asked, his voice soft and sympathetic, understanding his comrade’s anxiety.

“Their fleet swells and the large battlecruisers are on the move.  Five other systems are under attack.  Last reports show over twenty battles ranging across eight worlds and the fronts are expanding.  They are attacking from the skies, as we thought they would, but we are also seeing significant numbers of ground troopers deployed too.”

“Targets?”

“Mostly our military bases, but many of those are in densely populated areas and we are seeing high civilian casualties.”

“No one is a civilian anymore, comrade,” he sighed.  “This is as we always feared.  Every citizen must take up arms!”

“And they are,” Panettak assured.  “Our people are striking back as best they can!  Where we have transition, we are using it and we are hurting them, but these are only small victories against their onslaught.”

It was not what Doogon-Lee wanted to hear and it was not what his deputy chief-of-staff wanted to advise.  Panettak longed for the return of her senior so she could step back, but he was engaged in other business and unlikely to return anytime soon.

“What about our fleet?” the chancellor asked.

Whilst he listened, irritated fingers picked at the arm of the leather chair housing his broad figure.  A piece of fabric hung loose.  He brushed at it, as if trying to magically repair, and then slapped it down in frustration.  Agitated, he stood.  There was a rage building inside but he knew he had to contain it.  Since the invading forces had crossed through the edge of the nebula, he had nearly lost his cool on many occasions.  Hysteria simmered and a constant bubble of panic sat heavy in his chest.  He had to hold it together; his people needed him to find a way through this unparalleled disaster.

“Our fleet is no match,” Panettak said solemnly and predictably.  It was the same question he had asked yesterday, and she suspected he would ask it again tomorrow.  If there was a tomorrow.

“Even our best cannot get through their defences,” she explained.  “If their superior weapons do not destroy our ships on approach, we simply crash into their energy forcefields.  Our remaining ships have been withdrawn to protect our cities and engage ground forces from the air, but even there we are struggling to gain any advantage.”

“And they just wait above,” he frowned, glancing up at the ceiling of the chamber, as if seeking to spot them.  When he found nothing but the ornate décor, he turned instead to gaze out of the windows and across the sun-kissed fields.  How many more days would this view remain? What storm was over that horizon?  Down below the citadel, his family hid in the caves.  They had no sunlight, only dim, artificial bulbs powered by cranky, old generators.  He would not let them leave those dank holes, not with the enemy so close.  His wife, three children, their partners, and a single grandchild were protected by over fifty metres of rock.  He worried that they would never see the sunlight again.

“Do you need a planet by planet update?” the deputy asked.

“Will it serve to cheer?” he asked back.

She simply hung her head and said nothing.

With half his face illuminated and the other half in shadow, he was the perfect portrait of a leader in turmoil.  One half was grey and sombre, it was lost and scared.  The other half was glowing, the image of strength that the whole Kamdo civilisation revered.  He was a giant amongst comrades, a father to the nations, a brother to the people.

“Ultimate sacrifice,” he mumbled.  He turned from the window and sighed at the advisor.  She tried to appear positive, but it was impossible with such a heavy heart.

“Is it lost?” he asked.  “Are we beaten?”

Despite her obvious distress, she did manage to find enough to offer shallow encouragement.  “No!” she said boldly.  “No, we cannot be, not whilst there is blood in our veins!  We still have transition; we can still surprise the enemy.”

“I fear it is not enough. We surprise them, we kill a few of theirs, and then our comrades are massacred in greater numbers. And, as they advance, we are forced to destroy more and more of our tech.”

“We still have this place,” she was hesitant, the mere thought of where her words were heading seemed to suck the air out of the room.  At some point, though, there would be nothing else.

“Hope,” he said, and she saw the tendons in his neck tense.  This Hope was not merely a concept to cling to, he was talking about a physical thing, a thing of which they never spoke, a thing that lurked in the lower chambers of this citadel.

“It would be the final act,” he told her, “but you know that.  We cannot even consider it… not until we know all is lost.”

There was irony in the name, for this Hope was there for when all other hopes had been extinguished.  It was there for when they could not go on, for when the Kamdo people had fallen.  To even speak of it disgusted her, leaving a bad taste, but desperation was pushing her thoughts along a dangerous and dreadful path.

The chancellor sensed her angst.  Panettak was about the same age as his youngest daughter, and his paternal instincts moved him. He wanted to hug the deputy, but he could not do that, not when he needed her to be strong.  It was unfortunate the war had trapped her senior several systems away, throwing her into the hot seat.  She was deputising into the most important role in the chancellor’s government and she had to keep her nerve.  In this darkest hour, there was nothing he could offer her but his own strength.

“If it comes to it, we will not be the first to have faced such a moment,” he said.

She nodded.  Much of human history was hidden from the Kamdo people, access to the network and its infinite library restricted.  As a senior government official, however, she had access to the archives.

“Twenty-first century,” she mulled.

“Twenty-second,” he corrected, “and then the horrors of the late twenty-third too.”

Yes, of course, she knew that.

“We protect our people from that terrible history,” Doogon-Lee was an advocate of necessary censorship.  “They have nothing to learn from the folly of other races.”

Panettak was less convinced, but she agreed anyway.

“What happened in the Middle East region,” the chancellor explained, even though his colleague did not need the explanation, “was a catalyst for further human expansion.  It was not long afterwards, that the Kamdo struck out towards these systems, desperate to leave the barbarism of other cultures behind.  So many nations on Earth held the most dreadful weapons, deadly warheads capable of destroying the planet hundreds of times over.”

“Such weapons are still abundant.”

“They are,” he agreed, “that capacity for destruction remains, but back then there was only that one planet, and global escalation would have annihilated most of humankind.  It would have spelled the end of everything.”

“But it never got that far.”

“Millions died in Arabia, but thankfully the destruction was limited to that one region.  That region was subsequently abandoned for a century.  In those dark days following the attack, the leaders of Earth had faced a choice, much as we do now.  It was a choice of life and death, a choice to take the path towards peace, or the path to mutual destruction.  With so much power at the fingertips of a few, the few thankfully showed restraint.”

She remained silent as he paused, allowing him the peace to look around and absorb this grand room.  The leather furniture, the wood panelling, the fine tapestries and paintings gifted by loyal artisans – it was a magnificent chamber.  It was impossible to contemplate an end to this place, let alone the city, the farms, or the entire planet.

“Dust,” he said solemnly, “that was all that was left of Arabia.”

“Terrible.”

“And this war would see me face the same terrible choice that our ancient Earth ancestors did.  I am no different to those leaders of yesteryear, standing over the button, the power to launch at my fingertips, the power to end it all.”

“It will not come to that,” she said.  “It must not come to that.”

He cast her a rueful smile.  He had a kind face, this elder amongst the elders, the highest and wisest of all comrades. He was their protector, their provider, their father, their brother.  He was not their destroyer.

“Oh, my loyal deputy-chief,” Doogon-Lee said, “I fear it will.  And I ask, will you stand with me when it does?  Will you be there to hold my conscience and to take away my fear?”

“I will, sire,” she nodded.  “I will stand with you. If it has to be, then we will finish it together.”

+     +     +

Even after hundreds of jumps, the moment when the gentle rattle of particles against the ship’s hull suddenly stopped, and space, with all her cold beauty, dropped back into view, still managed to take his breath away.  As calm and calculated, as cool and measured, as cocky and self-assured as Commander Elliot Meyer was, it got him every time.

Not that he would show it.  A deep intake of breath in the seconds before, and then he rode that moment with all the serenity of the endless black sea he could now see through the portals.  With the jump over, he calmly exhaled.  He was always unphased and always in control.

“There she blows,” he muttered.

As the ship groaned, settling back into normal space, only the technician to Meyer’s side heard him.  It was obvious to what her commander was referring.  From the huge viewing platform, the impressive sight of another battlecruiser loomed.  They had come in close, unexpectedly so.  A series of gasps rippled around the bridge.  Athos filled the top quarter of the view, the gun-metal underbelly glinting in the light of Cheonmin.  Just like the other musketeers, it was beautiful, but it had not earned its combat stripes yet.  It had not smashed the criminal empire of Hab Cyrus, nor had it hammered the cities on Eropidous.  It did not have a crew shaken to the core either, a crew that had witnessed many hundreds of their colleagues perish.

“The peace-keeper,” Meyer smirked cynically.

That label was not entirely appropriate.  Athos’s presence here had kept the Kamdo home world quiet, but not without the odd skirmish.  The action was nothing on the scale of neighbouring systems, but there was the offensive on Ikkal’s moon for one, and thirty or so pacers were out mopping up communication satellites, intent on isolating the High Council.

“Shall we hail them, sir?” asked a technician.

Meyer nodded, “Put it through to my quarters, I’ll take it there.  Commander Hernandez and I have a lot to chat through.”

“Yes, sir,” came the dutiful reply.

“And have Lieutenants Fazzi and Ben-Amir meet me there,” Meyer added.  “I have a special mission for them.”  With that, he swept from the bridge, his personal guard falling in behind.  This war was moving to the next phase.  A new commander had arrived in town, and it was time to bring the Kamdo scourge to heel.

+     +     +

She had a medal.  Finally, her parents would be proud.  Their little girl, who had once horrified and shamed them, causing them stress and worry the likes of which every parent hoped they would never experience, was now a decorated soldier.  And it was not just any medal; it was not just a service memento earned for turning up to work.  This was a combat honour, one of the highest orders, received for saving the lives of thousands.  Oh yes, they would be proud.

But was she?

Andrea Pedros pulled on her vest, adjusting the material under the breasts so the integral bra fit correctly.  Frustratingly, the garment became twisted under her arm.  With a huff, she strained to straighten it, not wanting another day with the fabric cutting into her skin.  It took a few tugs before it finally felt comfortable.  She paused, looking at herself in the dormitory mirror.

Sometimes, no matter what was happening around, it was good to take a moment and reflect.  This was one of those moments.  There was just her in the dorm, no one else, just a young woman in her pants and vest.  She had been to hell, and was probably still there, yet here she stood, looking the same as when she had bid goodbye to her family three months earlier.  That mirror reflected the same body she had been born into, apart from the alien appendage.  This was the same body that had grown from a baby into a girl, and then into a woman.  It was also the same body that had been passionately embraced by her lecturer, a man who had truly loved her, despite others trying to convince her to the contrary in the years since.

She cupped her left elbow in her right hand and the corners of her lips briefly lifted.  It was a hesitant smile.  The loss of her arm had been horrendous, and she still struggled with how anyone could do that to another human, spurned wife or not.  How?  She understood the emotion of a broken heart, oh boy did she, but how could anyone hold the arm of a screaming, terrified young woman in a pan of boiling oil?  She would never understand that, and she would never forgive that.  His wife was still incarcerated, and Pedros hoped she rotted there.

The technician tilted her head to look at the uniform hanging to the side.  The medal, taken from the tray and clipped in place by Commander Meyer, glistened.  She thought of that moment and shuddered.  Along with his consort, they were a pair evil to the core.  Never mind a pan of oil, they had casually torched a city, killing untold thousands.  How could anyone consciously carry out such an act?  And then to pin badges on others and call them heroes?  Those two were in no place to judge the merits of bravery and it made a mockery of the honour.  Her parents could be proud, and she hoped they were.  She wanted them to have that pleasure to compensate for all the trauma she had brought their way. But Andrea would not allow herself any such pride, not with all she had seen, not with all she had heard, not with all she had been a part of.

Still cradling the replacement limb, she ran her cold fingers along the flesh.  She felt every tingle in every hair.  Her body had accepted the new arm far quicker than her mind, with the swelling in the joints settling only a few weeks after surgery.  New nerves had grown soon after, providing her with full functionality.  It was a remarkable piece of bioengineering.  Looking at it now, logic told her it was perfect - the skin tone, the texture, the muscle definition, the colour of those tiny hairs.  Logic told her that, but emotion told her something different.  To Andrea, from day one, the limb had carried a green, alien tint.  A mental aberration, she knew that, but in her mind’s eye the thing was not the same as the rest of her.  It had the eerie glow of an irradiated cucumber.

“It is perfectly normal,” she told the empty room, forcing her mind back to the moment.  The image in the mirror showed her body the way it had always been, with not a hint of green anywhere.  It was a good body too, not perfect, but good.  She was shapely and well-toned, with strongly defined hips and breasts, and smooth, bronzed skin.  Her legs were amazing, even if a little short, and it was a shame they never saw the light of day.  That was not just the fault of the uniform.  She often had the opportunity to show them off when on shore leave, but rarely chose to do so. Ever since the trauma, confidence over her physical appearance had been zero.  Apart from the odd inevitable flash to colleagues in communal changing rooms or the unavoidable reveal when swimming (a necessary part of her military training) she kept her body hidden.  It was ten years since her affair.  In all that time no man had laid lustful eyes nor longing hands on her.

She fought back the emotion.  Stay here, she beseeched herself, do not go back!  Stay here, in this place, in this moment, in this dorm.  Stay in the now, focus on who you are today, on who you have become.

If she could not take any pride in the medal, there were plenty of other things she should hold dear.  A first-class degree in languages for starters, albeit earned a year later than planned.  Exceptionally high attainment scores in the military academy too, the best in her year group, her talents for linguistics and physics were of particular note.  On leaving the academy, various units had fallen over themselves to get her signature.  Sponsorship on to an accelerated learning programme had followed.  Initially commissioned to the Science Division, a transfer into Interspatial and Spectral Analysis had soon followed, with her research focusing on enhancing long range communication technology.  Much of her work had led to the development of the kit on board the new battlecruisers, her subsequent deployment to Porthos thus inevitable.

Those were the things she should be proud of.  That was who she was today, not that bit of metal clipped to her lapel.  The person looking back in the mirror was exceptional and she should never forget that.  She was highly intelligent, highly motivated, dedicated, diligent, and immensely loyal to the Union.  She was a good daughter, a good sister, and a damn good person.  She was a First-Class Technician.  She was First Officer Andrea Luciana Pedros, and the evil deeds of others did not change that.  She was not responsible for their actions.  And her long-term celibacy did not matter either.  Most men would kill to get their hands on this body, and she could smirk inside at that knowledge.  As for the green arm, what did that matter? Especially if she kept it covered.

Pedros reached for her shirt.  It was time to get dressed and ready for duty; she had more lives to save.

+     +     +

When ordered to the front line, Pedros had hoped for the best, but expected the worst.  This deployment was somewhere in between. After travelling on Porthos to the Cheonmin system, she had been despatched on an escorted shuttle to Ikkal’s moon, Hyeson.  As the location of the only battle in the system, it was certainly front line, but tucked away in a bunker several miles from the enemy, she could count herself lucky.  Union forces had pushed through the defences of the small mining settlement and were surrounding a military stronghold, similar to the Citadel of Kee Doo Son.  Aptly named Rockchong, this fortress was also built above a network of underground chambers and tunnels.  Several Union units had already attempted to infiltrate the maze down there, but to no avail.  Heavy crystalline deposits had frustrated attempts to scan, and the network was full of blind alleys and tight spaces, easy for the Kamdo to defend.  Worse still, it seemed the fortress was home to the same matter-transference technology that had been used to attack Porthos.  That was why Andrea was here.

Presently, hostilities were paused as both sides considered how best to break the stalemate.  The Union bunker, hurriedly constructed from modular components, had troopers stationed on every corridor and in every chamber.  They were on a permanent high alert, watching for shimmering walls or shadows where there should not be shadows.  They were as ready as they could be for any surprise attacks.  Of course, if Pedros did her job well, she would hear the enemy coming and be able to sound the alarm.

“Any activity?” she asked, taking her seat.

The colleague to her left removed an earpiece and pushed a beaker in her direction.  “Not a whistle,” he said. “Coffee?”

“Ah,” she looked delighted at the beverage, “thank-you!”

“Second shift,” the technician shrugged, “thought we had better let you join the coffee club.”

Drinks were readily available from the dispenser in the corner, but it was a friendly gesture, nonetheless.  The weight of responsibility that rested on this small band was huge; it was important they seized on every modicum of camaraderie they could.

“What does the club involve?” she smiled.  She thought of the mirror.  She thought of who she was; the amazing Pedros.  She thought maybe this new friend would like her legs.  “No dodgy initiation, I hope?”

“Oh, you know, just arrive early, grind the beans, milk the cow…”

Pedros laughed.  It was her first laugh in weeks, and it felt good.

“Okay, so you obviously come from some bumkin place where they still use cows?  Do I need to warm my hands before milking?”

“I don’t mind,” he smirked, and then, across the console to the other technician, “warm hands or cold, Eeth?”

Eeth peered at them through the projected displays.  There was little in the way of merriment in this older man’s expression, but he played along.

“Prefer them warm myself,” he said, straight-faced.

Another laugh from Pedros followed by an ‘enough guys’ shake of the head.  She took a sip of coffee and fired up her station, adjusting the displays to match her eyes and height.  A quick scroll through the reports created during her last shift quickly got her up to speed.  Her neighbour, Technician Bordellini, was not only spot on with the coffee, he was right with his assessment of the situation too.  There was nothing going on out there.  She felt a twinge of inappropriate disappointment.

The recordings of the signals captured during the attack on Porthos were now uploaded to the Union defence network.  They had been analysed countless times, by Pedros, by her colleagues in this room, and by a myriad of technicians and scientists across the sectors.  Those diagnostics were programmed in - the way the signal emerged on a low frequency, the way it ramped up moving through the bands, the random oscillation of the wave which was far too random to be a conventional source – all programmed, all ready to be recognised.  Any similar patterns would trigger alarms here, and on the battlecruisers, and in numerous distant control centres.  But for Pedros and this crack team, here was where it mattered most.  Sipping their coffees, they were primed for any sniff on the sensors, ready to work feverishly in pinpointing any signal’s source.  With units in the field and heavy weaponry on the cruisers nearby, any source would be swiftly dealt with.  They were still no closer to figuring out the technology that allowed soldiers to materialise, but at least they were ready to combat it more effectively.

“Anyone else feel it’s too quiet?” Pedros asked.  “After yesterday, we should have expected…”

“Hmmm,” mulled Bordellini, “can it be too quiet?  Quiet is good!”

It was a reasonable sentiment; she found it difficult to argue.  Quiet was good.  Quiet meant that there was no phantom force on the way.  What she had witnessed from the comms room on board Porthos had been horrendous and she had not slept soundly since, so, of course, quiet was good!  But still…

“Why though?” she tested.  “Why suddenly nothing?  What are they up to?”

“Stop looking for trouble,” said Eeth sternly.  “We have had more than enough of that!  This respite is welcome.”

Bordellini, perhaps sensing the angst in both his colleagues, tried to offer more insight.  “We have taken out most of their military capability,” he explained, “pounded them to dust.  What is left of them has retreated to the stronghold.  Their loss of equipment and personnel will have seriously impeded any ability to launch attacks.”

“Perhaps,” Pedros considered.

“They have taken to the mountains, to the cave systems.  That is a deliberate change of tactics on their part.  They know it is hard for us to engage them, but it is equally hard for them to launch any counter-offensive...”

“They are trying to draw us into close combat,” scoffed Eeth.

“Maybe that,” nodded Bordellini, “maybe exactly that.”

“And as they retreat, they are destroying everything,” Pedros expanded.  “Obliterating it, leaving nothing behind.”

“Nothing,” Bordellini agreed.  “It is the same across all the battle fronts.  We have recovery experts trying to get into their old bases, but the heat and radiation is too intense in most places.”

First Officer Pedros flicked through more displays, looking for something.  Unable to find it, she turned on her identifier instead.  She had saved the required analysis there at the end of her last shift, and during the hours since, finding it hard to sleep soundly, she had accessed it many times.  Inhaling slowly, she studied the data once more.

“It all stinks,” she said, despondently.  “It is incredible and worrying that we still have no idea what this tech is.  What are our engineers struggling with?  Why can they not figure it?  The entire Union has been dumbfounded by a Kamdo invention.  A Kamdo one!”

“Voodoo science!” scoffed the cynic opposite.

“Speculation is that perhaps it is not Kamdo, perhaps it is ours and some disgruntled…” Bordellini began.

“That is the gossip amongst the ranks,” she sighed.  “It is a possibility, but I am not sure speculation helps at this point.  I have gone back through the research papers provided by the department a dozen times, many are redacted, but still, there seems to be nothing in the abandoned Union teleportation projects that point to any kind of success.  The whole concept was dismissed as impossible decades ago.”

She flicked through her notes, not really reading them, an aimless act driven by frustration.  This was an imponderable problem.  Every set of data, every filed report, every conversation, seemed to just go round in circles.

“Shifting a ship across the void, yes, that’s possible because you can lock and stabilise the atoms,” she explained absently, concepts her fellow scientists undoubtedly already understood.  “You cannot do that with a living organism.  You also cannot push any object through another, living or not, hence the need for jump calculations to be as accurate as possible along the whole length of the trip.  We all know the stories of early jump vessels smashing into asteroids or being vaporised passing through stars.  The physical remains physical, solid remains solid, you cannot pass soldiers through the ten-metre-thick hull of a battlecruiser!  Yet somehow, these signals can.  They carry ‘data’ or a ‘programme’ capable of re-booting a living human back into existence, complete with kit and weapons.  Is this teleport, or is this a solid hologram, or something else?  All we know is we end up with a real person, a real soldier, just as intelligent, just as deadly, just as…”

She broke off, closing her identifier.  The data was not going to suddenly change just because she was staring at it.  The answer would not jump out just because she was willing it to do so.  What the hell technology was this?  What was in those damn transmissions?  This physical manifestation of a radio signal was impossible, surely?  But then, flight had once been beyond human reach too, and space flight a fanciful nonsense.  Time and again, humanity had found a way.  Had the Kamdo achieved where others had failed?  Had they stolen a march over their adversaries?

“It just does not sit right,” Pedros concluded, “none of it.  How would they even have the equipment to develop such tech with strict embargoes in place?  What else have they got up their sleeves?”

Bordellini put his finger to his lips and cast her a wink.  He was a flamboyant character, obviously remarkably clever to have a place on this team, but he had a great knack with people too.  Pedros liked him a little too much.  She even liked that he had the gall to suggest she be quiet when she was his senior.

“Too much, too much,” he said, his silencing finger staying in place.  “Those are bigger questions for another day.  Our job is to trace.”

“Trace and locate,” she nodded back.

“If we are lucky,” he said.

Pedros took another drink of coffee.  This time it was a braver gulp, savouring the hot, creamy taste.  She thought this coffee club was a good club to be part of, despite her reservations at the deployment and the cancellation of her leave.  Bordellini was keeping them focused, reminding them that they had a job to do, and he was right.   Those bigger questions could be tackled by others.  This small team needed to concentrate on keeping the Union’s local forces safe.

Another big, warm slurp.  A slight adjustment to her seat and she settled back to watch the data stream.  Quiet was good, she reminded herself.  After the hell of the massacre on Porthos, she was surprised she needed reminding.

Chapter Six

Kayla lurked in the shadows; she was getting good at that.  There was a moment coming when she would leave the shadows behind, and the galaxy would see she was back, but for now, hiding behind this pillar served fine.

Three other people occupied the quiet reception area.  A couple were sitting huddled in the corner.  The man was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, fingers pushing back through his hair.  He looked anxious.  The woman beside him was on her identifier, reading from her wrist.  The man mumbled something without lifting his head and she said something back, placing a reassuring arm around his shoulders.  They were middle-aged and well dressed.  The watcher in the shadows concluded they were the parents of some celebrity or other, probably here for a body transformation.  It was a fleeting thought, giving them a backstory, but in truth, they were irrelevant to Kayla and she could not care why they were here, so long as they did not get in her way.

The third person was standing near the translucent podium that constituted the reception desk.  A drone hovered a few feet above her head.  She was young and petite - that was helpful - and in her hand she held a small gadget which was throwing out projections, just like an identifier.  The projections were mostly text.  It was likely these were hospital records, too confidential to be trusted to the employee’s personal device.  That was how Kayla would track down Jed. Messiah just needed to play his part and create the distraction.

There appeared to be no security cameras. Kayla had visually checked the corners, the light fittings, and the many display units dotted around, and found nothing.  It was surprising, but perhaps the dodgy clientele this place attracted would not have appreciated such intrusions.  The drone, however, was undoubtedly recording, and undoubtedly alert.  Back in her days with Freedom, Jed or another would have disabled the hovering pest.  She did not have their skills with her today, but that mattered not.  If the drone recorded her, so what, they would know she had been here come the end of this anyway.  She just needed to get the drone away, so it did not alert others before they put their plan in motion.

“Come on Messiah,” she mouthed, no sound leaving her lips.

By the podium, the drone suddenly sprung to life, spinning on its axis.  Something had drawn its attention; Messiah’s distraction had come good.  The receptionist gave the machine a stern stare, annoyed at being disturbed from flicking through files.  With a heavy sigh, she checked to see what the issue was.  With a tut and a roll of her eyes, she tapped the device.  The drone dipped as it registered her electronic command, then sped away.

Kayla smiled.

Now it was time to leave the shadows.

+     +     +

The receptionist believed the middle-aged couple were the only ones in the waiting area.  They had been there a while, anxious to hear news of their daughter’s surgery.  For such a routine procedure, their concerns were over the top and they had already caused consternation amongst the staff.  When the receptionist became aware someone was approaching, she immediately assumed it was them coming to share more of their unnecessary worries.  Turning off the images of the man who had wandered into the prohibited corridor, she prepared a false smile and mentally rehearsed the silly platitudes.  She would need to muster all the patience she could to not come across as patronising as she explained to the couple, for the umpteenth time, that yes, this was the usual length of wait, and the doctor should not be much longer.

As she turned off the images, an approaching shadow fell over the fading display.  Her fake smile jumped into life and she looked up.  It was not the middle-aged couple that greeted her.

“Oh,” the receptionist exclaimed, the smile faltering.

“Hello,” said the unexpected visitor, “stay calm, do not react.”

Confused, the receptionist nodded.  Her training required a steady and relaxed persona, but the manner and words of this stranger immediately unnerved.

“Do you know who I am?” the newcomer asked.

The face was certainly familiar, but it took a moment.  From beneath a light fringe the receptionist scanned, considering the stranger, comparing to the huge bank of faces accumulated over her short life.  It was in there somewhere.  Like digging for treasure, she gradually shifted the sands, until her brain finally recognised the shiny crown poking through.  That professional smile fell away.  Her mouth dropped open, but she said nothing, lost for words.

“Yeah, you have it, it’s me,” said Kayla.  Her expression was stony, her simmering tone intense and intimidating.

“H-h-how can I help?” the terrified receptionist mumbled her way through.

“You can start,” Kayla replied coolly, “by turning that device back on and helping me to find a particular patient.”

The woman shook her head, lips quivering, eyes blinking rapidly.

“Oh, I think you can,” Kayla pushed.

“Please, I c-can’t.”

Kayla stepped closer.  Already she was a few inches taller than the receptionist, but now the other woman visibly shrank a few more.  Perhaps looking for help, the receptionist cast a quick glance at the middle-aged couple, but they were not looking over, still staring straight at their knees.

Kayla touched the woman’s wrist.  It was not a sudden grab, which was the kind of movement that would have tripped any hidden security cameras.  This was just a caress, fingers almost kissing her skin.  But there was no warmth in that touch, it was riddled with menace.  It said, ‘I am this close, and I can hurt you.’

“I would suggest you hold that a little tighter,” Kayla advised, the device balanced precariously in shaking hands, “you do not want to drop it and draw attention.”

The receptionist obediently adjusted her hold.

“Now, I do not want a word from you,” said Kayla, “and if that couple look over, you are going to smile and show them everything is normal, okay?”

There was no reply other than a subdued sob that struggled to escape through the shallow, giddy breathing.

“Okay?” Kayla’s fingers had wrapped around the wrist and were now applying pressure.

“Yes,” the receptionist winced, “yes, okay.”

“We are going to go for a little walk,” she pointed them towards the restrooms, “to get away from prying eyes.  You are going to stay calm, as if you have not got a care in the world.”

This time, Kayla did not wait for confirmation.  She guided the receptionist forward, fingers squeezing that wrist.  Together, they crossed the reception area and through an automatic door into a small corridor beyond.  The middle-aged couple did not look up as they passed.

No sooner had the door closed than the grip on the wrist tightened further, and in one swift movement, the arm was twisted and pushed halfway up the receptionist’s back.  The terrified woman wanted to scream but the warnings of the aggressor held the words in her throat.  Grimacing against the pain, she clung to the device, desperate not to lose it.  Another door compliantly opened, and with a forceful shove she was propelled into the small cubicle beyond.  A flowery fragrance blowing through an overhead vent greeted her.  She was now in a tiny space with a toilet ahead, and a sink unit sitting to the left.  The receptionist’s own fear reflected in the mirror above the sink, the image of Kayla beside it.  Briefly, the two women’s eyes met, before Kayla’s eyes were drawn to the scar on her temple.  No matter how fleeting that glance, it was enough for the escaped convict’s rage to bubble over.

Angrily, she aggressively rammed her shoulder into the receptionist’s back.  The terrified woman was unable to avoid her shins cracking painfully on the edge of the toilet, and this time she could not hold the cry.  She screamed out as her upper body rolled forward, her forehead cracking against the back wall.  The device tumbled from her grasp, bouncing off the toilet and clattering to the floor.  Kayla picked it up, flipped it in her hands, and then offered it back to the crumpled and wincing figure.

“Fire it up,” came the demand.

In shock at the sudden violence, the receptionist stared at the device as if she had forgotten how to use it.  This most familiar object was now an alien tool in this terrible nightmare.  Hands shaking, she took it from her assailant.  From somewhere, she found enough composure to activate it.

“I want to see today’s admissions,” Kayla instructed.

“I can’t,” the receptionist sobbed, but she was already doing it, the device projecting a text table.  The dark letters were clearly discernible against the white walls of the cubicle.

“Does each patient have a file, detailing who they are and why they were admitted?  I want to see the latest ones.  Start with the most recent and work backwards.”

Kayla’s calm and hushed tones did nothing to subdue the aggression in her words.  She had hold of the receptionist’s shirt, a fist full of fabric at the back of the neck.  Standing close, the toes of her recently acquired runners touched the heel of the receptionist’s staff-issues.

“This is the latest,” the woman’s voice was quivering as she pointed at a name on the manifest.  Her finger passed through the text and a file sprung up.  An unfamiliar name was displayed over the top of an unfamiliar woman’s face.

“Next.”

Flicking to the right brought up another name and the image of a man.  Another flick, another name, this one without an image.  Kayla frowned and signalled for her to carry on.  They went through another half a dozen files, some with images, some without, before one finally triggered a reaction.

“That one!” exclaimed Kayla.  There was no image, but the name hit the mark, recalling Messiah’s account of the Union check in.  “Pike!”

She leaned across the sobbing wreck and tapped into the record, pulling up a series of file notes from the medical staff.  There was reference to the equipment and drugs needed, but nothing that confirmed identity.

“Are there no other images?”

“We capture one on registration if the patient is well enough…”

“What if they are not?”

“Sometimes…” the receptionist mumbled, tapping further into the file, scrolling through a series of attachments.  After a few false starts, she eventually happened on the jackpot.  Taking over again, Kayla enlarged the image, her heart leaping into her mouth.

If the receptionist had chosen that moment to try and break free, she may well have succeeded.  But as the grip on the collar noticeably loosened, the young woman did not have the courage to seize the moment.  It was not often that the infamous McGann was distracted, but the image of her old friend knocked her sideways.

Looking back at Kayla, was the ashen face of the man that had been sat between the two agents on the broadcast.  His face was thinner, and the surgeons had made some subtle changes, but it was unmistakably Jed.  There was light bruising evident around his eyes, abrasions on his forehead, and the curly mop of hair was still missing.  She did not like that one bit.  That hair made him.  It held his charisma and warmth like some powerful charm.  He had always been a strong, protective figure and, as silly as it seemed, the bald head took that away.

“Jed,” she mouthed.  Always, she used that first name, not the surname preferred by other gang members.  She felt transported back there, back to those days, and in a way, she guessed she was.  She was back in business again; this was the next mission.  There was no gang, so she would have to handle this one alone.  It was a mission to liberate one of her own and nothing was going to stand in her way.

Kayla closed the image and opened the section labelled “treatment plan”.  It was almost blank apart from a repeat of the confusing medical terms she had already seen.  There was, however, a treatment room referenced in the header.  When she touched there, a plan of the clinic popped up.  Handily, there was a red triangle identifying their current location in the restrooms, just off reception.  She committed the treatment room number to memory readily enough, but the map was a little more challenging.  The complex was larger than she had believed and was seemingly thrown together in a surprisingly random pattern.  It looked likely the Warehouse had grown new zones as reputation and demand had increased.  There were six or seven junctions between the reception and the location of patient Macey, and she struggled to memorise the route beyond the first three turns.

“Left, left, right,” she mumbled, trying to ignore the snotty breathing of the distraught receptionist.

“Left, left, right, left…”

She considered making the receptionist show her the way, but having to wait until Messiah got to the waiting area, the woman would be a burden.  Kayla could just take the device, but it would be noticeable if there were any cameras and it was also likely tagged.  Somewhere to note down the directions would have been useful, but the tiny metal port in her wrist sat empty.

“Left, left, right, left, right.”

The clock was ticking.  There was a chance security was already alert to the reception being unstaffed, and there was a possibility that couple had seen them enter the toilets.  Whilst that might not cause alarm by itself, the length of time the young woman was missing from post would start to prompt concern.

“Two lefts, right, left, three rights,” she abbreviated.  It was a pattern of sorts.  She repeated it a couple of times to make sure it was committed.  Hopefully, her memory would hold.  She thought she had seen some signposts whilst being escorted back to Messiah earlier, so if she lost the directions, perhaps the room number would be enough.

It was time to go.  Annoyingly, the receptionist was now crying loudly.  She was in bits; the fearful shaking having turned into a full-on emotional collapse.  Torrents of tears ran down her cheeks, mixing with mucus bubbles from her nose.  The quiet sobs had turned into lung-full outbursts that echoed around this smallest of rooms.

“Shut up,” warned Kayla.

The receptionist peered at her with terrified eyes.  There was an obvious attempt to stem the tears, but she failed miserably.

An hour before, Kayla and Messiah had concocted this plan whilst standing in the waiting area.  They had watched the comings and goings, trying to fathom a way to create a distraction, and then they waited until it fell quiet to put the plan into action.  During that wait, Kayla had fully considered the consequences of what they were about to attempt.  She had known exactly how dangerous the plan was, and how rapidly it could escalate.

“Take off your belt,” the fugitive told her captive.

From the moment Messiah had headed off to draw the drone, events were in motion.  The receptionist was the easy first step.  The young woman was never likely to offer much resistance, and the whimpering wreck in the toilet cubicle was testament to that.  Now, though, this woman had become a risk to the plan.  They needed more time to get to Jed.  Kayla could not risk the receptionist raising the alarm as soon as she was left alone.  Events were in motion, events with consequences.

“What…?”  the receptionist started to say, but froze when her assailant leaned across, testing the sturdiness of the pipes that led to the toilet.  Kayla stood back, hand out, waiting for the belt.  She was looking the woman up and down, seemingly weighing up the options.

“Give me your top too,” she said as the belt was handed over.  “I need to gag you.”

Tears began to flow even more freely now, and the volume of sobbing rose.  Irritated, Kayla suddenly raised a fist and smacked the other woman hard across the cheek.  The receptionist lost her footing and tumbled over the toilet, cracking her head on the wall as she fell.   She ended up in a crumpled ball, still sobbing, her chest rising and falling uncontrollably.  With some effort, she managed to hold back the louder moans, fearful of what would come next if she did not.

With the belt already worked into a noose, there was no more time to waste.  Kayla stepped forward and reached for the woman’s arms.  “I cannot have you alerting anyone,” she explained, “they’ll find you soon enough, but we will be on our way by then.”

Moments later, Kayla re-emerged into the reception area.  Messiah was nowhere to be seen, but hopefully he would not be long.  “Two lefts, right, left, three rights,” she recited over and over as she waited.  Things were in motion now, there was no turning back.  It was going to get messy.

+     +     +

Her brain was only ten percent of the size of a human counterpart, but that did not prevent it being superior in many ways.  With fewer neural pathways, the central processors held no capacity for procrastination and no ability to anxiously replay past events.  Instead, this brain was focused and able to analyse incredible amounts of data in a way the human mind, with all its distractions, was not capable.  But there was more than that.  These faux agents were not meant to think, not in the real sense, but anyone that spent time around Agent Sapphire knew that, on certain levels at least, she clearly did.

Outside an inconspicuous treatment room, Sapphire was on guard duty.  As was inherent in the programming of the android, she was scanning the environment.  She noted the shade and the texture of the walls, just as a human counterpart might, but unlike with a human, the materials on show were cross-referenced to manufacturer’s catalogues, quickly narrowing down to six possibilities.  With no triggers against any of the companies, this information was quickly catalogued, and she moved on.   In her constant scouring of her surroundings, it was not unusual for irrelevant data to register, but unless it carried a threat, it was archived.  There was no lingering on the unnecessary in this mind.

At her back, not quite sixty-one centimetres away, was the door behind which Luca was being held.  The ‘not quite’ was important, as was her slightly off-centre position in relation to the middle of the door. Designed into her software were a series of randomisers with the sole aim of softening the precision of her programming.  They threw random elements into her stance, her speech, her movements, and other aspects of her personality.  These tiny quirks were there to make her seem more human, and they worked.  Most who encountered Sapphire would never know she was a machine.  The technology in this android and the two hundred like her, made them the most advanced ever built.  Knowledge of their existence carried the highest security classification, not least because in commissioning them, the Union had broken its own regulations.  Sapphire was a masterpiece.  She was a work of art.  Yet, here she was, deployed as a sentry.

With the wall suitably analysed, Sapphire twisted her head to peer along the corridor.  Although there was no numbering in this part of the complex, there was a bright green sign floating at a junction along that way.  It pointed back towards the centre of this wheel-shaped station.  If she had engaged her zoom vision, she would have readily seen that the sign read ‘Reception’, but she did not need to read it to know that.  They had passed the sign earlier and she never forgot.  Also, she had the plans of the establishment firmly registered in her data banks, having made short work of the Warehouse’s firewalls.  The full manifest of patients was in there too, and she had trawled through it, looking for anyone of interest.  Victor would have likely raised an eyebrow at such trawling, citing some confidentiality protocol, ignoring the fact he had recently overseen the torture of a man to extract information.  Sapphire was oblivious to such hypocrisy and was just doing her job, and that included looking for anything out of the ordinary. The manifest had not been the easiest to review; the data had no rules and was peppered with aliases and incomplete records.  But she had checked for obvious contradictions, or any names or images that triggered alarm bells.  There was nothing.

One thing did spike her artificial synapses, though, and that was her boss’s foolish use of the name ‘Pike Macey’ when registering the captive.  Victor had caved to that human desire to generate amusement amongst associates.  The other agents had dutifully chuckled along.  Now that name, along with an image of Luca, sat in the Warehouse’s records. The risks taken in bringing him here were already way beyond mission creep.  In trying to recover credibility in the eyes of his superiors, Victor was placing increasingly large wagers.  He had followed protocol in requesting the prisoner transfer, and his seniors had authorised, perhaps equally as desperate to yield results, but the strategy seemed risky.  She was duty bound to support the senior agent, however, and she would make damn sure she did her best to cover his back.  If that meant sweeping up a few files, or even wiping the Warehouse’s entire system before they left, so be it.

Inside that electronic brain, human psychology was well understood.  Without any ego or emotions of her own to get in the way, she could recognise the behaviours and motives of others unimpeded.  The probability of successfully drawing additional intelligence from Luca was so slim that her android judgement would have not pursued it any further, but Victor was being driven on by his pride and ambition.  Those two human failings overrode any probability models she might have offered.  That was fine, she was programmed to follow her boss’s whims.  She was, after all, just a robot.

So, as much as her own predictions screamed that this mission was doomed to fail, she left that in the hands of her human superiors.  Her job was to scan the walls, the paint, the lighting, the patient manifest, and anything else she could analyse that might give her team an advantage if things started to go wrong.  It was a waste of her capabilities, but that was for others to decide.  Had Victor kept her in the treatment room, she could have been analysing every word said, every involuntary action, every fluctuation in body temperature.  She would have seen any deceit from the doctor or the patient.  That was not how Victor chose to use her.  Indeed, her previous assessment of Schmidt and the concerns raised over the downing of the pacer, he had already ignored. Instead, she was standing outside, an imperfect distance from the door, searching for new things to analyse.

A human sentry would have likely grown complacent, but, a while later, Sapphire was still alert to the faint whirl of the electric building in the door’s motors as the door started to move.  Before the gap was wide enough to see through, she had turned and was facing her colleagues.  They were mid chatter as it slid back, and the proximity of the android seemed to startle.

“Sapphire,” said Victor.

“Sir,” said the faux agent.

Victor stepped through into the corridor, the android stepping back.  “We need food,” he declared.

“Well, we do,” Agent Dell smirked, “she can just top up her engine oil.”

Sapphire looked at the young agent quizzically, clarifying, “I consume food too, to maintain the cellular structure of my organic tissue.”

“She knows that,” said Victor, a reproachful glance at Dell, “she thinks she’s funny.”

Given her track record of immature and ill-timed quips, he wondered why the hell he had chosen Dell for this trip.  There were not that many volunteers, he recalled.  Generally, a willing recruit was favourable to a pressed conscript, but maybe she was an exception.  For the most part, he could just ignore her, but there were lines she came close to crossing and he would only humour her so far.  This mission had hardly put him in a tolerant mood.

“You can stay here,” he told the young agent, “Sapphire and I will go see what we can find to eat.”

“Oh, great,” Dell moaned.

“You can go when we get back,” he added, “for now, it’s your turn on guard duty!”

“The wall opposite has six hundred and thirty-six rivets running its full length,” smiled the faux agent, “provided all are still intact.  Would you like to know the manufacturer’s code for the panels?”

“When did robots get funny?” Dell frowned.

“About the same time that they started to eat,” said Victor.  “No one goes in, no one comes out, clear?”

“I got that,” she snapped back morosely.

He shook his head.  Their eyes briefly locked but she quickly looked away.  To cover any embarrassment, she adjusted her holster and tapped her sidearm.  Victor sighed and nodded at Sapphire to follow.  The two of them walked away.  Dell watched them go, annoyed by the android’s unnatural but incredibly sexy swagger.  Just like her boss, the young agent was wondering why the hell she was here when there was a galaxy exploding into battle.  Resigned to the boredom, she took up her position and started to count.

+     +     +

With Victor and Dell gone, there were four left in the room.  By the door, rump perched on a table, legs crossed at the ankles, was Agent Asperik.  He looked remarkably disinterested.  In the middle of the room, Jed Luca lay on a treatment bed.  He was calm, despite the numerous sensors attached to his head.  Having avoided a beating for the last few days, he was feeling much more himself.  The drugs were doing a good job of holding his temper even and keeping the erratic brainstorms at bay.  Beside Luca, stank Doctor Schmidt.  She kept leaning in close to adjust the sensors and every time she did, Luca winced at the smell.  It was a relief when she turned away to interact with the controls and readouts.

The fourth person, Director Burke, peered over Schmidt’s shoulder, intrigued by her work.  Schmidt had demanded Burke be brought along to help, threatening to withdraw co-operation if her old associate was not allowed in the treatment room.  With Victor’s plan hanging together by the finest of threads, he had had little choice but to agree.  Oh, how the powerbase had moved in the week since the failed interrogations had ended!  He could only be pushed so far, though.  He was desperate, but he was no fool.  Whilst there remained any chance that the untapped portion of Luca’s memories could be retrieved, the agent would play along and succumb to Schmidt’s whims, but soon, this adventure would come to an end.  By then, either Schmidt would have fixed the problem, or she would have become the problem herself.

It was an hour since Burke had arrived.  After an awkward friendship renewal, overseen by a frustrated Victor, the two medics had begun to chew over Schmidt’s failed restoration.  Even though this was not Burke’s field, something he was keen to stress, he seemed a suitable foil for Schmidt’s prognosis.  An hour in, and they were still bouncing the challenge around.

“So, there are no clues in the electric impulse patterns?” the Director asked.  “No gaps?  No smoke hiding the fire?”

“Nothing,” said Schmidt, “or nothing I can isolate.  Each impulse is unique.  The programme can scan and can follow links, looking for blind spots, but so far it has found nothing.  I’ve done a dozen trawls, and nothing.”

“Is there not a blueprint?”  Burke explored.  “A map of this man’s thoughts…”

“My name is Jed,” the patient injected, “use it.”

“… is that not how it works?  You map it all out and create a copy?”

Luca thought it sounded a ridiculous question and was surprised when Schmidt seemed to give it credence.

“Sort of,” she nodded, “but it cannot be read like a map, especially when some of it is missing, and we have no idea which bits.”

Luka smirked, “You really are guessing at this, aren’t you?”

“Known unknowns,” Schmidt continued, speaking louder to drown out the annoying patient.  “I know there are holes in there, but there is no way to find them.”

“Is that not a bit...” Burke paused, searching for a polite word, “… basic?”

“You’re telling me!” Luca huffed.

“They rushed me,” said a frustrated Schmidt. “Under pressure, I cut corners.  The programme performs a quadrillion calculations in a millionth of a second.  It validates and re-validates, gradually building up the multi-dimensional jigsaw.  With each pass, it tests the links, attaching synapse to synapse, validating each output against a googol of others, searching for the right fit.  Each pass, that jigsaw gets more complete as the permutations play out, until we have the perfect picture…”

She trailed off, scrolling through a few more lines of code, before standing back, exasperated.  For this last hour, the two physicians had poured over the results and it was becoming abundantly clear this new equipment was not going to solve the problem.

“I cut the number of passes,” she sighed, “to save time.  It was stupid but I was under pressure.  Those idiots were demanding results, demanding that I finished the job.  So, I did the maths, and thought I could lose a couple of percent and still deliver.  Just two percent, that was all.  The rest ran as planned, but that two percent made all the difference.  There were not enough passes to perfect the model.”

“Great,” frowned the patient.  “I’m two percent out.  Thanks for gambling with my fucking mind for two percent. They tortured me for days trying to get to those last bits, all because you wanted to save a few minutes!”

“And maybe she saved you revealing things you did not want to…?”  challenged Burke.

Luca was familiar with Schmidt’s bedside manner by now, but this old friend of hers was a different breed.  Where Schmidt was erratic, angry, and crass, and would have probably found herself on the end of Luca’s blaster under normal circumstances, Burke was calm, measured, and authoritative.  When he spoke, you listened, and not because he was barking orders.  He carried a sense of usefulness and his manner engaged the prisoner.

“Is that a question?” Luca asked.

“Yes,” Burke clarified, “I was wondering if you would rather the memories remained blocked, or that you revealed the secrets that might still lurk in there, secrets that could have been damaging for your associates?”

By the door, Asperik shuffled nervously, wondering if he should intervene in this questioning.  He chose to do nothing, to let it flow and see where it went.

“They learned a lot from me anyway, and my associates have already suffered as a result,” Luca grumbled.  “I do not want them to find Kayla, that’s for sure, and with the quantity of drugs pumped into me, I have had no choice but to reveal what I did.  But your question is meaningless, I cannot choose whether I wish to hold on to secrets when I do not even know if they are in there in the first place!”

“Either way, perhaps it might be a good thing for you and others that the restoration failed.”

“Tell that to the other guy!” huffed Luca.

Burke looked confused, Schmidt helped him out: “He claims to have another personality still in there, the alter-ego he took when his mind was wiped.”

“Took?  None of this was my fucking choice!” the subject corrected.  “I never had any desire to be someone other than who I already was.  That other person was forced upon me, by you!  You implanted him, and bits of him are still in there.  He does not want to go!”

“Oh,” exclaimed Burke, somewhat surprised.

“All this is down to her black medicine,” Luca said.  “Meddling in people’s heads, meddling with brains and memories.  Crazy cow.”

“You have definitely made major leaps…” Burke mused, nodding thoughtfully.

Schmidt was receptive to the plaudit, a smile almost making it to her chapped lips.  The two doctors had both held senior posts at the same establishment many years before.  As close colleagues, they had often discussed each other’s research.  Back then, re-writing a subject’s brain had been theoretical, although Schmidt had already begun to experiment.

“Major leaps?” Jed asked. “Well I am so glad to hear that.  You keep rubbing her back while I lie smashed up in this ravine because the leaps, well, they weren’t quite far enough!”

“Should he even be talking?” an annoyed Schmidt asked the agent.  “Is he not a prisoner?”

Asperik shrugged, “So are you, we let you talk.”

The old woman’s angry flush was hidden by skin already dark from the sunburn suffered in the desert of Meridian Rise.  Jed had witnessed her tendency to suddenly anger many times, mostly when she was seething at Victor and his team.  Now, though, she was angry at Jed.  He really hoped she did not breathe on him, that was a fate worse than death.

“If they had not rushed me!” she spat, lunging towards the treatment table.  He pulled back, the straps around his wrist pulling tight against the frame.  Thankfully, Burke placed an arm across her, so she did not get too close.  She glowered at her former colleague but a calming “whoa” from him seemed to soothe her rage.

“That is one hell of a temper you have there,” mocked Asperik.  Burke cast him a disapproving stare, but he held no sway over the agent, who continued to chuckle.

“Maybe there is a way to fix this,” the medical director encouraged.  “Maybe there is a way and we just have not found it.  Let us walk through the data again.”

“Pointless,” she mumbled.

Asperik shook his head.  Had the annoying woman forgotten the instructions left by Victor only minutes before?  It seemed her determination to test the Union’s patience continued.

“The boss will not be gone long,” he told them.  “When he gets back, he will expect to see progress.  He was very clear on that.”

“He has been making that very clear since I was dragged to your base!” she snapped.  “And he can carry on making it clear as long as he fucking wants!  Project Indigo has failed!  I’ve failed!  So, you can go fuck…”

“We really should try again,” Burke interrupted, trying to now position himself between the doctor and the agent.  “We really should re-run the analysis.”

Luca laughed, enjoying the show.  “There is no point and she knows it.  She has screwed up.  Whoever I was masquerading as, is still inside, ghosting me.  Perhaps that is who is blocking the memories, those critical ones, stopping them coming back.  Who knows, really?  Who knows?  Clearly, this old dragon does not!”

The Midazolepine had kept Jed stable for the last forty-eight hours and he was now far more lucid than previously.  He had been afforded proper rest on the journey here too.  With a clear head, the panic was gone, and he had been able to search his own memories, looking for those black spots.  He had found none.  His recollections seemed perfectly intact, but he had no way of knowing if they were.  Perhaps he would never discover what this despicable old woman had stolen from him.

“Do you realise they are only keeping you alive until they accept you cannot retrieve whatever is hidden in my head?”  Luca asked Schmidt.  “You will then be worthless to them, and I think we can guess what will then happen.”

“That’s enough of that,” the prisoner was going too far now, Asperik needed the doctor to maintain her focus.

Luca smirked at the agent.  “And she’s taking you for a ride too,” he said.  “You can all see it, but do not want to admit it.  Victor’s desperation is going to be the end of all your careers, and you know it!”

Asperik was not happy, his nose twitching as he tried to hold his cool.  The man strapped to the table had struck a chord; this whole thing was a mess.

“You will not be smirking when we get the intelligence we need,” the agent rebuffed, “it is in there, and we will find it, and then we will find McGann.”

“Find Kayla?”  Luca laughed.  “You should be careful what you wish for!  Kayla will be found when she wants to be found, and trust me, you do not want to be around when she is.”

Chapter Seven

“This is crazy!”  They were out of earshot, but he was still whispering.  “What if they saw us?”

“They didn’t,” said Kayla, “if they had, we would be dead by now.”

“That hardly fills me with confidence.”

She broke off her constant scanning of the corridors and doors to throw him a perplexed glare.  “You are not working with your petty criminal buddies now,” she said, harshly, “this is the heavy stuff.  You need to find your best game.  You need to put doubts aside and be full of it, be brimming with it!  If we go in hesitant and unsure, we will not come back out.”

“I have done this kind of thing before!” he scoffed, with as much bravado as he could muster.  Inside, his heart was beating like he had run a mile and he could feel the chill of sweat in the crook of his neck.  He had been in scrapes, sure, but usually he was at the back, and sheltered behind much heavier firepower than the confidence of just one woman.  They were not even armed.  The two Union agents that had just passed by, one of whom was the guy who had paraded Luca, both had the tell-tale bump of weapons concealed under their jackets.  It was lucky there had been a treatment room for the fugitives to dip into.  The patient had not been particularly enthralled by their intrusion, but Messiah’s grovelling apology had been enough to appease her.  A moment later they had re-emerged into a clear corridor.

“Just follow my lead,” Kayla said as she cautiously edged them around another corner.  “It is after the next junction, so be ready, we will be going in fast.”

“Oh, I will be right behind you,” Messiah confirmed.  He fleetingly considered if heading back to the Noche was still an option.  He had hoped there might be a more sophisticated plan than this, but Kayla had seen the manifest, was certain Luca was here, and was now rushing headlong.  It did not feel there was a choice, other than to cling to her tail and hope she was as good at this kind of thing as she seemed to believe she was.

Up ahead, that final turn loomed.  Just as they had approached the previous junctions, they slowed, and then came to a standstill.  Carefully, glued to the wall, Kayla inched forward to peer into the corridor beyond.  No sooner had she seen along it, than she jerked back to cover, her head nearly butting the inquisitive Messiah.  He recoiled just in time, almost exclaiming his annoyance.  Thankfully, before the words could leave his mouth, he remembered they were in stealth mode.

“One guard,” Kayla said, “about forty yards away.  Her weapon is not drawn, and she is slouching.  We can do this.”  She took in the look on Messiah’s face.  “I can do this,” she corrected.

Every ounce of him knew this was foolhardy, but, goddammit, this woman was infectious.  He could not understand the enigmatic power Kayla yielded, despite willingly falling under its spell.  Was it in her physical presence?  She was fit and strong, but she did not tower over him like Nazia. Or perhaps it was her infamy, that sense he was in the presence of someone important?  Either way, as he stood at that junction, their faces only inches apart, he knew he was not capable of pulling back from her, or the danger she proffered.

“Do you have a plan?”  he inquired.

“Oh yes,” she said, “are you with me?”

He nodded.  There was no smile, but there was a sparkle in her eyes.  Excitement leapt in his chest.  She seemed pleased to have him at her side.  He knew he could be nowhere else.

+     +     +

Audacious would have been an understatement, this was outrageous.  He had seen swagger like this before, in another woman with whom he had been equally entranced.  Nazia had shown him that sometimes, when the odds were stacked, swagger was the only way to win.  Sometimes, you had to walk right into the middle of trouble, strip yourself naked, and beat the living crap out of everyone whilst they were still figuring out what was going on.  If he had not witnessed that exact trick work, he would have not believed just how effective swagger could be.

Undressing would not benefit this situation, nor did he believe it was a trick Kayla would ever pull!  As for his role in the swagger game, she had assured him that he just needed to act like he had never acted before.  He had to put in a performance like his life depended on it because, frankly, it did.  If he could manage to play his part, she would do the rest.  Of that, he had little doubt.  Heads dipped, deep in conversation, they started to move.

“So, look,” he said, “it is really not that bad…”

They had backtracked several meters before kicking off the dialogue, so by the time they entered the corridor, the agent had already heard them coming and was looking in their direction.

“Maybe it is not exactly how you wanted it, it does look a bit different to the simulation, but it is not bad, really, it isn’t.”

Messiah had to shuffle to keep up with Kayla’s pace.  Hunched, her shoulders were dropped and her face pointing down.  She had a hand over her nose and mouth, shielding it from view.  She looked distressed, perhaps even angry.

“We should not make a fuss.”  Messiah was imploring his companion.  “The nose is fine, believe me!  Give it a couple of days, see how you feel about it then…”

Half the distance to the agent was covered.

Despite Kayla’s instructions and his efforts not to, Messiah could not help but glance ahead.  The agent had stopped slouching.  A hand stroked her face as she considered the approaching couple.  Her lifted arm held her jacket open and he glimpsed the strap of a holster.  Kayla’s earlier warnings resonated even more on seeing this.  If there was so much as a hint that they offered any threat the agent would draw, that was a certainty.  He had to keep up the act; they needed the agent to believe it was just a disgruntled patient and partner heading her way.

“… a few days, that is all,” he continued, “we can just head home, chill around the pool, stay in, not see anyone.  Not that there is any reason to avoid others, obviously, I am not saying that…”

Ten yards.  Ten strides.  That was all.  And in those final few footfalls, he almost forgot he was alongside the fugitive.  Instead, it was the tall shape of Nazia beside him, her brown legs eating up the corridor floor.  He clenched his teeth to force that image away.  This was different, he told himself, Kayla was different.  But was she?  Was she really?

Almost at the agent now, and his companion showed no sign of action.  Another stride and they were level; still nothing.  Panic rose in Messiah.  Was Kayla changing the plan?  He broke the rules again and lifted his head.  The agent was young, too young.  She was pale with a flutter of freckles and light blonde hair that cupped her cherub face.  Her intense, bright eyes were peering at Kayla, perhaps trying to glimpse the nose the couple were obsessing over.  On seeing Messiah look up, however, the agent’s attention flicked to him.  Her lips carried a relaxed smile; she had been fooled by their ruse.

There was just enough time for Messiah to register a twinge of guilt at the youth of the agent, before the coiled spring beside him exploded into life.  Suddenly, they were in the eye of Kayla’s storm.  She moved like a lightning flash, erupting from the midst of the calm, ripping her way through the silence, slicing at the peace.  If the agent registered what was happening, then that realisation never made it as far as her smile.  Those lips were still upturned when Kayla’s fist struck, splitting the top one open.  The fugitive followed up with a quick salvo.  Two, three, four strikes delivered by a trained fighter.  The knee came up next, straight into the agent’s groin.  As the agent doubled in pain, her assailant’s bloody knuckles reached beneath her jacket and snatched at the weapon.  Kayla’s first tug did not release it from the holster and Messiah feared the agent might manage to get to it first, but then Kayla stood back, gun in hand, levelling it at the stunned woman.

“What the…” Agent Dell tried to say but her mouth was a mess and the wind stolen from her lungs.  Several globules of blood spluttered on to her shirt.  She let out a pitiful moan.

“Be quiet,” hissed Kayla.  She held the weapon confidently, despite cracked knuckles.  It had not taken her long to damage Director Burke’s handiwork.

Dell tried to straighten.  She made it far enough to look at her assailant.  Bizarrely, the first thing she noticed was the nose, still clinging to their story.  With that deception quickly dispelled, she explored the rest of the face.  Recognition came almost instantly.

“Oh, fuck off,” she slurred, “I do not fucking believe this.”

“Oh, believe it,” Messiah told her, his voice shaken by the sudden brutality of Kayla’s assault.  He had no idea what might come next, but he did not have to wait long to find out.  The agent mistakenly went to tap her identifier.  Dazed, it was a fumble, her coordination so far off that she hit her forearm an inch too high.  Kayla was on her immediately, shoving her back against the door, the gun barrel rammed under her chin.

“Get it!” Kayla barked.  “Get it, now!”

Messiah was slow to react, initially unsure who the instruction was aimed at.  Then he realised and stepped forward, grabbing the agent’s arm.  The sleeve of Dell’s suit finished just short of the wrist making it easy to pluck the device from its socket.  If others now cared to look, they would see the agent was off grid.  Alarms might not sound yet, but the clock was ticking.

“How many are inside?”  Kayla asked, urgently.

“I would suggest you do not lie,” added Messiah, “she does not like liars.”

“Three,” she mumbled, then remembered Burke.  “No, four.”

“Who?  How many agents?”

“Just one,” Dell was bravely trying to stay calm.  That was not easy with the galaxy’s most notorious killer holding a gun to her throat.  “One agent, two doctors, and the subject.  Four.”

“Jed,” Kayla mulled, then, turning it into a question, “Jed Luca?”

Dell managed a careful nod, shooting pains erupting across the bridge of her nose at even this slight movement.

“It stacks up,” said Messiah.  “Four agents checked him in, two passed us back there…”

“Ships?”  Kayla quizzed.  “Pilots?”

Dell thought about misleading, but fear had hold.  All the training was in there somewhere, but dazed, in pain, and scared, it did not wish to be found.  She was compelled to give her attacker what she wanted.

“Two pacers,” she said, “one agent with them.”

“Okay,” said Kayla, loosening the hold, but the gun staying firmly in place.  “Five agents in total.”

“Pacers are much smaller vessels than Spirit,” Messiah was thinking ahead, “with very different docking requirements.  It’s likely they are parked on another part of the station.  Its normal for similar vessel types to be docked adjacent to each other, that’s the usual protocol.”

“A clear path out,” considered Kayla, “now we just need to get to Jed.”

Blood clagging her throat, Dell coughed, spraying tiny red spots into Kayla’s face.  There was no reaction from the criminal.  A foul, metallic taste flowed into Dell’s mouth, reminiscent of childhood accidents and dislodged milk teeth.  Had any of her adult ones become dislodged in this onslaught, she wondered?  It was possible, those punches had been formidable.  She tried to shake away the grogginess to focus on her attacker.  Through the clouds of black and white dots, she struggled to find McGann.  Instead, she found a swaying corridor.  She felt like she was going to keel over.

“Oh no you don’t,” Kayla viciously nipped the agent’s neck, drawing a yelp of surprise.  “You stay awake!  You can pass out once you have got us through that door!”

+     +     +

In leaping at the opportunity to accompany Agent Victor on this foray, Dell had never considered it might result in her lying spread-eagled over a surprised Agent Asperik.  Even if that unlikely event had crossed her mind, she would have not expected the predicament to be caused by the infamous McGann pushing her there.  As Asperik tried to shove Dell clear, blood from her mouth dripped all over his crisp, white shirt.  The look of repulsion on his face hammered home the severity of the situation; this was a fuck up on a galactic scale.  Tomorrow, the media channels would carry this as their lead story, and Dell saw her face plastered under the headline, the latest of McGann’s victims.

Dell was shaking, her arms struggling to hold her weight.  Just as Asperik reached for his gun, her muscles gave way and she crashed back down on to him.   His draw would have been too late anyway. McGann was already standing over them, weapon trained.  Messiah stepped forward and stamped on Asperik’s free hand before reaching inside the agent’s jacket to take the gun from the holster.

“Stay down!” Kayla warned.

With Messiah now armed and covering the agents, Kayla stepped back.  The door was behind her.  Only moments before, Asperik, still chuckling at the argument between the medics and their unwilling patient, had opened it to be greeted by the bloody face of his colleague.  He had not even had the chance to exclaim surprise before Dell was thrust upon him, knocking him off his feet.  Now, Kayla leaned back and pressed for the door to close.  Obediently, it slid back into place.

“Get his identifier too!” she told her companion, but he was already on it.

With the immediate Union threats disabled, Kayla now took a moment to digest the scene.  From the left, the familiar tones of an old friend had already called her name twice, but she deliberately let them float over her.  She needed to compose herself first.  This was a big moment, following a lifetime of big moments.  It was as big as that scared child in the market, her head stinging where she had been struck. It was as big as the jacket given to her when she was wet and cold.  It was as big as that first taste of honey.  And it was as big as that arm around her shoulders when she returned from her first mission.

For a third time, Jed called her name.

It was a voice she had almost forgotten and yet, now, it seemed so familiar and comfortable to her ears.  He had spoken at the press conference and she had listened to those mumblings over and over again, but this was different.  It was the way her name rolled off his tongue, in his accent, his way of saying it.  Hearing him, in the same room, was tasting the cake rather than just seeing it.  There was concern in his tone, but it was fused with a splash of joy and more than a measure of surprise.  She had forgotten how much warmth oozed from him when he addressed her.  She had forgotten there was a human alive who cared for her that way.

But, as she began to turn towards the bed, the fuzzy warmth started to dissipate.  In its place, there came a niggling shame.  That shame harked back to her arrest and the subsequent trial.  Kayla felt she had let them down, the lot of them.  And then there was the shame of her incarceration.  Jed would know nothing of the degradation endured, but she feared one look at her face, and he would see it all painted there.  If there was ever someone who could read her like a book, here he was.  As she continued to turn, as the medical equipment came into view, the shame transported her to another medical suite many light years away, where an ugly nurse had abused her whilst others stood by and poked fun.  It was in that room where her shame had transitioned, just as it was starting to now, morphing into another equally raw emotion.  This was the king of emotions.  It was the beast to defeat all other beasts.  When this emotion arrived, all others took second place.  Here came the anger.

On first entering this room, pursuing the tumbling agents, a cursory glance in that direction had allayed any fear of threat.  The three people and the surrounding equipment had all registered.  Her subconscious had noted, Jed was the one on the bed.  She had not made any attempt to consider his predicament then, her focus necessarily on the ruckus near the door.  Now, her old friend could take centre stage.  As she took in the scene, both the old woman and the doctor, who had discharged Kayla only a couple of hours before, faded into the background.

It did not seem real.  A hologram, perhaps?  Or a model?  Only weeks before, she had been chewing on green rock dust and barely able to remember where she was, and now she was looking at an old friend she had thought lost forever.  It was a dream, it had to be.  His face leapt across the room at her, his smile seemingly perverted, like looking through the thick glass of an aquarium.  As close as he was, it felt like he was still a million miles away.  Would she be able to reach him?  Would she be able to cross this floor?  This had all the hallmarks of a nightmare.

“Hello Kayla,” Jed beamed.

Of course, he was choosing to smile, what else was he going to do?  It was a smile to soothe her waking beast, his warmth designed to disarm her anger before it arrived.  He knew her too well, but she was having none of it.

“Jed.”

The name involuntarily fell from her lips.  It was a thought that had sneaked down to her mouth, rolled over her tongue, and found its own way out.  Once free, though, it was not going back, and the dream was broken.  She was awake and everything she was looking at was real.  This was happening.

“I thought you would never get here,” Luca joked, nervously.

Director Burke took a step forward, a hand raised and flapping, suggesting that the guns should be lowered.

“Now we do not need to do this,” he said.  “Miss McGann, you have just recovered from major surgery, you really should not…”

“Do I look like I am in the mood to listen to you?” she asked the clinician.

“There is no need…”

“Shut up!” Kayla hollered at him.  Everyone, even Messiah, noticeably jumped.  “Shut the fuck up and do not move another inch!  And get that fucking thing off your wrist!”

Burke opened his mouth to protest, perhaps foolishly lost in his own notion of who this woman was.  On his operating table, she had been completely at his mercy.  With her exposed and defenceless, his ego had fantasised about their celebrity relationship.  He had even played out fictional back stories as he operated, mumbling imagined conversations with this legend.  Now, as more words formulated in his throat, that veil managed to lift enough that he could see this situation for what it was, and he could see Kayla for who she was.  She was an angry killer and she was waving around a gun.  He clamped his lips and held his breath; he did not want to be amongst her targets if she should start shooting.

For now, the weapon was unthreatening.  She was far more intent on just glaring at the patient.  Her piercing eyes cut across the treatment room, unmoving, unblinking, fixed on Luca.

“I am so pleased to see you,” Jed ventured.  He was trying to read his friend’s thoughts but failing miserably.  It was obvious, even in the stress of these first moments, that this Kayla was not the same person he had last seen at Haram Galt.  Then, he guessed, neither was he.

“Are you helping them?” she accused.  “Why?”

His brow creased.  It took him a moment to realise where this line of questioning was coming from.

“No!” his reply was abrupt.  “No!  Is that what you think?  Far from it! I am a prisoner here, look!”  He pulled on the wrist straps.  “They have been torturing me, messing about in my head, and plying me with drugs, but I am not helping them, definitely not!  Anything they have had from me has been taken under duress…”

“You broke our codes.”

“No!” he corrected again.  She could not accuse him of such things!  She was not seeing the full picture.  Over the years, there were many times this woman had pushed back at him and they had argued, but this felt different.  This felt more serious.  He did not like it.

“I never broke our codes,” Kayla challenged.  “Even with the weeks of interrogation I faced, day after day of questioning - the prosecution, relentless, my defence pleading with me to bargain for a lighter sentence – all those weeks, and I never once broke.”

“You never got tortured!” he reasoned.  “Your trial was public, far too public for them to touch you!  Too high profile.  I got beaten and pumped full of Midazolepine, a truth drug, did they give you that?  No, they did not!”

“It’s true,” the old woman beside him colluded.

“Oh, trust me, that sounds like a walk in the park compared to the hell I’ve faced…” Kayla trailed off, her attention drawn to Schmidt.  There were two short wires in the woman’s bony hands, and these were attached to a strange looking contraption beside the bed.  It looked like it had been cobbled together in a garage, which was not too far from the truth.  The two wires ended in a spray of fibres that projected faint images similar in depth to the early generation identifiers.  Kayla could just make out tables and charts, and what looked like computer code.

“What are you doing to him?” she asked, the gun waving in Schmidt’s direction.

The doctor was unphased.  She had received enough threats from the Union monkeys over the years to no longer give a shit.  Not even an encounter of this notoriety moved her.

“This is his brain,” Schmidt pointed at the displays, “the whole sorry mess.  I have been tinkering in there, sorry about that.  He has not really had much say over what has happened, or much control over his ability to keep things from the Union.  See those small pads on his head?  I am taking readings right now, a detailed print of his brain activity, looking for gaps and misfiring synapses.  He had a whole different person in there, someone I created.  Years ago, I took this one out, and put that new one in.  Now, I’ve reversed it, but it has not gone exactly as planned.”

The wires, the pads, the displays.  The straps securing Luca to the bed.  His shaven scalp, stubble starting to grow back.  The facial bruises, fading, but still there.  He was drawn and dishevelled.  He looked exhausted.  Whatever he had been through, he was not in the best of shapes.  Kayla was still angry at his apparent capitulation, but now she had a fuller picture forming.

“Get! Those!  Off!  Him!”  Every word was emphasised with the venom of a thousand snakes.  This was not an empty instruction; this was an order that would be obeyed.  “And get him off that bed, NOW!”

Initially, no one moved, not least those who had strapped Luca down.  They were still sprawled on the floor under the watch of Messiah.  The ever-resourceful Schmidt, though, sniffed the opportunity, grabbing at the fastenings.

“Get the pads,” she said to the inanimate Burke.  He blinked, thought about it, then placed his unlatched identifier to one side and began to help.

“You knew they were bringing him here,” Kayla accused the Director.  “When you were discharging me, boasting about your handiwork, you knew he was on his way.  Your smarmy smiles and your pathetic flattery, you creepy fuck, and all the time you knew the Union was coming.”

“I had no idea who they were bringing,” he explained, verging on tears.  “I honestly had no idea.”

“And you did not tell us about her, either!” braved the groggy Dell, her words sounding like they were being spoken into a beaker.  “That was not the smartest move!  The Union will not be happy!”

“The Warehouse promises…”

“Shove your promises,” Kayla snarled, “you are lucky I don’t kill you where you stand.”

“Victor will be back soon, and when he is you will have some serious…”  Dell did not finish her sentence.  Kayla turned the weapon and fired.  In the close confines of the treatment room, the popping sound of the energy discharge was horrendous, and the flash of light briefly disorientating.  The bolt struck the deck inches from Dell, the energy bouncing up and into her lower leg.  She screamed as a searing heat shot along the limb.  It felt like the leg was on fire.  Panicked, she looked down at the smoking hole in her trousers.  She watched in horror as the black material turned even darker, and then the blood from the wound began to pour on to the floor.

“Pack it!”  Messiah told Asperik.  “Pack it, or she will bleed out.”

Asperik took off his jacket and shuffled to his crying colleague.  She was rocking back and forth, holding her knee, the injured shin protruding out in front. When Asperik held the garment against the injury and applied pressure, she screamed again.  A direct hit would have blown her foot clean off and sent a potentially fatal surge through her body.  She was lucky, but the wound could still prove fatal if she did not get help soon.

Messiah glared at Kayla, “You did not need to do that!”

There was a whistle from the bed.  Jed was loose and was plucking the rest of the sensors from his skin.  He was smirking over at Messiah.  It was an arrogant look, one that told Messiah that his comments were foolish.

“Oh, she did,” Luca said, “she definitely did.”

“And next time,” Kayla added, “I will not be aiming to miss.”

“It’s time for us to go,” urged the freed man, swinging his legs off the bed.  Schmidt was in his way.  He roughly pushed her aside as he stood.  She almost tumbled but the old legs managed to hold.  Across, Burke stared on in disbelief.  His eyes darted between the liberated Luca, the smoking gun, and the hysterical Dell.

“She was right,” Jed nodded towards the agent, “our friend down there.  Her boss will be back soon, and we should not be here when he is.  When they see no guard outside the door, the alarm will go up.  They have a high-tech android too; I would not fancy our chances.  Whatever plan you have, Kayla, now is the time to go.”

The clear intent and common sense in his words was enough to find its way through Kayla’s anger.  Explanations and recriminations could wait, getting away was the priority.

Luca looked unsteady on his feet.

“Are you okay?” she asked.  There was a lack of warmth in her tone.

“Yeah,” he replied, steadying against the bed, “or at least I will be.  I’ve spent a lot of time on my back, and the drugs…”

Beside them, Schmidt snatched up a bag.  The sudden movement nearly earned her a blast in the chest, but Kayla held off the trigger.

“You will need these,” the doctor offered the bag, “thirty days’ worth of Midazolepine.  They will help keep you level.”

Luca almost pushed them away but then remembered the psychotic episodes.  That other person was still in there and still desperate to pop back at the first opportunity; he did not want that.  Much as he hated the idea, he did need the drugs.  He took the bag from her.

“Take me too,” said Schmidt.  There was no plea; it was an instruction.

“No,” Kayla said.

“Do you know the dose he needs?” the doctor asked.  “He will need me, I am his only hope of ever getting back to normal, and if you leave me here, they Union will kill me.  Project Indigo is over, my value is lost.”

Kayla had no sympathy for the woman’s plight, but was she right about Jed’s reliance?  Nervously fidgeting, Messiah reminded her of the need to get moving.

“She may be right,” Luca reluctantly admitted, “I may need her. I have no idea what mess they have left me in, or how bad it could get.”

Kayla saw no choice.  “Fine, but if she cannot keep up… now get those restraints and those wires and get these others tied up.”

“But surely…” protested Burke.

“Especially him,” Kayla ordered, “and make sure his are tight enough to make him bleed, the devious, two-faced bastard!”

“She needs help!” Asperik pleaded, trying his best to soothe Dell’s panic as he continued to press down on her leg.

“Then she had better hope this Victor returns soon!  Messiah?  The wires?”

Luca had taken them from the doctor and now offered one to the gunrunner.  As the two knelt to restrain the agents, Luca asked, “You rescued her from the prison?”

“Something like that,” Messiah frowned.  With Luca seemingly less perturbed at the idea of restraining the injured woman, he took the male agent.  At first, Asperik struggled, desperate to keep the pressure on his colleagues wound.  “I’ll position you so you can reach her,” Messiah reassured, “just let me bind you!”

“Thank-you for getting her away from the prison,” said Luca.  “All we need now is for you to work that magic for a second time and get us away from here.”

“Oh, you won’t need me for that,” Messiah said, “I think your friend knows exactly what she is doing.  She seems to have a plan. I didn’t know the Kayla from the past, but I would say she is back to her old self!”

Not for the first time, and almost certainly not for the last, Messiah’s thoughts were drawn back to those dark days alongside Nazia Jwaran.  He really hoped Kayla was not the same, but he felt nauseous trying to figure that one out.  He had thought Kayla a nobler person, someone with beliefs and a cause to fight for; he hoped that faith was not misplaced.  Turning Asperik so he could get to Dell’s injury, Messiah briefly glimpsed the hole in her leg through the gashed trousers. It was a mess.  If the agent pulled through this, he could not see them saving the foot.  Kayla had been wrong to shoot her, so wrong.

Chapter Eight

“Five hundred and ninety.”

His boots scowled at him from the airlock.  The horned number four had beaten the hell out of him in that last nap, and he was exhausted.  Breaking the cycle, though, was not an option.  It could not happen.  He was going to have to give himself that mental shake he needed to get moving.

Next to the airlock was a yellow chair.  Jorg had placed it there not long after becoming the last one standing.  That seemed an age ago.  Maybe it was.  Beyond the confines of the count, he had lost any sense of time.  He did remember moving the chair though, shifting it from one side of the room to the other.  That had been so he could stop seeing the empty space left by the other chair, the one that was now buried somewhere in the depths of the undergrowth.  The other chair had been blue, and Rosily’s favourite.

Spores were always a worry.  They could attach themselves to fabric and linger, waiting for an opportunity to latch on to the skin.  That was why the blue chair had had to go.  Rosily had sat there and nowhere else during the final stages, staying close to the exit, knowing her eventual fate.  By that last day, her skin had broken in several places and tendrils of green were starting to shoot from the puss-filled fissures. It was dreadful to watch; it had been with them all.  When the pain had become too much for her, and the risk of contamination too great for him, she had entered that airlock for one last time, taking the blue chair with her.  She had paused inside and looked back through the door, waving a final goodbye.  She had not cried, but by god, he had.

“Five hundred and ninety-one.”

Getting those thoughts out of his head was all the motivation he needed.  He stood, stretched, and let out a loud, defiant groan at the empty planet.  His breath stank, but who cared?  He stank generally, but again, who cared?  That regimented female voice barking out the numbers was his only company.

It was time to get moving.  If he was to maintain the schedule, then he had nine clicks to get into the airlock, pull on the protective suit, and head out.  Falling behind would be bad news.  Falling behind would mean even less sleep and even more exhaustion.  The risk that exhaustion started to impair his ability to stay alert was a constant; he had to keep on top of the cycle or risk a fatal mistake.

He only managed a single step towards those scowling boots.  Across the other side of the room, something had spooked the control panels.  Where usually there was nothing but dead equipment, there was a single light flashing.  It was tiny, but against the backdrop of his grey routine, it looked like an armada of emergency vehicles screaming towards him.

“Oh,” he said, confused at what to do.  There had been unexpected illumination on these panels before, but the last time, others had been around to take the lead and figure out the problem.  He recalled that on that occasion the lights had been on a different section; it had been a failing valve.  Since the others had died, he had not been near any of the controls, and without his colleagues’ knowledge, he was at a loss what to do.

“Oh,” he said again.

“Five hundred and ninety-two.”

He turned back to the airlock and boots.  It was easier to just ignore the panels and look at this more familiar part of the base.  Panic was mounting.  This was not meant to happen.  He had a routine and he had a job to do.  He could not fall behind.  But neither could he ignore the light, and his attention was drawn back.

As the next number in the sequence rattled the speakers, he crossed to the panels.  It was such a long time since he had last come this close.  The light was on the communications section.  That was where the devices tucked away in the roof sent their readings.  They had been silent since just after the last of the evacuations.  In all that time, not a single pulse had found its way through.  He could try and tell himself that it was more important to put on his boots and tend to the garden, but he knew he could not ignore this either.  Ignoring the light would keep him on track, but what else was he ignoring?  This could be a passing vessel, his only chance of escape.

He studied the controls for a moment and then tried a couple of buttons, but to no avail.  His third attempt was more successful; a screen illuminated, and the details of a message started to appear.  Steadily, one by one, a series of words ticked up.  Presumably, they were being transmitted from above.  He looked for meaning in the words, but they were random, and made no sense.  It was not until the fifth word, that he got an inkling they were not as random as appeared.

“Barracuda,” he mouthed.  Then the next word, “Institute.”  The seventh he had after just two letters, “Re…corder.”

Exhausted or not, he whooped and punched the air.  After all this time!

“Thank-you,” he gasped, “thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!  Reply.  Reply.  How do I reply?”

He found it, and quickly typed the next word in the sequence.  There was nothing random here at all.  These were trigger words, a code known by all in his gang, and they were his ticket out of this place.

“Kragenfeld calling,” he laughed.  “Kragenfeld calling!  Come on Rastan, baby, come to Uncle Jorg!”

+     +     +

“Preparing to recalibrate.”

“Recalibrate away,” he said, still waiting for a reply to his message, “Uncle Jorg has gone fishing.”

Despite the quip, anxiety sat heavy.  There was a huge panic lurking in his chest.  His words were just bravado played out to the empty room, helping to keep the angst at bay.  By now, he should have been in the airlock and fully suited, but the kit still hung inside and those boots still scowled at him through the clear door.

“Come on,” he breathed, “come on.”

And there it was, a double beep confirming that connection had been made.  Someone up there was listening; his response had hit the spot.  With a tap, he opened a voice channel.

“Hello?” he said, tentatively.

Would they recognise his voice?  Would he recognise theirs?  Expecting Raston, he was a little disappointed when the tones were male.

“Hello,” came the static-filled reply.  “We hear you; can you hear us?”  The computer was locking on to the transmission.  It was not modern tech, but it was still able to remove some of the background atmospheric interference.

“I can,” Jorg panted.  He realised he had been holding his breath.  “I have no video link and, as instructed, we destroyed our identifiers on arrival.  This channel is all there is.  Did Rastan send you?”

“Which one are you?” came the reply.  “Are you all still there?”

Perhaps this was Duds, Jorg considered.  Perhaps their leader had more important business than recovering this bunch of outcasts and had sent her main henchman.  Perhaps she was still angry at their failures.

“It has been a long time,” he said, absently.  “We did not expect you to take so long.  We thought the trail would have gone cold long before now…”

“One,” the countdown resumed.

“Who am I speaking to?” they asked again.

“Only me,” he said, “there is only me left.  They quarantined the planet and we could not leave.  Jorg, that is who I am, Jorg.  Jorg Vaalters.  Is that you, Duds?”

There was a delay before the voice finally offered, “No, this is Gagan.”

Surely not?

“Gagan?  Gagan Kragenfeld?” Jorg checked.

“Yes.  Jorg, can you confirm what you have just said?  Can you confirm you are the only one still at the base?”

“Gagan?  Wow.”

“Can you confirm?”

“I am the only one at the base.  To my knowledge, I am also the only one on the planet.  Last one standing.  The rest are all dead.  The plants, they get everything in the end.”

That was greeted with silence and this time there was not even the slightest hint of background noise.  Having never used this equipment before, he could not be sure, but he suspected the comms link had been muted at their end.  Gagan?  Well, well, well.  Gagan-fucking-Kragenfeld.  Of all the wastes-of-space to send!  Was that all they thought he was worth?  Surely Gagan had not been allowed out on his own, so who else was up there with him?  Maybe Rastan was there after all, and just leaving the talking to her brother, although he thought that unlikely.

Eventually the faint background noise returned, and the same voice continued.  “Can we land?”

When outside, Jorg sometimes caught a glimpse of the yellow hull of their abandoned ship through the undergrowth.  The sun had to be at the right angle, and it was becoming harder to find, but it was still there.  He recalled the day they had discovered that the tendrils had found their way into the vents and engines.  A week later, the ship was overrun.  This was a dangerous place for a ship to set down and landing on the ground was impossible. There was another option though.

“How big is your ship?” he asked.  “We will need to check against the dimensions and weight limits for the building, but there is a landing pad…”

“It would be easier to land alongside?”

“No!” he snapped.  “It has to be the roof.  I’m just sending you the specifications now.”

Total silence again.  Somewhere above, a confab was taking place.

“We can land on the roof, it will be tight, but we can.”

“How long until you arrive?”  Jorg asked.

“Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, if we take the descent safe and steady.”

“Okay,” Jorg looked anxiously at the airlock, “I will be there to meet you.”

“Roger that,” came the reply.

His fingers reached to silence the conversation but stopped short.  “Gagan, one more thing?” he asked.

“Sure?”

“Under no circumstances should you disembark.”

“What?”

“Until I get there,” Jorg insisted, “until you see me, do not open your hatch or disembark.  Please, do not leave your ship, your life depends on it!”

+     +     +

Sometimes, he found it difficult to recall how he had come to be here in the first place.  The constant badgering of the all-consuming count left no time for reflection, no time to dig back into his memories.  Instead, amongst the disturbing dreams and the dance with the airlock, Jorg found only snatches of the most disturbing recollections got through.  Like the chair, and memories of the woman who had spent her last days sitting there, or the harrowing glimpses of the yellow hull through the jungle, reminding him of his desperate predicament.  Worse still, his mind would often cruelly forget the most disturbing aspect of his existence, leading him to start conversations, only to realise a moment later that no one was here to reply.  That was always a hammer blow.  He had been stranded for such a long time and he had spent so much of it alone.

Now, though, someone was coming.  He had pinched, slapped, and even kicked himself to make sure it was not a dream.  Whilst he waited for the ship, he fulfilled his weed-killing duties – it was better safe than sorry - and then he made his way to the roof.  It was rare that he came up here, the weight of the suit making the steps an incredible labour.  It was a little easier today, buoyed by the nervous anticipation.

The roof was an intimidating space at the best of times, with panoramic views showing the full extent of the weed’s domination.  Everywhere he looked, there was a dreadful carpet of green.  Occasionally, the skeleton of a once proud tree poked through the canopy, and in some places, the carpet dipped over hidden rivers or lakes.  Far away, a mountain lay grey against the heavens.  He wondered if that colour was a trick of the light, and whether those rocks were just as green as everywhere else?  He had often wished he could teleport himself there to see; eager to discover if the mountains offered any refuge on this crazy planet.

The need for such a refuge was hopefully now irrelevant.  High above, obvious against the white sky, an approaching black dot slowly swelled in size.  After all this time, when he had thought all was lost, when he had abandoned all hope, they were finally coming.  He wondered why now?  He wondered if they were coming to rescue or to further punish?  Surely, after the battle to survive this planet, they would not seek further retribution.  Mistakes had been made, but had he not suffered enough?

The black dot started to take form.  He did not want to lower his gaze, but the protective headgear made it difficult to look up for long.  It was relatively safe on the roof but there was still the chance that a spore caught on a breeze would attach to the suit or exposed skin.  He would only remove the heavy helmet once they were close enough, to let them see his face.  When he went aboard, it would have to stay out here, along with the rest of the suit.  For the same reason he could not let the suit pass through the airlock below, he could not carry that risk on to the newcomers’ ship.

The shape forming in the sky came as something of a surprise.  The vessel appeared sleek and dart-like, and by the time it was an inch in length, Jorg had concluded it was almost certainly an inner-sector build.  A minute or so later he had identified it as a pleasure cruiser, not what he would have expected this close to the Dark Zones.  It was also not the kind of ship he would have expected to grace the Kragenfeld fleet.

“Where did they steal that?” he mused.

Closer still, the cruiser was growing quickly.  Even in the bright day, by the time it was the size of his hand, lights along its wings were evident.  It slowed as it came overhead, and then hovered, blocking out the sun.  He pulled off the headgear and waved, beckoning it in.  As it descended, more lights erupted from its underbelly and the hum of powerful engines steadily grew.  This sound was nothing like the terrible racket the hulk of yellow buried nearby had emitted.  That clunky old shuttle would have shaken the building all the way to its foundations.  With a touch of class and the softest purr, the pleasure cruiser touched down.

+     +     +

The hatch opened and Gagan looked down on what should have been a familiar face, but heavily bearded and weary it was barely recognisable.  Jorg had always presented himself with such confidence and with an impeccable appearance.  Here, stood a shadow of that man.  Struggling to remove the cumbersome suit, he did not look up until Gagan spoke.

“Hello, Uncle,” he said.  They were not related, but in the wake of Gagan’s parents’ untimely deaths, there were many who had stepped forward to care for the orphaned twins.  Jorg had been one of them.

“Gagan!” he declared, clearly delighted to see the younger man.  He was far less delighted with the fastenings on the damn suit, though.  A dozen times a day he pulled it off with no trouble, but now, when he needed to move fast, he was struggling.

Gagan stepped on to the first rung of the ladder.  “Let me help you with that,” he said.

“No!” Jorg said quickly.  “Stay on the ship!  Please, do not take another step.  It is not safe down here. I will come up to you.”

“What is he doing?”  The statuesque figure of Roan appeared alongside Gagan.  “And what is it with all the protective gear?”

They knew the planet was under quarantine but not why.  The suit hinted at something far more dangerous than they had assumed.

Finally, Jorg freed himself from the suit and kicked off the boots, discarding them where he had already dumped the helmet and gloves.  Now, he was in just socks, pants and a filthy vest, both items darkened with unflattering sweat patches.  He looked ridiculous.

“It’s not safe,” Jorg puffed, “this planet, it’s not safe.”

“We know that much,” called the woman, “the Union’s automated warning triggered as we approached, warning us off.”

“Did it say why?”

It had not, and they had tried to find out.  All they had come up with was reference to an ‘environmental disaster’.  On approach, though, they had seen nothing but lush, green forest; there was no sign of any disaster.  It all stank of a typical Union cover up.

“Why don’t you tell us?” she threw down.

“I will, I will,” Jorg said.  Gingerly, the heat from the roof stinging through his socks, he skipped towards the ship.

“Whoa!” Roan pulled Gagan away from the ladder and held a palm up to the approaching man.  “Not so fast.  We never agreed that they could come aboard.”

“There is no ‘they’,” Jorg reminded.  “I’m the last one standing!  You cannot risk leaving your ship, not without protective suits, and I cannot risk staying out in the open much longer.  The spores can travel on the breeze…”

Roan was not moving.

“… you get one of those on your skin and you die, it is that simple.  The spores take root in your bloodstream, quicker than a flu, more deadly than the worst cancer, a couple of weeks later, you are basically a plant!  Now, please, stand aside!  I am sure Rastan did not send you to pick up a corpse or take her this green plague!”

The woman reluctantly stepped back, Gagan reaching out a helpful hand. Jorg ignored it, clambering up the ladder quickly.  As soon as he was clear, Roan closed the hatch.  She was not at all satisfied with welcoming the stranger on to the cruiser, but his warning had seemed genuine and sounded alarming; he had left them with little choice.

“Is she here?” Jorg was screwing up his eyes, trying to peer into the cruiser’s interior.  When he found the lush seats, it forced an intake of breath.  When he saw the state-of-the-art flight-desk, that air escaped as a gasp.  He had never seen anything like this before.

“Rastan?”  he asked, eyes-wide, jumping from the face of one stranger to another.  There was no sign of his queen.  “Did she not come?  Did she send her little brother to get me?”

Even after two years isolated on this planet, this man still threw the digs at this Kragenfeld sibling, it was so engrained into the cultural norms of Mass.  And those digs, even so far from home, still found their way through: “We are twins, arsehole,” Gagan snapped, “and she did not send us, she has nothing to do with us being here.”

The stranger wiped sweat from his brow with a scrawny bicep.  He hoped he was never going to have to wear that damned suit again.  Salty trails stung the corner of his eyes as he peered at Kragenfeld.  “Damn,” he said, “who have you been arguing with?  What is wrong with your mouth?”

“I had a little fall out with some plyers.”

“You are a mess, son!  But being sure I was going to die alone, you are still a wonderful sight.”

He went in for a hug but Gagan pushed him back and averted his gaze.  Snubbed, Jorg looked around, perhaps a little embarrassed and growing nervous that this was not the welcome he had hoped for.  Roan, hands on her hips, her brilliant fire-red hair burning under the hatch lights, glared at him.  Her stance and the stern expression on her sombre face offered nothing but hostility.

“What is this?” he ventured, his voice shaky and unsure.

“Last one, you say?” said Roan.  “Last one, on the planet?”

Her tone was soiled with sarcasm, as if she did not believe him, so he opted not to reply.  Hands still on her hips, she walked over.  He had no way of knowing that only days before, Roan had been sleeping rough on the streets of London.  Then, she had appeared quite different to now, with stinking clothes, matted hair, and a filthy face.  Despite this, as she looked him up and down, there was obvious disdain at his stained and sweat-soaked underclothes.  Ignoring his odour, she leaned closer, as if to whisper a secret.

“Do not be mistaken into thinking this is a happy re-union,” she hissed, “far from it.  Think of it more as judgement time!”

Chapter Nine

When the agents arrived at the reception, the couple were still sitting in the corner and the solitary drone was back near the desk.  Otherwise, it was empty.  Victor thought nothing of the lack of staff and continued straight through.  Agent Sapphire, however, was programmed to never not think.  Her artificial brain may not have been as complex as her leader’s, but there was no room in her well-structured synapses for absent-minded indifference.  Every situation was assessed, every probability considered, every outcome postulated.

“Sir,” she ventured, “something is wrong.”

It was a more ambiguous statement than ideal, but for now she just needed Victor to pause and allow her more time to process.  It worked, they came to a halt and he turned to her, quizzical.

“Please wait.  I am attempting to interface with the clinics cameras,” she said.

“You can do that?” he was impressed.

“The security systems are surprisingly sparse, but the drones operate independently and interface remotely, so if I can access…”

“Why?” Victor pushed.  “What’s wrong?”  Instinctively, he unbuttoned his jacket to free his holster.  He glanced around, looking for the threat.  Nothing was obvious.  What had spooked his colleague?

“Drone five responded to a visitor entering an unauthorised zone.  It found the offender and brought him back here; that was about fifteen minutes ago.  The receptionist was not here when it arrived back.  The drone has tried to contact her twice but has received no response.  It will try one more time and then issue an alert.  For now, it waits.”

Victor still saw nothing unusual in that; staff occasionally went AWOL.  It was probably nothing more than a call of nature.  “Unauthorised zone?” he checked.

Inside the android’s chest cavity, powerful nano-processors busily unscrambled the drone’s history.  The code ordered, she internally played back the most recent images and sounds recorded by the machine.

“A visitor strayed into a staff section of the complex,” Sapphire reported.  “Innocent enough, perhaps, except… I am cross-referencing the image of that visitor with Union central control.  This may take a moment.”

“Is this necessary?” her boss asked.  He was hungry, thirsty, and growing impatient.  The android was being over-cautious.  Frustratingly, it was in her programming to be like this, and there was little could be done to change that.  The only thing he wanted to worry about right now was finding the food generators; this was just a distraction.  She was wasting time with all these pointless cross-checks.  Except, she was not, and what that referencing would lead her to discover would ruin Victor’s appetite.

“We passed him only a few minutes ago.”

“What?  Who?”

“As we entered a corridor, we glimpsed the same individual dipping into a treatment room,” Sapphire explained.  Her vision was full of pixelated comparisons of the profiles from the drone’s data banks and the ones taken from her own memory.  There was more than a ninety-nine percent match.  Given the relatively low number of people in this remote clinic, that high a probability could be taken as a certainty.

Victor shrugged, “So?  We already knew he was a visitor!  What is your point?”

He could not even remember the glimpse to which the android referred, but she was wired to never forget.  Sitting amongst her artificial synapses was a perfect playback of that moment.  As they rounded the corner, she had spotted the man briefly looking their way, before following a companion through a doorway.  Sapphire went to reference this second person too.  Although the image was less complete, it was clearly a woman.  Due to shadows and the tilt of her head, there was only a partial of her face retrievable.  There was the flash of a nose though, and part of the cheek and chin were also visible.  Maybe there was enough for a broad crossmatch.  Broad was right; the android cancelled the first database search when it ran to a million matches.  She went back to the image and retrieved a shadowy ear.  Colourisation techniques helped to separate the greys and pinpoint the stranger’s hair colour, although it was as black as the shadows.  The flow of the neckline was logged too, along with the shoulders, posture, and body shape.  Sapphire ran the check again.  There were a thousand matches this time; her processors could check through that many in seconds.  She had barely begun, when one name leapt forward, propelled by the power of the improbable.  That name being on this list flew in the face of all reason.

Sapphire rarely showed strong emotion, despite it being within her programmed capabilities, but now she did.  Victor immediately latched on to her expression of concern.

“What?” he asked, anxiously.

“We need to check on the others,” she said.  “We need to make sure the prisoner is secure.”

He did not question his colleague, despite her lack of explanation.  A tap on the wrist and his identifier was active.  He searched for Asperik; offline.  He tried Dell; the same.

Agent Sapphire had drawn her weapon.

“What’s going on?” Victor asked.

“The couple we passed,” she said, “one of them, the man, is the same one who entered the restricted area…”

“You have already told me that.”

“… and his companion, the woman, has turned up a surprising match.”

“How surprising?” there was a lump in the back of his throat.  Suddenly, he had a bad feeling about this.  Something was terribly wrong.  All sense of hunger was gone, replaced by a light-headed nausea. This entire mission had been nothing but bad feelings, but this one was the worst.  On top of all the fuck-ups so far, here came the jackpot.

“Level five surprising,” the android said, conjuring up the scale to emphasise her point.  She was starting to move, heading back across the reception.

“Tell me!” Victor shouted after her.  “Who is the match?”

“McGann,” Sapphire called, “Kayla McGann!”

Like a blast wave, that name almost knocked him down.  As he tried to set off in pursuit, his legs lost any ability to move.  “You are fucking kidding me!?” he managed to gasp before his breath was swept away by the panic.  This was insane!  Insane!  But after all the insanity this mission had thrown at him, he knew that the android was right.

+     +     +

The last four years had seemed an age.  It was a horrible, endless smear across her memories; like dead bugs streaked over a windscreen.  The more Kayla tried to wipe, the cloudier it became.  The mines, the showers, the multiple trips to the clinics, all merged into one long, drawn out mess.  Every minute of those dreadful days had laboured by, just like the dragging feet of the wretched souls returning from a hard day at the pit face.  She could still smell the rank cocktail of human odour and glauconite, the mineral the Kamdo were so keen to extract.  Going back further, to the start of the smear, back to the courtroom and the days spent with lawyers, that seemed so long ago.  But as long ago as that was, it was not as deep in her memories as the last time she had been in the company of the man whom she now ran alongside.

For Jed, it felt very different.  In his timeline, barely weeks had elapsed since he had last been with Kayla.  The raid on Haran Galt was incredibly fresh, and his grief for those lost on that day still burned.  In Jed’s mind’s the sequence of events jumped from his arrest at Haram Galt straight to the interrogations on Meridian Rise.  It had taken some convincing by Victor’s team that four years had elapsed.  They had shown him evidence, but it was still difficult to accept that time had passed when he had not lived through it.  And then with the addition of Pike Macey, it became even more incomprehensible!   Ironically, if he could have called on the lived experiences of Macey, perhaps those four years would have made sense, although he was damn sure little else would.

Kayla was pulling away, exposing his fitness levels.  They were woefully short of their old norm.  Macey had kept his body in good shape, and he was grateful for that, but the abuse at the hands of Victor’s agents had left him exhausted.

“Kayla, slow down!  We are losing the others!”

“Then the others will get left!” she called back.  “We do not have time to waste!”

The small group were navigating the curved corridor around the perimeter of the wheel-shaped station.  If Kayla’s blistering pace was testing the two men, Schmidt was finding it impossible.  Messiah, in trying to keep the group together, was hanging back with the old woman whilst keeping the others in sight.  Jed urged the two of them on, keen not to lose the pilot.  Holographic signage pointed the way towards the docking bays, but did Kayla know which bay?  She seemed supremely confident she knew where she was going, and that she could fly the ship when they got there too, but with a quick getaway essential, he wanted the more experienced pilot at the controls.

“We need your friend to get us out of here.  Let them catch up!”  Jed told her, and then added, foolishly, “I can tell all these years haven’t taught you that sometimes you need others!”

Her steps faltered; she did not appreciate that comment. She slowed to a walk, twisting to face him.

“Do not even try to guess what I have or have not been taught!” she snarled. “I have learnt more since Haram Galt than I will ever care to share, and none of it was good!  So no, I do not put my faith in others, because look where that left me, rotting in a prison! Those four years were hell, and they are behind me, and they are going to stay behind me.  I am not going back there!  So, they either keep up or they get left, it really is as simple as that!”

“I get that,” Jed tried to empathise, “but you said it was his ship…” he signalled at Messiah, “… and we will need a pilot who can get us away quickly.”

Kayla went to rebuff but changed her mind.  She looked back along the corridor to the man who had saved her from the Kamdo.  Once again, he was trying to be the hero.  This time, it was the fragile figure of the doctor he was helping, encouraging her to keep going.  From behind the veil of adrenalin-fanned anger, Kayla remembered how he had called to her in the bay at Petang.  She remembered how he had asked her if she needed help, and how, despite his uncertainty, he had let her on to the Noche.  Mostly, though, she remembered how he had looked at her then, and ever since.  His gaze had been filled with nothing but warmth right from those early exchanges.  When he had brought her clothes and then left her to sleep, when he had proudly showed her around his base, and when he had offered her words of comfort in the wake of Jed’s broadcast, his actions had been riddled with affection.  She could see that clearly, despite her angry veil, but she wanted to deny what she saw.  In the aftermath of her fight with Nazia, cradled in his arms, despite her grogginess and pain, she had felt his tears drip on to her face.  He had been pleading with her to stay with him, pleading with her to stay awake.  She could deny it all she wanted but his affections were obvious, and deep down, they made her feel good, and that was enough for a reciprocal bond to be forming.  She could be as angry as she wanted, and she could keep the veil in place and hide from the truth, but there was no way she could leave Messiah behind.

As the others struggled to catch up, she shook a fist at them, attempting to pump energy into exhausted legs.  “We need to move quicker!” she said through gritted teeth.

There was not enough left in Schmidt to motivate, and instead she seized on the opportunity to pause, collapsing against the windows that ran the length of this perimeter corridor.  Anti-reflective silica glass presented the perfect perspective out on to the brightness of space, and the doctor let her cheek sink against the cold surface.  Millions of stars and galaxies twinkled away in the unfathomable expanse.  At the very edge of the view, the tail end of a docked ship poked out into the void, offering hope.

“How much further?” she panted, clutching at her chest.

“It cannot be much further,” said Messiah, “a couple of minutes, maybe?”

“I did not realise this place was so big,” Schmidt battled to say, the words forced out as she struggled to draw breath.

“It isn’t,” snapped Kayla, “you are just too old and too slow.  Do we really need her?”

Jed tapped the bag attached to the cord belt around his prisoner jumpsuit, “I have no idea, but I know I need these, and when they stop working, or run out…”

“What did the Union do to you?” asked Messiah.

“What did she do to me, more like,” he said with venom.  “She made me someone else.  ‘Project Indigo’, they called it.  They changed me into a different person and then hid me away in plain sight, some subtle facial alterations to avoid security triggers, new name, new planet, new life, I even had a wife I believe… and then, when they needed to tap into my intelligence, and perhaps even to lure Kayla, they re-animated their puppet.”

“Oh, you were certainly a puppet,” Kayla swiped.

It was a low blow.  Jed jerked his head in her direction, his own anger bubbling.  But even with all the rage painted across her face, he could see the sadness in her eyes too, and it took any steam out of his own reaction.  He wondered why she felt so compelled to be angry towards him.  He wondered what horrors she had been through to get her to this point.

“It has not been long for me,” he told her, calmly.  “In my mind, it is only a couple of weeks since we were at Haram Galt, preparing the food together, chatting, getting ready to settle.  For you, it might seem an eternity since that evening, but for me it is days.  They stole all my time away.”

“We have got to go,” Kayla said coldly.  “It will not be long before the other agents return, and the alarm is raised.  We have got to get to the ship.”

Jed nodded.  She was right, but even if they had had all the time in the universe, he sensed this was not a conversation she wanted to have.  Perhaps, she felt more content being angry at him.

“Come on,” he told the others.

Schmidt peeled herself from the window and they were moving again.

+     +     +

Throughout the lonely months, Jorg had played out his rescue so many times.  In all those imagined scenarios, not once had it been anything like this.  Always, his saviours were at least pleased to see him.  In many, they even treated him like a hero.  He was the last one standing, the one who had bravely battled against the odds.  Never had he imagined they would be so openly hostile as the bunch inside the pleasure cruiser.

Except for her brother – and he did not really count - there was no sign of Rastan or any of her close associates.  There were no smiles, or claps, or handshakes either.  The hardships of the perpetual count, the battles with the green devil, and the horrors of his nightmares were all irrelevant to this group; they offered up no empathy for his predicament.  He was sick with relief to see other people, and delighted to be safe inside a vessel, but he was mightily disappointed at the animosity oozing from every one of them.

“What happened here?”

It was the middle-aged woman sitting in the shadows at the far end of the first row of seats.  Gagan had introduced the tall red-haired woman as Roan, but the names of the others remained a mystery.  He could only see half this woman’s face but could tell she was large, carrying a lot of excess weight.  Her chins were framed with the crisp, white collar of a buttoned shirt.  There was a formality about her that he was not used to.

“The planet?” he asked, still surprised they did not know.

“Well, yes, to the planet,” she replied.  “Why is this world quarantined?  What have we flown into?  You look like you have been through an ordeal.  You said something about spores?”

He did look a mess in his grubby pants and vest, but he was not going to let them make him feel bad about that.

“This was once classified as a ‘prime planet’,” the man at the flight deck contributed.  “Its name was vaguely familiar to me, so I looked back, and sure enough, if we go back a few years, Araureo Delta was once listed in the top worlds to visit.  We never ran excursions here, it is too far out, and too close to the Dark Zones, but I am sure it was on our list of emerging markets.”

The others were all listening intently, and Ocean suddenly felt the spotlight of expectations.  His interruption, however, was not going to yield any answers.  He shrugged to show that was the sum of his knowledge.

“Well?”  Roan returned the focus to the newcomer.  He looked at a loss, standing forlornly at the top of the now closed hatch.  He was perspiring profusely, his whole body soaked.  Sweat dripped from his fingers and elbows to the carpeted deck, and unsightly droplets lingered on his nose end.

“It’s the plants,” he said, fidgeting from foot to foot, “that’s what caused the quarantine.  We came here to hide, you know that?”  The question was posed to Gagan, who did not offer a response, so Jorg continued, “We arrived in the middle of an evacuation.  The whole planet was clearing off, and in a hurry.  This complex was all but abandoned, one technician keeping it operational until the shuttle arrived to take him too.  He told us we were crazy to stay, said we needed to leave, but we had orders to lie low, so an abandoned station seemed perfect.  A few weeks, we thought, let the heat cool down, and then we could leave, and it would be fine.”

“You mentioned spores?” Roan reminded.

“We learnt what we could from the technician and from local reports we picked up over the airwaves.  The tech knew more, we were sure, but there was a secretive feel about the place.  It was not the Union either, there was no Union presence here, just the locals, the workers, the ordinary people, everyone… there was a big secret no one wanted to talk about.  We did pick up that the plants were manufactured, genetic fusion of a native species and something from a laboratory.  The aim, we were told, was to improve the fruit yield.   They took a slow growing but incredibly popular vine and adapted it, so it could not only satisfy the appetites of locals, but provide a useful export to bolster the planet’s economy and boost its influence across the empire.  It seems, they got this incredibly wrong.”

Jorg paused.  The watching faces had not faltered in their universal unfriendliness, but they were listening intently.  Their cold regard was only matched by the chill of the climate control, which put the ship’s interior at stark odds with the heat of the protective suit.  The air nipped at his damp skin.  At first, it had been a welcome cooling sensation, but now he was starting to shiver.

“The plants were seeded in fields on the Northern Islands.  With growth rates enhanced, the first flowers were pollinating a couple of weeks later.  Soon, reports of the plant germinating in neighbouring fields were starting to cause concern amongst the farmers.  The genetic modifications made them tolerant to most herbicides and pests alike, and they spread like wildfire.  Not long after, there were reports of other crops being destroyed by the invader, and then the politicians and media really started to take note.  Reports also started to emerge of ‘infections’ in some field workers.  At first, these were cast aside as nonsense, as crazy stories made up by alarmists craving attention.  Of course, photos and videos of the infections were soon everywhere, and the seriousness of the situation began to dawn.  It was too late.  With spores transported on shuttles and freight, or on the clothes of people, the plant was already taking root on all the continents.  That was about three months before the evacuation order.”

“It takes over the body?” asked the larger woman, clearly a little disbelieving of what she was hearing.  “A plant?”

“One organism taking over another,” the man at the flight desk considered, “that is what nature does, it is hardly a rare phenomenon.”

“But still, plants invading the human body is unusual to say the least!  So, it spread, how far?”

“Last reports…?”  Jorg raised his arms and swept them in a wide, circular motion.  “Everywhere! The whole planet.  Every bit of green you can see is that damn weed.  Everywhere.”

“The whole planet?” scoffed the woman, clearly finding it hard to grasp.

“Hence the evacuation,” said Roan.  She had an air of authority about her that gave Jorg the sense she was in charge.  “I would be willing to bet,” she said, “that the genetic games being played here ran contrary to galactic laws.  Of course, the Union was nowhere to be seen, but that does not mean they were not pulling the strings.  This was probably one of the many clandestine scientific experiments the Union have their paws all over, flaunting the rules the president set out decades ago.  It’s a typical story, a planet a long way from Earth, the illusion of self-rule, the leaders sponsored to push the boundaries.  The inner sectors are oblivious to these deceptions.  When, suddenly, a new technology or product emerges, tried, tested, and sanctioned for use by the privileged, who thinks to ask how?  The Union gets all the accrued benefits, economic and scientific, without dirtying their hands.”

“You know more than I do,” shivered Jorg.

“Union corruption,” the larger woman said, “is her specialist subject.”

“Why did you stay here?” asked Gagan.  “When you saw how dangerous it was, when the others started to die, why did you stay?”

“You know why,” Jorg recalled those snotty twin children, blubbering hysterical at their parents’ brutal demise, “your sister is why!  She sent us into hiding after our faces were spread all over the net!  For security reasons, or so we could atone, or just sadistic pleasure from the punishment, it was never entirely clear.”

“She did not knowingly order you to hide on a planet of killer plants!  Surely, there was a point when you thought that maybe you should contact her, or leave this place?”

“At first, we did not appreciate the severity, we thought it was local hysteria.  There were clearance squads operating, with heavy machinery.  They could burn back miles of the bastard stuff in minutes, so we thought it would not be too hard to keep the vines under control.  We thought…” he paused to re-order his words, “… Malem thought, that the risk was minimal.  But then, those doing the burning went too, the people, the equipment, everything, and we were all alone.  We had our ship and for a while we managed to keep the weeds away with smaller burners and electrical charges, but then Malem caught it, Bazra soon after.  Their deaths hit the rest of us hard.  We were rocked.  And with less of us to do the work, it was not long before the ship was lost to us.  We had to retreat to this building.  Then it took the other three, one by one.  Rosily was the last.”

He looked at Gagan with sad eyes, “I loved her, you know, in the end.”  Then Jorg tilted his head, as if something were about to tip out of his ear.  Instead, it came out of his mouth.  “Why did she send you?”  he asked Kragenfeld.  “And why the shitty treatment?  Who are these others?  There is something wrong here and she is not right for starters,” he was pointing at Sammy, “she is not from these parts and I doubt she’s ever been anywhere near Mass!”

“You do not need to know who we are,” Roan told him, “and I can assure you, we have all been to Mass.  I have been twice; it has not improved.  Even compared to a planet covered by a deadly jungle, it’s still a shithole.”

“It’s my shithole,” said Jorg.

Gagan chuckled, but without real mirth.  There was nothing amusing about this situation.

“And I want to go back,” the ship-wrecked man added solemnly.

He was a pitiful sight.  In more recent years, Gagan had only really seen Jorg through the alcoholic blur of a shadowy bar, but even through those inebriated perceptions, he recalled a far more confident figure than the one presented today.  Standing there, barely clothed, shivering profusely with his skin and vest soaked with sweat, he was barely recognisable.

“Are you here to take me back?” Jorg asked feebly.  “Please tell me that is why you are here, to take me back to Mass?”

Gagan bowed his head; it was another tell-tale sign of rejection.  Jorg hugged himself, rubbing at his arms to try and stem the shiver.  It made no difference.  He was shivering like a child just out of the bath, his teeth chattering, his shoulders shaking.  It was out of control, and there were other things, panicky, scary things, waiting to join in.

“You have to take me home,” he begged.  “I cannot stay here any longer, and this ship cannot either, we have to leave!”

“And we will,” said Roan, “but first, we want to know about the children, we want you to tell us everything you know about those poor kids.”

Jorg’s face fell.  This was not right; a stranger should not be asking him such things!  Despite Gagan’s presence, these were clearly not Rastan’s people, so who were they?  And how did they know about the children?  Presumably, Kragenfeld had told them.  This cruiser, the woman with her high-end Earth fashions, the cold anger seething in his direction… nothing about this situation felt as it should.  Jorg looked from one to the other, panic in this once fearless criminal ramping up.  He found the face of the man who had so far remained silent and met a grey, sombre stare.  It was a stare to stop time.  It was a stare that made Jorg audibly groan.

“And my kid,” hissed Clayton, “my boy?  I want to know what happened to him, everything that happened to him.  And if they have hurt a hair on his body, so help me god, I will rip you limb from limb!”

+     +     +

Gagan did not sit with the others.  Instead, he pushed himself into a corner by the hatch, back against the hull.  He cut a sorry figure, with his legs pulled up, arms wrapped around them, his sore chin resting on his knees.  The conflict raging inside was horrendous, swamping the exhaustion from the escapades back at the outcrop and even the discomfort in his mouth.  Occasionally, he looked over to the seats, where Jorg was facing an ongoing interrogation.  They were fleeting glances, his focus soon back on the two yellow emergency exit signs painted opposite.  He did not wish to watch, nor did he wish to listen, but short of clamping his hands over his eyes and humming, both were unavoidable.

All Gagan’s life, things had only worked one way, and that had been against him.  Ever since becoming a wretched orphan, left parentless at such a tender age and in such traumatic circumstances, everything had gone sour.  Sure, they were adopted by the whole community, but it was the girl who had been elevated, rising like a queen to rule, taking charge of the thiefdom named after their family.  It was as if she was ordained, and she was certainly worshipped, despite her often barbaric ways.  But Gagan?  Well, he was just left to sit in the background, perched at the bar, drinking with the locals.  With Gagan, the community’s entire focus seemed to be on keeping him out of the way.  Stay out of trouble, Rastan often told him, but it was not something he seemed particularly good at.  He would drink too much, he would throw insults, he would pick fights with the biggest man in the saloon and, when he was really trying to lift the bar in stupidity, he would trust a stranger with family secrets.

Jorg had seen alcohol get the better of Gagan many times, and he had often helped to mop up the mess.  Here, he had looked to Gagan for help but had found none.  Sitting in the middle of the middle row, harangued by strangers from all sides, that initial pleading now shifted towards contempt.

“You cannot even look at me, can you?” Jorg challenged.

“He is probably ashamed of you,” said Roan.

Gagan kept quiet but recognised the irony in her words.  He was ashamed of himself.

Roan was in the row behind Jorg, on the edge of his vision as he twisted to glare at Kragenfeld.  Now, she shifted over a seat, deliberately cutting off that view.  Jorg’s pupils drew back to her oval, freckled face.  Her expression was ice cold.

“You need to start telling us what you know about the children,” she said.

“I do not know about any kids,” he tried to snarl defiantly, but his attempt was feeble.  Shivering in his inadequate clothing and forced to be the centre of attention, he had no resistance to offer.  After so long alone, he was not the man who had left Mass.  That man would have ripped merry hell in this cabin.  The four strangers would have soon regretted crossing him.  But he had watched friends die, and that changed a person.  So too had the forced isolation, and as he tried to deal with their animosity, his mind was swarming with the constant count and nightmarish landscapes filled with fiendish number fours.  He was fighting back the panic, that constant panic, as he visualised vines creeping their way towards the airlock.  The time spent on this cruiser was time he should have been out there, burning them back.  There was a real risk that if this bunch were not going to rescue him, by the time he left their ship it would be too late to regain control of the green scourge.

“I have got to go,” he mumbled.

“You are not going anywhere,” Roan told him.

He had spent his life as a heavy - a criminal, a thug - yet here he was reduced to a shivering wreck by these first-worlders.  Roan looked a formidable foe in one respect, but she was hardly in his weight category, and the others offered even less threat.  As far as he could tell, they were all unarmed too.  But Jorg had zero fight in him.  He was caught in the moment, shocked by their arrival, and he did not have the wherewithal to take on the strangers.

“I have to go,” he explained. “I have to complete the cycle.”

He was rambling but Roan’s steal exterior was unmoved.  Sitting at the end of the same row as Jorg, Clayton observed her.  Despite the hatred he harboured, he could not help but be thankful she was here.  She was displaying the same calm manner with which she had dispatched the security guard back on Three Zero.  Clayton begrudged the respect he felt, but she was the only one amongst them who could have pulled off this grilling.

“Tell us about the children,” she pushed.

Jorg squirmed.  His face was still wet, a large sweat drop still clinging to his nose.  From under a damp and unruly fringe, he scanned the cabin.  It was a radically different environment to the one in which he had spent his forced isolation.  The lights were soft, the furnishings bright and attractive, and the air fresh and fragrant, despite his own aroma doing its best to ruin that.  The unfamiliar surroundings were disorientating enough, but there was the bombardment of questions too, pressurised questions, ones he did not know how to answer for the best.  He was overwhelmed.

“What children?”  that same retort had passed his lips several times now.  From under the brow, he continued to scan.  They had still not revealed who they were; he felt at a distinct disadvantage.

“You work for Rastan Kragenfeld?” Roan tried a different tact.

A tiny flame of loyalty licked at his conscience, reminding him that he should not fail the clan, that he should not betray Rastan.  It was all too much.  He had to get them off his back; he had to get back to zapping the weeds.  Unable to control his response, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind:

“I know nothing, she does not tell me those things, I don’t know about any kids.”

“Cut the shit, we know you do,” said Roan.  “Gagan told us that much.  You were part of a gang of six that made the headlines in this sector a couple of years back.  The Union intercepted a freighter full of narcotics and other contraband.  You fled the scene and went into hiding whilst the heat cooled. We have reviewed the media; it was full of your faces for a week and then the story disappeared.  Rastan probably pulled a few strings to get it silenced.  On pain of death, she told you not to come back until you were given the all clear.  It was a punishment, and that all clear never came.”

“She was coming back for us,” the pitiful figure lamented.  “She told us we had to lay low, find somewhere to hide, until it blew over.  She would come for us when it was safe.  When we realised that the planet was a death trap, we tried to send messages home, but we could not get them through.  She said she would come for us…”

“She lied,” said Roan.

“No, the signals, if they had made it through, she would have known.”

“That was probably Union dampening,” suggested Ocean.  “They would have certainly disabled the local boosters, no point funding them when the planet is in quarantine.”

Roan leaned towards Jorg, arms on the back of the adjacent seat.

“Or, Rastan lied,” she wanted that to sink in.  “She knew you were here, they all did, even Gagan over there.  They left you here to rot.  Maybe she did receive your messages, maybe they did get through?  My guess is they did, and she ignored them.”

“No.”

“You were an embarrassment to her, you made it necessary for Rastan to ask favours from those who she did not want to owe.  You were a failure, all of you.  You cocked up her plans.  She was happy to leave you here to die.”

Sunken shoulders sank even further.  He sniffed back mucus three times before giving up and wiping his nose on the back of his hand.  It left a glistening trail which he absently deposited on the upholstery.  Ocean noted it with disgust; he would clean where the man had sat at the first opportunity.

“She has shown you no loyalty,” Roan pushed, “none.  You were left here to die, all of you.  Left to become plant food.”

“Rosily,” Jorg sobbed.

“So why show her any loyalty back?  Even her own brother can see her for what she is…”

“Rastan did not know you were in trouble,” said Gagan, surprisingly jumping to his sister’s defence, much to Roan’s consternation.  “She knew you were stranded, her sources told her that, but she did not know you were in danger.  She just did not want to see your faces again, they told her to leave you here.”

“They?” Sammy asked.

“The clans,” Roan offered.  She had learnt a lot about how Rastan operated on her previous visit to Mass, or thought she had.

“No,” Gagan corrected, “the others, not the clans.”

“Others?”

“Yeah,” he lifted his head off his knees.  He was surprised by Roan’s surprise, sure that she would have picked up that there were outsiders who pulled on his sister’s strings.  Perhaps he had told her less than he believed and had now inadvertently opened a new avenue of enquiry.

“Who does you sister work for, Gagan?”

Agitated by what he saw as an irrelevant distraction, Clayton huffed and shuffled in his seat.  He petulantly slapped the back of the row in front, jolting Roan.  “Can we focus on the children?” he seethed.  “We need him to tell us where they are, that is what we agreed, why else would I be within a million miles of you?  We need to know where Con is!”

Initially intending to ignore the angry father, Roan went to resume the conversation with Gagan, but then she checked herself, holding whatever words were about to tumble from between those thin lips.  Maybe these questions did belong to another time and they should focus, for now, on the task in hand?  More evidence of the links between organised crime and what she was sure would be high-ranking Union officials were important, but this source was going nowhere fast.   She owed it to Clayton to focus on the question of the missing children first; it was, as he so eloquently put, why he had agreed to come on this trip.  She needed him too.  He was the wronged parent, providing the face of integrity that would help validate the conspiracies.

Jorg was still sobbing.  Clayton wondered if he was the most pathetic sight he had ever seen.  There were no tears, just a heaving of the shoulders and pitiful groans that ratchetted up like the notes of a terrible tune, only to tumble back down the octaves as breath escaped.  Sammy was watching the man too and Clayton briefly met her gaze.  She will be remembering the state I was in, Clayton thought.  This might be the worst he had seen, but his lawyer would argue she had seen worse, when her client had been consumed by raw grief.

Strong emotions plighted Clayton now too, and after so long numb, it was a struggle to accept them.  When Roan had appeared on his porch, starting them out on this crazy venture, the wall his mind had constructed to protect his shattered inner soul, had crumbled.  The emotions that had escaped were not grief, though.  These emotions were not drowning him, stealing the oxygen from his lungs, turning his brain into mush.  No, these were spiky and sharp.  They pricked him like a thousand swords, pumping adrenalin into his body and making him feel more alive than he had in a long time.  He was experiencing seething rage.  The more those swords poked, the more he wanted to fight and stab back.

“No more messing about,” Clayton snarled, “where are the children?” He was surprised by his own firmness.  It was enough to hold Jorg’s sob midway up an ascending scale.

Roan piled in: “We know you know!  Your friend over there has told us all about you.  It was your job to shift products from one market to the next using tried and tested routes, through systems that were in the pay of your boss or her associates.  Except this one time, you tried to cut a few corners and shave time and cost off the trip, and bumped into a Union patrol.  They captured the freighter and seized narcotics and other merchandise.  You made a run for it, but with access to the freighter’s logs, the Union soon identified you all and plastered you all over the airwaves.  ‘Wanted dead or alive’, although the Union probably played down the dead bit, they usually do.  With the local systems crawling and your ship not capable of traversing the galaxy, you had to ditch, and you chose here, a planet in quarantine.  Even if the Union did actually track you, there’s a good chance they would have just left you here to die, just as Rastan did.”

She paused.  Jorg’s shivering was showing no signs of abating and his face was just a picture of shock.  Was she going to be able to get anything from this pathetic creature?  She wanted to grab him and give him a shake, to try and force the answers from him.  If his mental state had not appeared so fragile, she would have done just that.  But he was a big man, likely stronger than any of her motley crew, and in such a state it was impossible to predict how he might have reacted to a physical threat.  They were getting nowhere though.  Perhaps it was time to try a different approach.

“Ocean,” she said, “have we got blankets or spare clothes on board?”

Of course, this was a pleasure cruiser.  Behind a panel sat a pile of brown, thick blankets, and several similarly coloured fleeced jackets.  Ocean handed one of each to Jorg, who just stared at them for a moment, and then dumped them into his lap.  Sammy came to his assistance, shuffling along the row.  She helped him put on the jacket and spread the blanket over his legs.  He did not stop shivering, but it eased, and he looked as if he was finally trying to get it under control.

“Warm up,” Roan commented, “and calm down.  We mean you no harm, we just need your help.”

“How long have I been in here?” he blurted, panic still painted in his tone.

“Not long,” Sammy said calmly, “a few minutes.  Maybe twenty.”

Mumbling numbers, he seemed to perform some sort of calculation.  In frustration, he tapped a loose fist against his forehead.  He started the calculation again, this time apparently satisfied with the answer.

“I need to get back,” he said.  “I need to recover the cycle.  If I go now, there is still time.”

“What cycle?” asked Roan.  “What are you so worried about?”

“Got to keep the vents clear, I cannot let the spores get in there.”

“He must have some sort of gardening routine,” Sammy suggested to the others.  “Is that it?  Do you need to cut back the plants?  Stop them getting to the vents?”

“Burn them,” his eyes widened, “burn them back!  My zapper is out there.”  He nodded at the hatch.  “Let me go so I can get back on cycle.  The schedule is all messed up, but I can still recover it.”

“I thought you wanted to get out of here,” Roan taunted.  “I thought you wanted to leave the planet?”

Jorg was quick to respond: “Yes!”

“Then tell us where the children are.  Tell us where they take them.”

“Tell them,” Gagan added.  “For fuck-sake, just tell them.”

“I don’t…” Jorg barely managed to start his denial before Gagan was scrambling to his feet.  He moved towards the man in the fleece, his exasperation clear.  It was excruciating for Gagan to witness these strangers interrogating one of his clan and he was not willing to listen any longer.  He had to bring this conversation to an end, and that meant giving Roan, or Sonda, or whatever she was fucking called, exactly what she wanted.  Maybe then, they would agree to drop Gagan off somewhere safe, and he could forget all about Mass, Rastan, and this sorry mess.

“You do,” he told Jorg, leaning across the seats, inches from his face, “you do, so let’s stop this pretence.  I brought them here because I knew my sister was not in contact with your team, and she would never think of warning you that her annoying brother was on the run.  Yeah, that’s right, I’m on the run, who do you think did this to my mouth?  This lot need help to find his son.  I do not owe them any loyalty, but I do not owe my sister any either, and nor do you.  So hey, after a life full of doing wrong, maybe we should just do this one good thing?”

“In return,” said Roan, “we will save your life.”

Gagan’s interjection seemed to help focus Jorg, but the wretched man still shook his head without any real conviction.

“The kids,” he mumbled.

“Yes,” said Gagan.

“Yes,” said Roan, “the kids.”

Clayton adjusted his position.  Nervously, he covered his mouth and squeezed his lips.  Air whistled through his fingers as he inhaled deeply.

“I never went near,” Jorg said, “I wanted nothing to do with them.”

Clayton’s chest lurched on realising what those few words meant.  The stranger had just acknowledged that there were children.  Did this mean the ridiculous claims Roan had made were true?  Gagan had collaborated her story but there was history between that pair. This man, though, was now providing independent testimony.  Suddenly, it felt real.  Suddenly, it felt like the hope Clayton had so long denied himself might now, finally, be worth grabbing.

“So, you do know about the children?” Roan asked.  She was frothing with excitement, her calm persona slipping.

“Yes, he does,” Gagan said, “they use the same supply lines for everything.”

“But I never went near them!”

“The supply lines,” Gagan insisted, “the same lines, the same ships, often, the same customers.”

Sitting up front, no one was paying Ocean much attention.  For his part, he was listening intently, fascinated by the whole discussion, but particularly intrigued by Kragenfeld’s talk of supply lines.  Unnoticed, he had turned on the navigation system.

“You saw the children though,” Roan pressed, “whether you went near them or not, you saw them?

Jorg hung his head and she took that as a yes.  Under the fleece, the shivering had subsided, but his shoulders still heaved as he tried to settle the sobbing.

“Just tell us,” chipped in Sammy, her tone encouraging, almost sympathetic.  “We accept you had nothing to do with it, we believe you, but the children, the child trafficking, we need you to tell us everything you know.”

“Rastan wanted you dead,” Roan was relentless.  “Rastan let your friends die.  You owe her nothing.”

“There were kids, yes!” Jorg spluttered.  “Not with all consignments, but on occasions, stowed in crates at the back.  Most of the crew kept away from them, so they didn’t have to listen to their bleating…”

Sammy threw Clayton a ‘calm down’ look.  He did not need it; he was too stunned by what he was hearing to immediately react.

“This route and others,” Jorg continued.  “They were taken from inner sector planets, smuggled out of those systems, passed through various gangs, to feed the markets on some frontier worlds.  They needed them, to grow the settlements, to work the land, to sustain life there…”

“The Dark Zones,” Ocean announced, continuing to explore the navigation maps.

Roan was nodding, “The human race expanded rapidly, too rapidly, to the point it became unsustainable, especially when the economies that had fuelled the expansion hit hard times and reigned in the spending.  At the same time, Chilake pulled the plug on the more questionable scientific practices, banning the affordable but more damaging types of terraforming.  That action wrote trillions off the values of frontier worlds.  It left those living at the edges of human civilisation with valueless, inhospitable lumps of rock, no way to terraform them, no way to recoup their losses, and no choice but to make the best of a bad situation.”

“Hardly excuses child trafficking!”  said Sammy, an experienced cynic.  “Criminals will always find a way to justify their crimes; I have seen it so many times.  Crime is a choice.  Not everyone who is abused chooses to be an abuser, not everyone who falls on hard times chooses to be a thief, not everyone who finds themselves cast adrift on a shitty planet…”

“And I am sure for many,” said Roan, “making the best of the situation does not involve turning to crime, but there are hundreds of settlements out here, maybe thousands.  This far from the inner sectors there’s a messy mix of corrupt leaders exploiting fledgling nations, or criminal warlords exploiting the defenceless, or mafia-style mobs dominating communities… It might not be everywhere, but these are all too familiar set ups.  You saw it on Skalgen C, you saw the way they lived.  No doubt when papa Kragenfeld dreamed of a new life on a new world, they were thinking of the brochures.  It is likely that, at some point, Skalgen C was listed as prime real estate, ready for terraforming.  They saw the potential to build a new civilisation in a self-styled lush and virgin paradise, all they had to do was upgrade the ecosystem, eradicate the nasty local animals, and give it a fresh, hospitable atmosphere.  Before Chilake’s Ethical Cleansing, not only was that legal, it was relatively affordable, and others would flock to join them, and they could build themselves a brave new world.”

“It didn’t work out like that on Skalgen,” scoffed Jorg.

“It didn’t work out like that on most planets,” agreed Roan.  “Millions now live under the shadow of terrible regimes, unable to escape, trapped by the refusal of the inner sectors to either offer assistance or relocation.  And to make matters worse, the Union continue to use places like this as experiments, away from prying eyes, below even their own radar… and that angers those struggling to eek out a decent life in these poor sectors.  They can see the hypocrisy in being denied the ability to change their worlds.”

“That’s the claim of the rebellions we sometimes hear of,” considered Sammy, “but those are few and far between.”

“No,” said Roan, “they are not.  Perhaps precious Earthlings only get to hear of them infrequently, but there are many such rebellions on many planets.  Many have been successful too.  It is not all rosy in the Union’s back garden.  Self-rule is more widespread than they would like to admit.”

“Back to the children?”  Clayton cut across them, concerned the conversation was drifting again.  “Where do they take them?”

Jorg blinked and seemed to ready himself before replying.  Perhaps after turning a blind eye on all those runs, ignoring the human cargo shipped at the rear, it was time to let the charade go.  Perhaps, as Gagan had said, it was time to do the right thing.

“I don’t know,” he stammered, “well, not really.”

“Which is it?” Clayton frowned.  “No, or not really?  You either know or you do not?”

“So many routes, so many shipments…”

Roan pushed, “How many?”

“Dozens, too many to count, I do not know where all the cargo ends up…”

“Not cargo,” snapped Clayton, “children!”

“… all the children… we deliver to a series of terminals or ports, spread across a number of worlds and satellites.  And we only work a small proportion of the network, other teams work the rest.”

“And they all ship children?” Roan clarified.

Jorg shook his head, “I genuinely do not know, I only know this route.”

This time Roan directed her questions to Gagan, “The Three Zero children you told me about?  They came this way?”

“It’s like I told you a year ago, and on the way here” he sighed, cursing his loose tongue for ever boasting that he knew the fate of those shuttles.  Official records reported them destroyed in the shock waves, occupants unknown, but the wreckage of many of them was never recovered.

“Say it again,” she said, “I want your friend to hear it.”

“I am not one hundred percent sure, but if I had to wager, I would bet on this route.  I heard it from those close to my sister, maybe even from her, I can’t recall, but this route is one of the most lucrative, those at the end of it some of the most unscrupulous.  Drugs, weapons, machine parts, chemicals, humans, the whole shebang.  At the time of Three Zero, and in the aftermath, there was a lot of noise around stolen shuttles, and I remember Hab Cyrus was sniffing around, but he never ventured into these parts... another reason why I think she sent the cargo this way.”

“They are fucking children!” Clayton angrily highlighted again.  He managed to hold the rage, but it was not far from the surface.  Sammy shifted rows and moved to sit beside her one-time client, now firmly a friend.  A calming hand squeezed his shoulder, seeking to reassure.

Roan sat back, bathing in a self-satisfied aura.  This man might not have given her everything, but, along with Gagan’s testimony, it was starting to form a picture.  Another step had been taken along this difficult road.  She felt vindicated for dragging this rag-tag bunch across the galaxy.

“Then we follow what you know,” she said, “we follow this route.  You will take us to where the children end up, to the terminal or port, or wherever.”

“That sounds a little,” Sammy searched for the right word, “foolhardy?  Should we not, you know, contact the authorities?”

“The Union?” scoffed Roan.  “No chance!  There are several senators up to their knees in shit like this, we would be silenced, permanently.”

“So you keep saying,” Sammy frowned, “but you have yet to show any evidence of Union corruption, I’m just hearing speculation and conspiracy theories.”

“We follow the trail,” came the no nonsense reply.

“We have to,” agreed Clayton, “we have come this far! We keep going, we find the children, we find Con.”

“Clay,” the lawyer squeezed his shoulder a little tighter, the way a coach might a young child about to enter the field of play, “the chances we can find Conner are very low.  We do not even know for sure he was on one of the hijacked shuttles, we only have her word that she met him.  And even if she did, we do not know they came this way, he could have ended up anywhere…”

“I know all that and don’t care,” said Clayton. “It does not matter if it is my son, or someone else’s son at the end of this trail.  These scumbags are trafficking children and we have to find out more and we have to try and stop this!”

“A lawyer, a pilot, an accountant, a journalist?” Sammy shook her head.  “We would struggle to stop a house party, let alone organised crime of this scale!”

He placed his own hand on hers, looking back.  “We have to try,” he said.

“And on this route?” asked Ocean, still looking at his maps.  “I take it we would be heading further out from this sector?  On a similar trajectory?”

“Freighters are big,” said Jorg, “the jump engines inefficient and expensive, so we go the shortest route to save time and money.  A straight line, from Skalgen and her neighbours in the Qeranna sector, through Ida, through this sector, Steins, and then on…”

“Towards Hadrian’s Gate?”

“Yes.”

“You are kidding me,” Ocean groaned, spinning the pilot’s chair to look at the others.

Sammy’s furrowed brow quizzed the pilot.  She was not uninformed, but she had never left the safety of Earth before and galactic geography was not her strongest subject.  The pilot’s body language told her this was not good news.

“This route,” Ocean explained, “will take us through the outer edge of the huge dust cloud known as Hadrian’s Gate.  Beyond, lies an area of space where the stars are typically weaker, mostly class M or cooler.  It is a sector long since denigrated by most of humanity, written off from further exploration because there are much brighter pickings to be found elsewhere… by most of humanity, but not quite all…”

Sammy had it.  “The Kamdo,” she gasped.

“Yep,” said Ocean, “our friend’s route takes us into the Dark Zones.  You had all better buckle up, we are about to head into the heart of a war.”

Chapter Ten

Thirty light years away from Araureo Delta, relatively close in galactic terms, another bunch of unlikely companions were dashing around the perimeter of the medical space station known as The Warehouse.  As they ran, they peered through the large viewing windows, searching for a glint of red that might indicate the Noche was near. A minute or so before, Messiah was sure he had caught a glimpse, but then it was lost.  He could have been mistaken, but he prayed it was just hidden behind other docked vessels.  They had to find it soon; time was ticking away.

“We are nearly there,” he called back, encouraging the old woman and, perhaps, himself too.

“Do not say that,” Schmidt gasped, angrily, “unless you know it to be true!”

This was the most exercise she had done in thirty years and she was struggling.  On some of the outposts, the Union had granted her access to treadmills and other fitness equipment, but it was only on the rare occasion she had chosen to use them.  Then, a short walk had been the most she could muster.  This pace, at her age, was going to kill her.  If they did not stop soon, she did not think her heart would make it.

At least this stranger was attempting to help her, unlike the Terrorist Two, who were off in the distance.  Luca had agreed she could tag along, but he did not seem particularly worried if she got left behind, and he had made sure that he was carrying the drugs.  No doubt if it came to a choice of getting away or waiting for her, he would be off.  She should not have expected much loyalty given how she had screwed around inside his head, but Schmidt viewed her work like an artist viewed their paintings.  It was a masterpiece of science.  Luca should have felt honoured to be the subject.

Messiah paused again, waiting for the doctor.  Before managing to draw level, she pulled up too, wheezing, and unable to breathe properly.  Looking like she was about to stumble, Messiah dashed to her assistance, catching her as she fell against the window.  Face pressed against that clear surface again, she gazed doe-eyed at the expanse beyond.  She coughed, spit spraying on to the window.

Messiah leaned away, keen to avoid getting covered in anything that might come from the woman’s mouth.  He looked back along the corridor, contemplating how far they had come.  His doubting mind was searching for comfort that the Noche really did have to be nearby.  Suddenly, movement caught his attention.  His eyes sprung wide and he took a step back, releasing the doctor.  With panic spreading over his face, he reached for the gun tucked in his belt.  His fingers found nothing.  Deeming Jed more skilled and more likely to use it, he had passed him the weapon.

“Damn,” Messiah cursed.  Grabbing Schmidt’s skinny wrist, he began to drag her.  At first, she resisted, until she saw who was behind.  At the extremity of the curve in the corridor, some two hundred metres away, in unmistakable black suits, were two Union agents.  Their weapons were drawn, and they were heading their way, fast.

“We can’t outrun them!” the doctor screamed, unhelpfully.

Messiah was about to point out that they had no choice but to try when a bolt of energy whizzed past his ear.  At first, he thought the bolt was making his point for him, but then the anticipated flash was back along the corridor, close to the agents.  Messiah spun to see Jed Luca holding the smoking gun, Kayla at his side.  Her pistol was raised too, eyes straining to target the figures in the distance.

The agents froze in their tracks.  One of them, Asperik, quickly dropped to his knees.  The other, Nesbit, was slow to respond, despite the urgent beckoning from his colleague.  Only when another shot whizzed by, was he motivated into action.  He was lucky.  Had the weapon been more familiar to Kayla, she would have likely hit home.  As Nesbit tucked in beside him, Asperik activated a portable shield collected from one of the pacers.  The blue translucent barrier panned out in front of them just in time, Jed’s second shot striking it in an explosion of orange and white.

“Come on!” Kayla hollered, pulling at Messiah’s arm.  “We have found Spirit, she’s only two ports down!”

Messiah still had hold of Schmidt’s wrist.  He gave it a jerk, dragging her as Kayla dragged him.  They began to move away, but Jed lingered, his gun trained on the cowering agents.  He waited for a couple of anxious seconds, and then as one of the agents started to shuffle into a different position, preparing to peak over the shield and take a shot, Jed fired off a rapid salvo.  Two bolts crashed into the shield, throwing up more fireworks.  A third crashed into the corridor wall at the side of the agents, harmlessly showering them with sparks.  It was enough of a distraction to allow Jed to turn on his heels and follow the others.

He caught up just as they were passing the penultimate port; the Noche was next.  It lay just ahead, at the point the corridor started to curve away.  Kayla and Jed had already checked out the docking mechanism before returning for the others.  It was simple enough to operate and, thankfully, locally controlled, without the need for any central release from a control room.  The bulbous back end of the ship now filled the viewing window.  As they got closer, they could see the narrower middle section and the portals that lined the lower deck.  On first realising that the vessel was a Noche, Jed had thought all was lost, but Kayla had assured him that the modifications gave it jump capability.  Provided there were no Union vessels patrolling nearby, they could make a clean escape.

Approaching for this second time, Jed felt a wave of euphoric relief.  From the horrors of Haram Galt, through his brief incarceration, to his resurrection and interrogation, this moment felt like a terrible chapter was coming to an end.  He could only imagine the magnitude of the relief that would hit Kayla, given the dreadful four years she had endured.  But focused on how sweet it would feel for them to get away, he did not notice the second set of Union agents coming in the opposite direction.  Thankfully, Kayla did, spotting them just in time.  She managed to lunge to the left, taking Jed with her, as Agent Sapphire opened fire.  The energy bolt smashed into the window but did no damage, the charge dissipating into the fabric of the station.

They were now level with the docking port.  As she returned fire, Kayla screamed at Messiah to get the hatch open.  Her aim snatched, her shots were wayward and went nowhere near.  Jed was much closer, forcing the approaching agents to falter and push themselves tight on the inner wall of the corridor, using the bend to shield.  They were about a hundred metres away.

“Quickly!” Kayla demanded, but Messiah was going as fast as he could.  It was an air seal, so he deactivated that first, the hiss of escaping gases unmistakable.  Next came the locking mechanism.  It was passcode controlled.

“Shit!” he swore.

Schmidt was at his shoulder as, along the corridor, Agent Victor peaked out at the renegades.  He was forced back into cover when Jed and Kayla both simultaneously fired.

“What is it?” the doctor asked Messiah.

“It’s coded!” he frantically flicked between instruction screens, desperately looking for a way to bypass the security.

“Have they locked us out?” the doctor asked.

“No, it’s a code, my code, I set it, but things were a bit crazy at the time and…”

“You have got to be kidding?”  Jed injected, trying to look both ways at once.  “You’ve forgotten your pin?”

“No DNA or retinal scan?” Schmidt found that hard to believe.

“No, just a code, another layer of protection for those who wish to remain anonymous,” Messiah slapped the side of the screen in frustration.

“Well, that won’t work!” the old woman frowned.

“I know!” his reply was curt.  “Give me a moment, give me time to think.”

There was a deafening thud as a bolt tore into the corridor wall only inches from the hatch.  It nearly took out the locking mechanism and the two standing by it.  Messiah and the doctor both jumped, momentarily stunned by how close that had been.  Behind them, the others fired off a volley of shots to pin the agent’s back.

“You do not have a moment!” Kayla yelled.  “The charges on these pistols are getting low, we cannot hold them off for long.”

Messiah Ainge stared at the six boxes.  They waited tantalisingly for his fingers to enter the right combination.  That was all he needed to find; six little numbers.  He tried to push his thoughts back to the arrival.  All he could see was the panic over Kayla as she lay unconscious and bleeding, surrounded by medics.  He was blank, totally blank.  Along the corridor, he could see the edge of the agent’s lurking in the shadows.  Much closer, a red warning light was flashing on Kayla’s gun.

Six little numbers.

There were a million possible combinations.

He did not have a clue where to start.

+     +     +

Ever since first setting foot on Meridian Rise, something had not felt right about this mission. He did not believe in fate; the millions of decisions taken every day rendered any pre-ordained path impotent.  Premonitions, however, were a different story.  Those were simply the active mind working through future possibilities and throwing up likely outcomes.  Right from the start, his premonitions on this one had been strong.  He had seen how the mission would play out, and predicted the disaster now looming.  He felt like an actor in a movie, with others scripting the plot towards an inevitable climax.  Except, this was not a movie.  This was real life, his life, and as the plot reached its conclusion, he would be left to face the consequences.

“… we are on the losing side,” he mumbled.

Normal ears might not have picked up his words, but Agent Sapphire did not have normal ears.

“Asperik and Nesbit are coming at them from the other direction,” she said, matter of fact.  “We have them pinned down.  We will not lose this one, not unless they can get that hatch open, and they seem to be struggling.”

“What’s holding them up?”

“My assumption would be the access code; they have forgotten it.”

Victor’s thoughts danced back to their own arrival.  He wondered who in his group had stored the codes for the pacers.  It was probably Sapphire, even if she had not been asked to.  It was somewhat irrelevant in this moment, but it highlighted that the renegades did not have an android on their side and had relied instead on a fallible human mind.

“That’s unfortunate,” he said, allowing a tiny bit of optimism to creep in.

The android nodded, checking the charge on her weapon.  “I have already tried to hack into the docking controls, but like the drones, each unit is standalone, they do not interface with the main systems.”

Victor considered stealing another peek, to make sure they were not getting through that hatch.  The computer beside him may well have calculated that they were going nowhere, but that seemed a big gamble.  Could he just wait this out and risk them opening it?  He could hear the inquest panel now, questioning why they had hidden whilst McGann escaped.  He could also hear that screech of brakes as this mission skidded towards that inevitable doom.  It would be the death of him.

“So come on,” he whispered, “you have the processors.  Can’t you, like, I don’t know, calculate the angles?  Can you get a good shot in?  Surely your aim is better than mine.  How do you even miss?”

“McGann reacted quickly,” Sapphire said, “but give me a clean shot and I will not miss again.  I must wait for the opportunity though, one of those blast would destroy me just as it would you, and my self-preservation instincts are no different to your own.  We are more similar than you may wish to think.”

Self-preservation was an interesting dilemma in this current predicament.  It was impossible to pick the course of action that would offer the best way out of this mess.  Was it better to crouch here, hoping the hatch remained closed and waiting for the other agents to form the pincer?  Or was it better to not chance them escaping in the meantime, and avoid the humiliating inquiry that would ensue?

“Does that mean you are not interested in a heroic death?” he asked.

“Not unless it’s the only choice we have.”

“I’m afraid it might be.”

“Strength and unity...?” Sapphire began.

“No,” he told her, “do not do that.”

“Not feeling very patriotic?”

He frowned.  “We are going to have to go for it,” he said, “I see no other option.  Some might say that is our duty, so if you want to call that patriotic, go ahead.  All I know is we cannot let her escape. I cannot let her escape.  So, get your best calculator out and make sure you get those angles right this time, your shooting is going to have to be spot on.  Are you ready?”

“I am always ready,” she said.

Yes, he bet she was, but he could not say the same for himself.  Breathing slowly, he made a final check of his gun and nodded to his colleague.

The android nodded back.

“Long live the Union,” he uttered, and then they were up.

+     +     +

Six little numbers.

He stared at the boxes, willing them to give him the answer, to auto-complete, to magically unlock.

Six little numbers.

Back again to first arriving here.  This corridor was flooded with medics and a mass of equipment, all primed and ready to take the patient from his arms.  Somehow, he had gotten her down the ladder, taking it rung by rung, straining under the weight and the difficult angles, fearing any bump or twist would cause her more damage.  Somehow, he had managed to open the Noche’s outer airlock.  Somehow, he had scrambled along the short corridor, and out through the hatch that now faced him.  He could recall aspects of it vividly, but could he remember tapping in the code? Could he hell! He could find the moments where someone had told him that he needed to secure his ship.  He could remember turning to face the same six boxes that now taunted.  In that hazy memory, he had reached forward and tapped six times.  The hatch had closed and locked.

He could see it happening.

So, what was the fucking code?

Side by side, Kayla and Jed stood with their guns trained on the place where the agents were hiding.  They could see the edge of the agent’s suits, but there was not enough charge to waste on such narrow targets.  Jed kept checking behind, acutely aware another two agents would be heading this way.  Then, the group by the hatch would be surrounded and easy targets.

“We need it open,” said Kayla, unhelpfully.

“I know!” Messiah snapped back.

Six little numbers.

He was full of the confusion felt on first emerging into this corridor.  Emerging from the relatively dim interior of the Noche, the lights had been blinding, and all the faces crowding in had bamboozled.   Several reassuring voices had told him it would be okay, they had her now, they would take it from there.  And amidst that chaos, that one person had told him to enter a code, told him a dozen times before it sank in.  He had found the old-fashioned panel with its six boxes and the touchscreen below.  With the cacophony exploding around, Messiah had stared at it for a moment.  Prompted again, he had reached out and touched the screen.  Six numbers.  He had made sure they were easy to remember.

The pop of explosive bolts disturbed his concentration, breaking the memory.  The agents who had sheltered behind the shield had now caught up.  They were charging along the corridor, weapons ablaze.  Jed was returning fire.

Just six numbers.  Easy to remember.

It was now or never.

Messiah stuck out a finger and hit ‘one’.  Then another.  Then another.  Another.  Another.  Another.  Six ‘ones’.  It seemed right.  From those hazy memories, it suddenly seemed right.  What could be easier?  In that panicked scene, a dash of logical thinking had found a way to reach him.  Simple, memorable, six ‘ones’…

The lock was still red.  The ‘open’ icon on the screen, still opaque.  No!  That was it, he was sure!

A flash of light brought a sudden, searing pain.  He jumped back, lifting his hand to his face.  The knuckles were charred but that was all.  More concerning, the blast had smashed into the hatch controls, the screen twisted and unrecognisable.  This was the end of the road.

Annoyingly, Schmidt was tugging at his shirt.  What did she want now, of all times?!  He glanced down, expecting to see a distressed face peering back.  What he found was a wide-eyed expression of relief.  She was nodding towards the hatch, where green lights were now flashing around the perimeter.  As they watched, the door began to slide open.

+     +     +

The bolt whizzed past Jed’s thigh, searing the orange jumpsuit.  He hoped Kayla was not directly behind him, in the line of that bolt, but he had no time to check.  He kept his focus on the advancing agents, steadying his aim.

Moving at pace, Asperik and Nesbit’s shots were wayward, spraying everywhere.  Most smashed into the corridor walls, but some were worryingly close.  They could strike lucky at any moment.  Jed held the stolen pistol at shoulder height, his head cocked, eyes peering through the targeting mechanism.  As they neared, confidence in his aim grew.  He considered waiting another second or so, but with more shots reigning in, he had to act.  All the training camps and the years of experience in similar situations came to the fore. The secret was in staying calm and steady, no panic, no firing off whilst moving at speed.  Gently, smoothly, he squeezed the trigger.

Nesbit spun as the bolt struck, a dark cloud exploding from his chest.  His patent regulation shoes lifted off the floor and, with the dark cloud still hanging, he thudded to the deck in an ungainly heap.  Somehow, he was still alive.  He let out an ear-curdling scream.  It was a dreadful noise, filling the corridor.  With a gaping hole in his chest, internal organs ripped apart, the horrific cry was thankfully short.  As Nesbit’s life bled away, Asperik ran on, the horror of what he had just witnessed taking the power out of his legs. He continued to come, but now his strides were stumbling, his arms faltering.  When he fired again, the charge crashed into the floor a few feet in front.  Defenceless, he was in Jed’s sights.  If it had not been for a shout from Kayla, the next shot would have surely claimed Asperik’s life.  Instead, it flew inches over the agent’s shoulder.

Jed glanced back to see Kayla down on one knee.  At first, he thought she had been hit, but no, she was steadying an elbow on the raised leg, her weapon trained on Victor and Sapphire.  They had broken cover.  One at either side of the corridor, they were not charging towards the group as the others had.  Instead, they slowly advanced, steady, calm, determined, their guns on those by the hatch.

“Lower your weapons!” Victor called.  “Put them down and we can talk!”

Luca looked back at Asperik.  The agent was slowing to a halt.  The odds had shifted; the Union had them pinned.  There was no way they could blast their way out of this without taking casualties.  It was now a choice of surrender or go out fighting.

He glanced at the poised Kayla knowing there was only ever one way she would let this end.  At any moment, she could pull that trigger and bring on return fire, but the agents were much closer this time, and did she realise that Sapphire was the android?  Had she clocked that?  Did she appreciate how good the android’s aim was likely to be?  Pondering what to do, Jed’s gaze was drawn towards the hatch.  Messiah was staring at him, brows raised, trying to grab his attention.  Where there had been a solid red door, now there was a space and a brightly lit tube beyond.  The hatch was open.  They had a way out.

“Lower your gun,” Jed whispered to Kayla, his weapon already heading down.

“What?” she asked, surprised.  Her eyes did not shift from the advancing threat.

“Do not look now, but your friend has opened the hatch.  We can get to the ship.”

Kayla said nothing but Jed knew she would get the plan.  The agents were still closing from both directions; they had to buy time and knock them off guard.  She called to them, “I’ll lower my gun when you stay where you are!”

Victor took another two steps and then stopped, waving his arm at Sapphire to do the same.  They had closed to only thirty metres and Kayla had been confident on the shot, but now she carefully eased her grip and stood up, the pistol dropping to her side.

“They could just shoot us now,” she whispered.

“Yeah, they could,” agreed Jed, “but imagine the congratulations they will get for taking us alive.  Victor has been worrying for days that his career is over, now he is wondering if he can walk out of this with a couple of promotions.”

Kayla casually looked over at Messiah.  He was deliberately standing so his body hid the edge of the opening from the agents.  The exit was narrow, only wide enough for one person to pass through at once.  It was five strides from where Kayla stood, a couple more for Jed.  How quick would the reactions of the agent’s be?

“Nesbit is dead!” Asperik shouted to his boss.

Victor had seen that for himself. Another death on his watch, another inquest to sit through.  Worse, he had known Nesbit for ten years and had served with him numerous times.  He was a big loss.

“Yeah,” mocked Jed, “sorry about that.”

“We have got to go,” Kayla told him quietly, her lips barely moving, her eyes back on the agents.  “I don’t trust them not to open fire.  Victor will be rewarded whatever state he returns us in, but alive we remain a threat, dead, we are easy to transport.”

“Messiah,” she said, without looking across at him, “on my mark, the old woman goes first, then you.  Jed, you next, I will fire off a couple of shots to cover and then be right behind you.”

“No,” Messiah disagreed, “you two need to go through before me so I can close the hatch on Spirit, it’s a tricky mechanism and we will be in each other’s way otherwise.  You know how to fire the engines?”

It made sense, and she nodded that she did.

“Okay,” muttered Jed, “when the doctor moves, I’ll take a shot at Victor.  Kayla, you aim for the android.”

“So she’s the android,” Kayla considered, “impressive.”

“She certainly is, and she will be quick, so you will have to be quicker.”

Kayla took a deep breath.   Her finger still rested lightly on the trigger, so all she had to do was raise the gun and shoot.  With no time to aim, she would have to use her instincts.  This was a high-risk strategy, but it was the only one open to them.  She had not fought her way to this point, to now stop fighting.  She would die before going back to Petang.

“On three,” she breathed.  The others all mumbled their agreement.

“Here goes.  One, two, THREE!”

Kayla raised her arm as she screamed out that last word.  As soon as her gun was chest height, she squeezed the trigger.

+     +     +

As a child, Felipe had dreamed big.  All through school and university, he had aspired to excel, hoping academic glory would make him rich and allow him and his future family to travel the galaxy.  In adulthood, criminal psychology would become his specialism, but jobs in the civil sector had been hard to come by.  Instead, he had taken a post with the Union’s Investigation Bureau.  Surprisingly, the job had been a blast and he had made an exceptional investigator.  Promotions soon followed.  It had paid well, and he had certainly travelled, but it had also consumed him.  Subsequently, he had never found the woman with whom he might have started that family.  After twenty-five years in the service, his closest thing to female company was an android.

And all those years later, that little boy found himself in an illegal clinic at the edge of the explored galaxy, carrying the burden of being the one to re-capture the Union’s most wanted.  That little boy could never have predicted he would end up here, and nor would he have thought he would face death at the hands of this most notorious killer.

Standing in the corridor, one arm holding the gun, the other trying to keep the first steady, he could not allow his thoughts to get ahead of themselves.  He had to focus, or his doom-laden soothsaying would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Focus on the job, he told himself, just focus on the job.

The four renegades were all legitimate targets and he would take them down if it came to it.  Capturing McGann alive, though, held a big appeal.  The bounty would not come the way of someone in the service, but there would certainly be a big slap on the back.  A bonus?  A promotion?  A plum job next rotation?  All three were almost certain, but there would be rewards whether she was alive or dead.  The slightest sign that this was running away, and he would not hesitate to mow her down.

Right now, though, everything was under control.  The prisoner and his fugitive friend had both lowered their weapons and the two by the hatch were unarmed and offered no threat.  Asperik had them pinned from behind, and Sapphire had them in her sights.  This just needed calm management.  Bring it home, Victor, bring it home.

“Agent?” he said, quietly.

“Yes, sir?” replied Sapphire.

“Who are you aiming at?”

“McGann,” she said.

“Okay, good, I have Luca.”

“We should ask them to put their weapons on the deck,” the android suggested.

That command was waiting on his lips.  All he had to do was issue that instruction and, when they complied, it would shift the balance even more in his favour.  As he went to speak, though, those doubts began to bubble.  It was not going to work.  Apprehension swept through him, bringing an unshakeable sense of foreboding.  The entire mission was one mishap after another, and he was sure that there was worse to come.

Stay calm, he told himself, bring it home.

Where was that little boy, sitting in his bedroom, full of optimism and imagining the future? He needed to find that little boy, but, as he stood on this satellite, spinning through space at twenty kilometres per second, there was not even a spark of that child remaining.  This was adult shit.  The Union’s most wanted was only metres away and he was relying on the accuracy of a robot if this all went wrong.

Sweat erupted on his brow as panic hit.  Drop the guns, that was all he needed to tell them.  It was an easy enough instruction to give but he could not say the words.  This was not going to end well.  In that moment, Victor did not think he was going to leave the Warehouse alive.

“You say it,” he glanced across at Sapphire, “you tell them.”

Her programmed response came in the form of a heavy frown.  Without shifting her head away from the renegades, those very human eyes moved to the corner of their sockets to look at her leader.

“What?” she asked.

His gun hand was shaking, the other trying hard to keep it steady.  A check back on the targeting showed that the torso of Jed Luca was in the crosshairs.  That should have reassured the agent, but the panic was still there.  If anything, it was escalating.  He could not squeeze out any more words.

When he did not reply, Sapphire was forced to turn her head slightly.  She needed to see Victor’s face more clearly, needed to read what was wrong.  Despite being the pinnacle of robotic engineering, this small shift in focus would cost the agents dearly.  As Victor frowned back at the android, a terrifying scream suddenly erupted:

“THREE!” shrieked Kayla, with all the force her lungs could muster.

The cry took Victor by surprise.  He snatched his attention back to the fugitives.  Instinctively, seeing movement, his finger yanked the trigger.  At the same time, there was a flash to his right.  He mistakenly thought Sapphire had fired too, until he heard something clatter to the floor behind and realised that the flash had been too bright to be a discharge.  Unable to turn around, he had no way of knowing the clatter was Sapphire’s gun hitting the deck, her lower arm still attached.

Victor’s shot whizzed harmlessly past Luca.  The man in the orange jumpsuit now moved at pace towards the hatch.  As he ran, Luca brandished the stolen service weapon back along the corridor, to where Asperik was trying to find a target of his own.  The agent was too slow, jerking violently as Luca’s shot caught his side.  Asperik managed to turn, as if to flee, but then he collapsed.

“Fuck!” spat Victor, seeing another of his team fall.  Angry and scared, he pulled on the trigger again, and again.  Firing blindly, the bolts went nowhere near the renegades.  He had to compose himself and pick his shots, but the awareness that he was now the only one shooting hit home.  That sense of dread was now all-consuming.  He stole the briefest glimpse in Sapphire’s direction and was horrified to find the android standing motionless, staring down at a shattered arm.  The disaster he had predicted had arrived.  This was the final, fatal cockup in the series of cockups.  There was no coming back from this one.

At the hatch, the old woman was already out of sight and, as Victor watched, Luca disappeared from view too.  The other man, the one who had arrived with Kayla, was beckoning her towards him, urgency in his actions.  Kayla was moving, but slowly, arrogantly, standing tall with her weapon held out high.  Too late, Victor realised that gun was trained on him.  The bolt travelled too fast for him to see, but he saw an almighty flash and felt the onrushing heat.  An incredible force threw him backwards, and everything went black.

Felipe Victor’s failure was complete.

Chapter Eleven

Chilake had been sitting here, in his study, for three, perhaps even four, hours.  He would have sworn that he had not slept throughout but in small pockets, barely long enough to notice, he had dozed.  Those short episodes had brought snippets of broken dreams to mix with already cluttered thoughts, creating dramas on top of dramas, some of which were exaggerated by tiredness, some of which were not even real.  The argument with his wife, for instance, and the burglars stealing the painting from the hall, were total works of fiction.  He did not need such woes to further weigh him down; he had more than enough real-life shit to deal with.

As the day had faded, Chef had dipped the windows and put on the lights.  She had kept them low, aware he was not working, aware he was tired.  Denvour’s wife had popped her head in just after ten, to ask if he was coming to bed.  The president had snapped that he would be up soon, knowing that to be a lie.  She had withdrawn with a deep sigh and now he regretted he had not followed her.  Snuggling up might have been the tonic he needed to break this stress cycle and get to sleep.

Round and round it all went.  A council chamber, the senate room, his pad in Cuba, the face of McGann, the face of Delaney, a row of blue lagoons, the boots of soldiers splashing their way through the mud on some distant hellhole…

Not for the first time this evening, he sat up sharply.  There was an antique clock on the far wall, its digits displayed in a faded green.  He stared at the two dots between the hours and the minutes, focusing on their steady rhythm, hoping it would pull him free.  The ticks were silent, but he created his own mental pulse, trying to smooth out everything else.

It did not work.  Mitchel was there now, in her tidy white suit, with her friendly and reassuring face.  They were standing on that rooftop, above the senate, and she was trying her best to calm him down.  How he could do with her now.  Alas, all there was left of her were those tatters of charred cloth at the front of the auditorium.

Damn you, McGann.

But tomorrow, when it eventually arrived, was another day.  Even if he sat here all night, wide-eyed, staring at the clock, that new dawn would still arrive.  Just as dawn always arrived on the many worlds across the thousands of systems.  The human empire.  The Glorious Galactic Empire.  The Union. Forever growing, forever reaching out, bringing light into the dark.  Sitting here, anxious, panicked, exhausted, he realised he meant nothing, not in the grand scheme of things.  He was but a stitch in the largest tapestry ever sewn.  As was Mitchel.  As was McGann.  As was Steph, with her holier-than-thou bullshit.

Involuntarily, he closed his fist on his lap.  He was grinding his teeth too but did not notice.  Amongst all this mess, amongst all the crap going on, that woman had the audacity to call him earlier.  That had enraged him, leaving him stewing and wishing he had been more forthright in telling her where to go.  Even the news that there was a credible lead on McGann’s location had failed to remove the sour taste left by that conversation.  When Ryn had called him, and the two had then spoken to Commissioner Zelen, the president had failed to share the same excitement as the media mogul.  Grayling hardly had the best of records when it came to locating troublesome people; his journalist was still out there running amok.  Zelen had despatched a team to secure McGann, but even if she had been at the clinic, Chilake had little faith they would find her.

The president was not sure that the fugitive was his biggest problem now anyway.  That was perhaps why his exchange with Lana Steph had tasted so bitter.  The war – he shuddered even thinking of that word – was showing no sign of abating.  Far from it, it was escalating.  Thousands were dying, perhaps tens of thousands, and Meyer was proving to be the animal others had warned him about.  Others, including Steph.

“When you unleash the tiger,” he muttered.

Whether he had advocated the plan or not, the tiger was wild and needed putting back in his cage before public opinion and then the support of the senate was lost.  In the study, his fingers hovered over his wrist, but he did not tap.  The net was full of blood and gore, it was full of rumour and intrigue, it was full of assassination attempts and terrorist attacks – he did not need to see any more of that.  He leaned forward and instead picked up a pen.  Usually, the object was nothing more than an ornament, but sometimes, he liked to doodle on the paper at its side.  No doodling tonight.  Instead, he scribbled a name, a reminder for tomorrow.

“Perhaps you made a bigger difference than either of us understood at the time.” He was addressing the image in his mind, the image of a young woman in a white suit. “Perhaps, it was not just me that you saved.”

The maelstrom in his head was easing.  Was there a chance he could now finally get some sleep?  If there was any news on McGann, no doubt someone would disturb him.  He was not expecting any, though, or certainly nothing positive.  She would not be caught easily.  He was resolved to that, and it was not going to worry him.  He looked at the ink on the paper.  The simple act of writing down that name seemed to have stabilised his thoughts.  It was a decision made, a positive step, and it brought him a little relief.

“I hope you rest well,” he told Mitchel, “you deserve it.”

And then he closed his eyes, lay back his head, and let his tiredness consume him.

+     +     +

Director Burke was standing at the door to the cubicle in tears.  If someone had asked him why he was crying – and thankfully, no one did – he would have struggled to answer.  It was not one thing.  It was everything.  This was a catastrophe of unparalleled proportions.

“Such a mess,” he sobbed.

The receptionist at his side offered no reply, nor did she offer any comfort.  How could she?  She was as numb as Burke; they all were.

It was about an hour since the escaped terrorist had burst into the treatment room where Burke had been helping his old friend.  McGann had left him tied up with the agents, the injured Dell writhing and screaming.  Five minutes later, they were discovered by a fraught Victor, who had then set off after the fugitives.  His attempts to prevent them fleeing the station had failed. The silver lining, if there was one, was that Agent Dell was in surgery and it looked like her leg would be saved.  That was more than could be said for this establishment.

“Why?” he asked.  Again, no response.

It was not until after news of the prisoners escaping had reached him, that this grim discovery had been made.  With alarms sounding all over the station, drones flying this way and that, it was only when someone decided a roll call might be a good idea that the young woman was marked as missing.  Last seen in the reception area, it did not take long for a check of the nearby restrooms to turn up the body.

Burke was experiencing a lot of difficult emotions as he looked down on the dead woman.  Top of the list was guilt.  He felt sick that he had marvelled at McGann in the way he had, star-struck by her notoriety, fame, and glamour.  What value did he place on all that now?  How ashamed was he that he had arrogantly desired to share in that infamy, to bask in her celebrity status?  The vanity project had risen from his treatment table, and slain an innocent, young woman whose only mistake had been to need work in this godforsaken corner of the galaxy.  Her death was his fault.  It may not have been his hands that tightened the belt around that slender neck, but he had given those hands back their terrifying power.

“Was she married?” he asked, suspecting she was not.  “Children?”

“No,” said the other receptionist.  It was this shocked co-worker who had entered the restroom and discovered the body of her friend. “She only had her mother, she went to visit her whenever she got shore leave.  Oh my, her mother is so old and ill.”

“The company will make sure she is looked after, but we will have to inform…” Burke broke off at a shuffle of shoes behind; someone else had entered the restrooms.  The director turned to face the man in a rumpled black suit.  The agent’s face was red, a trace of blood under the nose, and a huge bruise forming on one side.  Possibly, his cheek was broken.

“A law enforcement squad was already in the area,” the agent told them, matter of fact, “they will arrive soon and take care of things like that.”

“Agent Victor,” the clinician acknowledged.  “I am sorry about your colleagues…”

Victor coldly held up a hand to silence the man; he did not wish to hear any feeble excuses.

“I have lost three good agents,” he said, “and another is in emergency surgery.  Carnage, Director, carnage.”

“Three?” Burke foolishly questioned.  “I was aware of two… and damage to the android.”

Victor could still feel the weight of Sapphire crashing down on him as she took the energy bolt from McGann square in the stomach.  Somehow, the android had gotten across the corridor and thrown herself into the line of fire.

“That ‘android’,” Victor hissed, “saved my life.”

“Oh,” the director mumbled.

“Yes!  Oh!”

Burke fell silent.

Victor peered around him and frowned at the sight of the dead receptionist.  The ligature was obvious, the perpetrator even more so.

“You brought this on yourself,” he told Burke, “all of this.  With the lies and deceit, acting beyond the law, hiding the truth from the Union, and harbouring criminals.  If you deal with the devil, you will find yourself in hell.  Be under no illusions, Director, that enforcement squad is not just coming to clean up the mess…”

Burke looked close to collapse.  He reached out to the wall of the cubicle to help steady weak legs.

“… they are also coming to close this place down.”

The receptionist managed to pull her gaze away from the morbid scene of her strangled friend to look aghast at Burke.  “I need this job!” she shouted at him.  “They can’t do that!  I need this job!”

Tears erupted again from the director.  He sobbed once, twice, just managing to hold back the hysterical torrent that threatened to engulf.  It was pathetic to see.  Victor wanted to smash the feeble man’s head against the doorframe.  He wanted to smash again and again until it was just a bloody mess, and there was a crimson trail as big as the one Asperik had left when trying to crawl away from his killer.

“Three Union agents dead,” Victor brushed at the dust on his suit lapel, keeping his hands busy.  “Three.  And to make matters worse, the enforcement squad were already on their way here following an anonymous tip off, so McGann’s gang only escaped by the skin of their teeth.  We are hopeful that we got a marker on their jump, but that’s a long shot.  If you had told us she was here when we arrived, she would now be under arrest and my agents would not be dead.”

“I did not know,” Burke pleaded, “I did not know she was so dangerous!”

“My one remaining agent is waiting outside,” Victor huffed, “so when you have finished crying, if you would be so kind as to submit yourself to his custody, that would be great.  You are looking at accessory to murder, aiding an enemy of the Union, preventing officers from their lawful duties… the list goes on.  I would suggest you make no attempt to resist arrest; the agent out there would just love to have a reason to give you a kicking.”

“I did not know!” Burke protested.  “I did not know she was capable of such… evil!”

“Save it for the judge,” Victor snarled, “if you make it that far.”

+     +     +

The storm was vicious, slamming against the shutters like a raging drunk.  As exhausted as he was, there was no way Old-Man-Albi was going to nap through this.  The smell of cooking wafted under his door.  She had stopped asking him to join them weeks ago, probably seeing the look of torture on his face every time he had to decline.  Food was hard for him now, so hard.  He listened with envy to cutlery clanking on the plates.  When they had eventually done, he slid his legs off the bed and tried to stand.

This damn disease had taught him whole new levels of pain.  Even simple acts like straightening his legs sent agony racing along his thighs, through his groin and into his lower back.  A few weeks ago, such a jolt would have made him cry out, but now this was worthy of only a wince.  There were far greater miseries lurking in the shadows.  Gingerly, a hand comforted the bottom of his spine as he straightened his limbs and stood.

They held him well, considering one was withered to skin and bones and the other was crudely fashioned from metal and plastic.  On his daily pilgrimage to the perimeter fence, he would look in and wonder if they had bothered tidying the body parts before closing the base.  To his knowledge, his severed limb had never been found and was likely still lying under that slab of concrete.  The flies and bugs would have found their way to it by now.

Beye was playing a game on his wrist and his mother was tidying up as the grandfather re-joined them.  They had not been expecting him.  Most evenings, they would not see him again until morning when he would emerge with a little more bounce in his stride.  It was as if all his moans and cries in the night had somehow helped to ease his pain.  There was none of that vibrancy now, as he dragged himself into the room.

“You okay?” Gab asked.

He thought about a sarcastic reply, but she did not deserve that.  “No,” he simply said, “not really.”

“Do you need to talk?”

“Huh,” he scoffed, the rush of breath causing him to cough.  It was a dreadful wheeze and threatened to turn into one of his choking fits.  He managed to catch it, took a moment, and then added, “Oh, I definitely need to talk, but there is not enough time left to say all that I need to say.”

Gab nodded; she understood.  She hoped that before the end, this old man was able to make some kind of peace with the world.  The days were ticking away quickly though.  Soon, she might have to ask for help from others, to see him through the final days.  Accepting that help would not be easy for him.  His pride would make him push it away, but she would not be able to cope alone.  She would understand his obstinance.  It had been shocking for neighbours to so readily turn against them when they had only been doing their jobs.  Dreadful, for a noble father and son to be branded villains for earning a wage.  That burnt the old man to the core.  It had burned her too, but her mother’s instinct had, for the sake of her Beye, tried to bury the bitterness.  As far as Albi was concerned, there was not a shovel big enough for that job.

“What are you playing?” Albi asked his grandson.

There was a small eye twitch in his direction, but the boy’s focus did not move from the flashing graphics.

“‘Scoundrel’,” Beye said, “the Rebel Edition.”

“Ah, rebels,” Albi breathed, ignoring the concerned stare from his daughter-in-law.  He hobbled over to Beye, carefully lowering himself to the sofa beside the child.  Over small shoulders, the old man peered down at the game.   It was the boy’s favourite; he rarely played anything else.

“So, who’s winning?” the grandfather asked.

“The rebels, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Old-Man-Albi repeated.

Over at the sink, Gab shuffled nervously.  He knew these moments worried her.  Just like the daily pilgrimage worried her.  After the last few years, she should have learnt to trust him by now.  He had not let her down so far.  Perhaps, with him nearing the end, she fretted he might suddenly decide enough was enough and he could no longer live the lie.  She did not need to worry; he was not going to blurt it all out.  Not now, not ever.  But perhaps she would not rest easy until he was gone.

The characters in the boy’s game were involved in a heavy-weight melee.  Computer generated, but remarkably realistic.  It seemed like his grandson had tiny people battling away on his forearm.  Beye was using flicks of the fingers on his other hand to control the figure in the centre.  It was a woman, clad in dark clothing, her physique the kind to turn the head of most, including an old man riddled with cancer.  As the character moved, her jet-black ponytail whipped from side to side, seemingly timed to match the thumping and slapping with which she despatched the enemy.

“She’s impressive,” Albi said.

“Watch this,” the boy was excited, “watch this!”  An intricate finger dance saw the tiny woman launch into a mid-air three-sixty spin, her outstretched boots striking the chins of several hapless attackers.  “She’s smashing them!  She’s smashing the Union!”

The grandfather did not need to ask who ‘she’ was; it was obvious.    In recent days, the airwaves had been full of nothing but that cursed fugitive.  It had gotten to the point he had stopped listening.

Gab was propped against the units, arms folded across her chest, a dishevelled cloth hanging limply from one hand.  She cut a forlorn figure as she watched her son.  A fringe tinged with white partially concealed her downturned face, but her eyes peered out, penetrating the gloomy room.  There was so much sorrow in those eyes, and it was horrible to see.  She did well to hide it from the boy; they both did.

A long time ago, Albi and Gab had made a pact.  They would protect Beye to allow him to grow up untainted by the past.  He had to fit in to this world.  He had to fit in with his school friends and share their culture and beliefs.  Some of the adults would make that difficult, always looking to spread scorn, as they did on the rest of the family.  But hopefully, as Beye grew up with that next generation, the differences of the past would be forgotten.  When this disease finally took the old man, there would be one less survivor of the overthrown regime to act as a reminder.  Gab would still be around, but she did not insist on a daily march down to the tomb.  Only the old man did that.  He was a stubborn fool who refused to let his son’s memory grow cold.

Albi’s leg was aching like hell.  He stretched it out, the rounded barrel creating an alien shape under his jeans.  Until he could walk no more, that pilgrimage would continue.  He would also continue to lie, to hide what was in his heart from his grandson.  The base was a good place, he would tell Beye.  It was the place where the rebellion, with help from others, had finally succeeded in ejecting the Union from the planet.  The troopers had not been back since.  The rebellion held, independence held, and he would tell Beye that was a good thing.

The boy continued to play his game.  Online, and at school, Beye and his friends would talk excitedly about the adventures of the dark-clad warrior, and they would marvel at her impressive roundhouse kicks and use of weaponry.  She was the hero this planet and many others had always wanted.  She was the one who, fighting alongside her boyfriend that morning, had brought the small band of Union troopers, guards, and officials to their knees.

Many had perished that day.  Thirty-six poor souls were taken.  In the eyes of the vast majority, these victims were complicit components in the evil Union machine, and they deserved their fate.  In the eyes of the few, they were collateral damage, forced to serve the evil Union, and in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Neither perspective was true.  When Old-Man-Albi had dressed for work in a morning, he would often stand and proudly regard his Union insignia in the mirror.  He had never been ordered to wear the uniform, and neither had his son or any of those who worked at the base.  Every single time he had pulled it on, he had done so willingly, and with pride, and not to serve some evil overlord, but to serve and protect the people of this community.  That was a truth his grandson would sadly never know.

After the attack, as Albi lay in a windowless hospital room, denied visitors, denied dignity, and hidden away from the world, he had been forced to come to terms with his loss.  His son was stolen from him, the body never to be returned.  The uniform and medals treated as a mark of shame rather than emblems of pride.  A life in service callously cast aside.  For his son, and all the others, there would be no funeral ceremony, no Union flag borne on the coffins, and no salutes as the lost were committed to the flames.

Nothing.

Oh, it burned inside Albi, as much as it would if he were sitting amongst just such a funeral pyre.  Those flames raged so fiercely inside his weak, old body.

With a shaking, bony hand, he gently stroked the hair of his grandson.  As much as it would have been uplifting for Beye to know his father was a hero, he hoped this boy would never find out the truth, for it would surely burn him up too.  His father was gone, perishing as an unfortunate bystander on a dreadful day.  That was the story the boy was told.  He could never know that his father was mercilessly executed as he bravely defended the base, doing his civic duty to maintain order. All that burning hatred had to go to the grave with Old-Man-Albi, all of it.

Meanwhile, the woman with the jet-black ponytail would fight on.  To many, she did so for justice, to defeat those oppressive overlords, to give power back to the people.  Beye would see it like that too and carry those beliefs into the years that lay ahead.  Here was the ultimate irony in this sorry tale.  The inspiration behind the animated freedom-fighter that the boy powered with such joy, had met his father.  That was on the fateful night, in the base down the hill, as Old-Man-Albi lay nearby, trapped, and unable to help.  In a brief scuffle, she had knocked Beye’s father to the ground, and then stood over him, gun in hand, ignoring the terrified man’s pleas.  Her face, plastered with a cold indifference as she pulled the trigger, visited Albi whenever he closed his eyes.

Sometimes, the truth is unspeakable.

Sometimes, the pain is unbearable.

And sometimes, the devil, well, she is unstoppable.

Next

The Dark Zones beckon in

Episode 7: Rumour of the Six

Featuring a bonus short story

“The Commander & The Coward”