Prologue
Datahive, Cape York Conurb, Earth / Sol Sector / Hegemony
Troels Volmar’s desk was filling up with reports from across the Hegemony and beyond, including the latest information on Fleet’s advance into Hanloi space.
Close to home, events were running according to plan. His assassination of Representative Minch on Mars had weakened the Inclusionist political party and set the stage for their demise. His operative Denev Antwer was busy radicalising young Inclusionists to undertake a terror attack that would see the entire party outlawed.
But Volmar still had something to prove. He’d overstepped his authority in Cygnus Sector when he’d entered into a treaty with the Maagba – the same aliens who had destroyed the Brell colony system – to police that sector for the Hegemony. He’d been keen to show Permanent Head Breslaw that the Hegemony Diplomatic Corps could deal with military threats without any need for Fleet intervention, all on the pretext of freeing up Fleet resources to be used elsewhere. But Breslaw hadn’t been fooled. He’d reminded Volmar that the latitude he allowed him to do whatever was needed only functioned as long as the results were invisible. A treaty with the Maagba was hardly that.
At Volmar’s urging, Fleet Admiral Vargas had directed Admiral Gart Lowrans, his adjutant, to sign off on sacrificing the illegal Brell, Sissilak and Totek battleforce to the Maagba raiders as another means to gauge the Maagba’s combat strength. But Vargas hadn’t known about the treaty and had been less than impressed when he found out; and Undersecretary Laneaux, who commanded Sol System Security, had called Volmar out on it at a special meeting of the executive. That had stung the most: that the permanent head had been forced to issue him with a rebuke.
Breslaw came to see him afterwards and his warning had been plain. Play nice with Fleet and show how the different arms of the Central Administration can work together successfully. Fleet strength bolstered by HDC intelligence.
Easy enough to say, but there was nothing more high stakes than the Hanloi campaign. The Hanloi currently controlled all of space around galactic centre. If the Hegemony couldn’t dominate them, Earth’s expansion would fail. Supposed allies would turn away and enemies would be emboldened. But information on the Hanloi was sparse, despite HDC’s best efforts. As a result, tactical scenarios could only take them so far. In short, Volmar was worried though he would never admit it to anyone.
He crossed his office to the internal window and looked down through the galleried levels of the Datahive. The holopit image of the galactic arm shone bright, showing tac icons plotting Fleet’s advance: one group on a direct approach to Hanloi space, while the other had taken a more circuitous route through the region the local aliens called the Lenticular.
Volmar sighed, fogging the glass. It wouldn’t be long before all the pieces were in place. They had to succeed.
1
Czerag Hide, The Deep Desert, Homeworld / Kresz System / Lenticular
“Udun!”
I woke, disoriented at the sight of the dull blue shield metal on the ceiling above me. Then I remembered where I was and rolled off my mat to push aside the door hanging.
Rhees and I had found Tzek and others from my house sheltering from the Hegemony invaders in this refuge below the deep desert – one of a network of hides that House Czerag kept as a place of last resort. It spoke to a lack of trust inherent in the hierarchs that, even after cycles of peace on Homeworld, places like this had still been stocked and maintained, their locations kept secret from rival houses. Now we were grateful for them.
It was Rhees who had woken me. It was another disorienting sight – a human from the ruthless Hegemony, now a renegade who had returned with me to Homeworld to help us in our fight, standing with Tzek, longtime advisor to Czerag, our house hierarch who had been killed when the Hegemony invaded.
“This is no time for sleep,” Tzek told me. “You’ll be leaving soon and I have to show you both something.”
His staff thudded rhythmically on the stone floor as he led the way along the main corridor of the hide to a set of steps spiralling down to another level. Most of the lower corridor was filled with stacks of cargo podules, leaving just enough room for us to pass through.
“This is where most of the supplies are kept,” Tzek said. “We have enough for our current complement to last three cycles. But I’d rather not be here long enough to use them all up. In any case, we keep him down here, well away from the others.”
“Him?” I asked.
Tzek stopped in front of a heavy door clad in the shield metal that covered the hide’s ceilings. He operated the lock and the door swung wide to reveal a small room with a weak globe set into the ceiling. Inside sat a Kresz, about the same colour and size as me, but he still had his hood. He wore a finely wrought green torque around his neck.
“This is our guest,” Tzek said. “His name is Amaroc.”
It was clear from the colour of Amaroc’s torque that he was House Kergis and a senior house functionary.
Hierarch Kergis had betrayed us all when he sided with the Hegemony ships as they invaded Kresz space. Now he ruled Homeworld with the Hegemony’s support. It was still a mystery how he’d managed to keep his plotting with the enemy a secret, given the empathic connection between all Kresz who retained their hoods.
Amaroc’s attention focused immediately on Rhees. “A Human.” His voice was hoarse but gained strength as he spoke. “Something tells me you’re not here to liberate me, Human. You could have brought some food though. I’m starving in here.”
“You have to prove you’re worth the rations,” Tzek said.
Amaroc raised his claws and and glared at Tzek. Even without my mantle I could see he was consumed with hate. If he wasn’t restrained he would have attacked us as soon as the door had opened.
“When Kergis comes, he’ll roast you slowly in your shell, old one,” he snarled. “And I’ll be there to watch.”
“We get nothing from him,” Tzek said to me. “Even on an empathic level. He hates us as much as we hate him. That’s all.”
“What do you know about him?” I asked.
“He was with the Defenders on the frontal assault of the escarpment and clearly in charge of his contingent, maybe more. The authorities he carried said he was part of a unit called the ‘stek-la’. It’s not clear what that is but the permissions were signed by Kergis. I’d know his mark anywhere.”
Which meant Amaroc was close to Kergis and could be a good source of information. “We’ll take him with us when we go,” I said.
“Oh, you’ll take me, will you, cripple? How fortunate for me.”
“Not really,” I said. “I don’t think you’ll enjoy our cargo locker. It’s smaller than this cell.”
Amaroc screamed obscenities at us as Tzek pushed the heavy door shut.
“He’s a charmer,” Rhees said. “Is it worth the trouble to take him?”
“He’s no use to us here,” Tzek said. “He’s told us nothing. And not for want of trying on our part. He’s been on subsistence rations for a season now, but he’s still sure of himself, and full of fight.”
Tzek may have had no luck, but my sister, Isza, could be very persuasive. “He must know information that could help us,” I said. “It’s worth a try.”
As Tzek led us back to the upper level I remembered how tense things had been between us in the escarpment when I returned from Telsan space. I’d seen a different side to him here. He’d protected the excisees and led the other House Czerag Kresz to safety.
“Come. We should eat.”
I thought Tzek meant just the three of us would dine, but when we got to the commons the room was full, everyone already seated. Even Reka, Djidka and the rest of the excisees – those, like me, who’d had their empathic mantles severed by the Hegemony – were present. Though I noticed that no intact Kresz sat at their tables. Still, the difference between now and our first day in the hide was palpable. No strained silence, no stares. The conversation level barely dipped as we headed to the servery, picked up our platters and selected preserved fruit and dried fish.
It was only when we sat at our table and Tzek remained standing that the talk stilled.
“You’re leaving soon, Udun, and everyone wanted to join together before that happens,” Tzek said. “You may not fully realise it, but you’ve brought hope to us again. Hope that the fight’s not over. And you’ve completed a change that our enemies started. I thought I was too old for lessons. I thought the excised were to be pitied. Many here wanted to end their lives. But you’ve shown us that even with the communion shattered we are still strong. And those that have lost the most are strongest of all. That’s a hard thing to come to terms with after so many years of no change.
“I wish you could feel what I feel in this room, Udun. Because you’d know that what you and the other excisees have been through was worth it. Kergis and the Hegemony tried to break us. You’ve shown that they failed.”
The skin beneath my chitin tingled as I saw the looks on the faces of the other excisees. I couldn’t sense anything of course, but this simple act of coming together – sitting among the intact and hearing Tzek’s words – was enough.
Tzek said I’d caused this change. Some of that may have been true – I’d certainly been changed by what was done to me, by everything I’d seen – but one change was more than anything else. This feeling of belonging. Of being Kresz.
“I’m just doing what I can to fight our enemies,” I muttered.
“That’s fine, Udun. Eat. Let us all enjoy this evening together,” Tzek said, and sat down.
Rhees was looking at me with her teeth bared, an expression I’d come to associate with humour. “My friend, the saviour of his people,” she said.
It was ridiculous and I stuffed some preserved fish into my feeder mandibles to avoid having to say anything else. Thankfully Rhees and Tzek turned to their own meals.
As I ate I thought about what Rhees had said. Were we friends? Was friendship even possible between two beings whose species were at war? I didn’t think it was. But we’d agreed to cooperate and further each other’s interests. And given what we’d been through together so far, I trusted her.
We finished our meal in silence. As Rhees and I rose, the others all stood too. It was a sign of deep respect that I would never have thought possible.
No doubt Tzek had influenced this change in the assembled Kresz more than anything I’d done. I could imagine him moving between groups, seeking out those with even a tiny amount of sympathy for me and the other excisees, using his influence and clever words like blowing on a warm coal until the fire sprang to life and spread.
Yes, if there was a saviour here, as Rhees put it, it was Tzek, doing what he needed to give his people a fighting chance. But next time I returned home, I wouldn’t feel like an outsider any more.
∞
When I arrived at our final session with the excisees the next day, I was struck with how different everything was from our first meeting. Then, the only thing the excisees had in common was the thing that shamed them in their own eyes and the eyes of the intact. They’d been thrust together by the others in the hide who wanted nothing to do with them. But after sharing their struggles and acknowledging the simple triumph of staying alive, they’d found something that bonded them more closely than before. There was healing here.
Now they had a chance to do something that would show the intact Kresz just how valued they should be. That would be a kind of healing too. Not just for the excised but for everyone.
Djidka and the Cultivator Galok sat with Rhees and most of the others, studying maps showing the locations of the other hides we’d been able to discover. Djidka looked up at me as I entered and her feeders spread wide. I spread my own feeders in return. It wasn’t exactly the common sending – I knew I’d never feel that again – but this would do. We excised were learning how to be together with others again.
I saw Reka in the corner in deep conversation with a female excisee. Sazu was her name and I knew they would be travelling together. It was good to see Reka had a friend. He’d always been quiet and withdrawn when we were growing up together and I hadn’t realised that he’d struggled with the empathic link just as much as I had. I’d grated against the feelings of others who viewed me as odd and that had made me stronger. But Reka had blamed himself and turned inward. It would have been unthinkable before, but it seemed that losing his mantle had freed him.
I joined Rhees at the table. Djidka and Galok moved to make space for me to view the charts.
“I spent a lot of time working those marshlands,” Galok said, pointing a claw at the region beneath the southern shore of the Inland Sea. “Once we get there it’s less than a day to the hills.”
“Sounds good,” Rhees said and bared her teeth at me. “Groups are set, routes are clear.”
I looked around the table at the faces of the others. How many would survive the journey or the fight to come?
“Gather round!” It was Tzek.
He dropped a basket on the floor, filled with what I guessed must be newly made at’heka rods. They were about the length of a lower forearm, painted with lines of twisting colour for each house, and topped with long braids threaded with bleached and dyed ah’lok feathers.
“One each,” Tzek called as the excisees jostled to get close to the rods.
“It’s like kindergarten,” Rhees said, but the voder didn’t provide a translation.
“At the first sign you’ve entered house lands,” Tzek explained, “take the rod from your pack and hold it above your head like this.” He lifted a wooden rod as high as he could despite his thickened shell. “And shake it continually so the feathers dance. Try it.”
The excited talk among the group rose in volume as they all held up their at’heka rods and shook them vigorously.
“That’s right,” Tzek said. “As long as the feathers dance you will be given fair hearing by those who guard the house.”
The plan was for the excisees to carry our communications equipment to the other hides we’d identified so we could make contact with the remaining free Kresz on Homeworld and – hopefully – coordinate a counterattack against the invaders. The fact the excisees had no hoods meant any intact Kresz they met wouldn’t be able to sense their emotions or tell that they were keeping the real reason for their journey secret. But excisees were often euthanised on sight and it would be a dangerous trek across the desert and into other house lands, even with the at’heka rods.
The excisees had gained so much in the past few days and still they were willing to risk all of that for all of us. For all of Homeworld. I knew there were many more like them out there. Victims of Kergis and the Hegemony. Broken and lonely, just like these excised had been when we arrived. If I survived, I would do everything I could to make sure those others found the same friendship and love I saw here.
“All right, all right,” Tzek said loudly and the group quietened. “Stow your rods in your packs and get ready. It’s time.”
I crossed to Reka, who was refastening the straps of his pack. He glanced at me then focused on his task again.
“You’re happier now, brother,” I said.
He paused, considering my words. “I am. And sometimes it puzzles me. That the worst things can happen, but time passes and one day there is something to be grateful for. That’s how I feel now.”
I placed my claws on his shoulder plate. “That’s how I feel too.”
I thought about asking him not to go with the others. To stay here and be safe. His life had already been enough of a struggle. But when he rejoined Sazu and the rest of the excisees and I saw how they were together … He wasn’t a scared child any more. He wanted this, and who was I to deny him.
When everyone was ready, we walked together to the hide entrance. Two Defenders lifted the glassy plug above our heads, pushing it through the ceiling and sliding it aside. All the moisture in the room was instantly sucked through that hole and my desert eyelid slid into place to cut the sudden glare.
Rhees accompanied us onto the surface. No part of her skin was uncovered. She’d wrapped a thick cloth around her head and borrowed a pair of dark-lensed goggles from the workshop. She’d also tied thick slabs of leather to her boots to keep the soles from melting.
A baking wind pushed at us, shifting direction. All three suns were up and the sky was perfectly cloudless, glowing like an arch of molten metal.
“It’s like standing in a furnace,” Rhees said. “I don’t know how they’re going to make it anywhere in this.”
The excisees wore their packs strapped across their shoulder plates. Each carried one of our communications devices along with the at’heka rod and a pathetically small stock of supplies. It was true that a Human couldn’t survive crossing this desert. But what the excisees had was enough.
Tzek’s voice rose above the wind. “If Czerag were here, I know he would be proud. You have proved your strength, and that strength will sust–”
He stopped at a loud cracking noise.
I turned back to the entrance to see more Kresz emerging. They walked forward to gather around the smaller group of excisees. No one spoke, but soon it felt like the entire hide had joined us. None of the intact Kresz knew what the excisees were doing, but it was clear they were going on some kind of mission. And they’d come to bear witness to their departure.
I felt suddenly proud. Here was a group of intact Kresz paying silent respect to a group of excisees who normally wouldn’t be spoken to or acknowledged, and more than likely dispatched without a second thought by any intact with a blade. I caught Reka’s eye and it seemed to me he stood a little taller.
Tzek spoke again to the small group now in the middle of a larger one. “The house needs you. Do well.”
And that was it. The travellers, as Tzek called them, turned and walked into the blistering heat, already splitting up onto their separate headings. We all stayed to watch until their images broke apart into abstract pieces of movement in the rippling heat and were gone.
They would cross out of Czerag lands in three days or maybe a little longer, their paths diverging south and east. Then the going – while physically easier – would get more dangerous: skirting settlements, avoiding Kergis or Hegemony patrols, staying alive. Not all of them would make it. I hoped Reka wasn’t among those who fell.
∞
Rhees hurried back underground as soon as the excisees had gone. I found her hunkered against the rough wall, unwrapping the bindings from her head and pulling the thick leather from her boots, as the rest of the Kresz streamed past us into the tunnels.
I passed her a waterskin and she took a swig, tipping her head back and making a strange bubbling noise before swallowing.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She took another drink. “I am now. How can anything live out there?”
Tzek appeared, leaning heavily on his staff. “It finds a way.” He reached his claws down and helped her up. “You’ll be leaving now?”
“We’ll wait until nightfall,” Rhees said. “I’m not setting foot out there again in daylight if I can possibly avoid it. But yes. It’ll be easier to monitor the travellers once we get back to the Jantri station.”“And we still need to organise our forces off Homeworld,” I added.
“They need more than organising,” Rhees said. “Me, a small group of Kresz refugees and an advanced species that prefers to stay in the shadows isn’t going to be enough.”
She was right, of course. Nok of Jantri’va had brought us together, offered his station as a base of operations and fabricated the communications devices that would avoid Hegemony detection. The instrumentality he commanded was far beyond any technology the rest of the Lenticular possessed, but he guarded his privacy. Partly to avoid undue attention, but partly – I thought – because he was so different from every other species in the Lenticular that his motivations couldn’t be understood within a normal frame of reference. That made him difficult to trust. Still, he was the only ally we had so far.
2
Czerag Hide, The Deep Desert, Homeworld / Kresz System / Lenticular
Rhees and Udun emerged onto the glassy desert in full darkness. The ground was still hot, and a dry wind blew in from the north. The cooling glass pinged and tinkled around them. The other Kresz from the hide stood together, a deeper mass of black in the total darkness forming a path to the invisible ship. The whole scene felt surreal to Rhees.
Individuals spoke softly as she and Udun passed between the group of Kresz: “Sakat guide you.” “Go safe to your destination.”
Rhees recalled her conversation with Nok before they met up with the Kresz refugees. Nok had described Udun as someone who was changing the course of history for his people. She had to admit he’d been right.
Tzek, holding a glowing lantern, waited for them at the end of the line, just in front of where the ship sat, still invisible.
“We’ll be in touch by comms,” Udun said to him. “And we’ll meet again.”
“Count on it,” Tzek said and clasped Udun’s lower forearm.
Tzek did the same to Rhees. His armoured claws felt smooth and strong against the fabric of her onepiece. “Be safe, Reeks.”
Rhees looked into his dark eyes and felt a mix of emotions. Gratitude that he’d accepted her so easily, concern for his safety and that of the others hiding out here, and shame for how the Hegemony had destroyed the lives of these people.
When she’d first encountered Kresz in real life, they’d been so alien to her. Taller than any human, covered in thick shell-like articulated armour, arms and legs that bent strangely with twice as many elbows and knees, and their faces … The eyes were human enough but their mouths were a mass of articulated claws like something out of a nightmare. And yet living among them she’d learned they were just like her or anyone. They all had dreams, things they regretted. They were people, no matter what they looked like, and they deserved to be respected.
Tzek turned and raised his voice. “Bring the prisoner. He’ll present no trouble,” he added to Rhees and Udun. “He was easily captured and didn’t put up much of a fight.”
Two of the largest Kresz Rhees had seen cut through the group, each holding Amaroc tightly by an arm.
His mouth parts rippled as he spoke. “You are all going to die.”
“I’ll show you where to stow him,” Rhees said to the guards.
Guided by her disc, she walked up the invisible entry steps. The large Kresz hesitated for a moment then followed her with Amaroc. Inside the ship, Rhees palmed open a locker just past the internal airlock and the Kresz guards pushed Amaroc roughly inside.
She followed them out again. Udun and Tzek were grasping forearms one last time.
“Thank you, Tzek,” Udun said. “For now and for all those cycles you were around when I was growing up. You’ve given me a great deal.”
The old Kresz blinked. “I have a feeling you’ll return whatever I gave you many times over.”
Udun had told Rhees about how much of an outsider he’d felt growing up on Homeworld. It seemed he’d found his way back into his family. She was glad for him. But she couldn’t see a similar path for herself. Her father, who’d been distant all the time she was growing up, had all but given up on her when she crashed out of Fleet in disgrace. Her time working in the Hegemony Diplomatic Corps had ended disastrously when Volmar tried to kill her, and she had no doubt that if she turned up anywhere in human space she’d be shot on sight.
She re-entered the ship and sat in front of the displays, prepping for flight. Udun sat in the crash-chair beside her.
“You’re a hit,” she said.
“Hit what?” he asked.
“I mean you’re popular with your Kresz friends there. Hell, they were even nice to me because I was with you.”
Udun ignored the remark. “Now all we have to do is get back to the Jantri station.”
“And hope our couriers do their job,” Rhees added.
“They’ll do it. Nothing but death will stop them.”
“The Hegemony’s going to regret picking a fight with you and Tzek.”
What about her? It was all too likely she’d die alone, perhaps right here on Homeworld. At best she’d be forgotten by everyone who knew her. At worst she’d be reviled by humanity as a species traitor.
Fuck, she was getting maudlin. And anyway, Denev would care. He’d helped her when they were investigating the raider attacks in Cygnus Sector. And when he’d found out she was still alive after Volmar tried to kill her, he’d kept helping her. Despite the fact she’d killed Petar – his brother and her boyfriend – in a training accident. Another messy set of emotions she’d rather not look at.
She activated the drive and the ship lifted silently into the dark.
Safely out of atmosphere, Rhees negotiated their way past the shell of satellites and ferry craft in near-orbit. Far off to port they could see the beanstalk elevator decelerating in readiness for docking with the Kresz station – the Hub, Udun called it. A pretty standard spoke-wheel configuration of cargo bays studded around a central disc. The beanstalk cable passed straight through the centre of the station and kept on going until it met the counterweight asteroid a few more thousands of clicks above. A Hegemony Hurricane Class corvette was docked at the Hub and a flight of singleships flew past it as she watched, heading for the planet. Their own ship had gone completely undetected and landed in plain sight in the middle of an arid wasteland. Volmar would freak if he knew.
She checked her setting and accelerated, leaving Udun’s world behind. “I think we’ll take the conventional route back,” she said.
“You mean the Point? Is that wise?”
Rhees shrugged, but wasn’t sure if he understood her gestures. “It’ll be crowded, but they can’t see us. And we’ll get an idea of Hegemony deployment around the Point and on the immediate Voss Space side.”
“The Point it is then.”
With the Hub and everything else safely behind them she punched for maximum acceleration. She was almost used to the lack of any sensation of speed now. But if whatever generated the inertialess field failed, they’d be a colourful paste of human and Kresz insides smeared across the back of the cockpit.
She became aware of a steady thumping from the rear of the ship. Amaroc. They flew on for several minutes and the sound didn’t let up.
“Is he going to keep doing that all the way back?” she said.
“House Kergis is known for its stubbornness,” Udun said, unlocking his harness.
She laid a hand on the smooth chitin of his middle forearm. “No, I’ll go.”
She walked aft to the storage locker, opened the door and dodged as Amaroc’s foot lashed out at her. She stamped on it, bringing her full weight to bear. The Kresz’s other leg and arms were still bound.
“Are you going to be quiet?” she said.
He glared at her.
She used her arms to brace against the walls, lifted her other leg and kicked him hard across the feeder mandibles. His head rocked back, and she kicked it again on the rebound.
“Your face is going to wear out before my boot does.”
She stomped on his lower knee joint and kicked his free leg back into the locker.
“You’re going to die,” he said.
“Shut up or I’ll break both your legs. We don’t need you to walk where we’re headed.” She slammed the door, cutting off his response.
Back in the cockpit, she said, “Message from Amaroc: we’re going to die.”
“At least he’s consistent.”
“We could space him. He didn’t tell Tzek anything. Maybe he’s not worth the trouble.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Udun said. “It’s hard to believe they got nothing out of him.”
“He’s tough.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “Empathic interrogation is about more than what you say or don’t say. You have to be in complete control of your emotions. Even reactions to words spoken by the interrogator can give away vital clues.”
She hadn’t thought about that. “Is there any way to block being read like that?”
“Strong emotions, like hatred directed at the interrogator, can blanket the rest. But it’s not something you can keep up day in, day out. Eventually something will slip past your guard.”
“Maybe he’s just a foot soldier and doesn’t know anything.”
“No. Tzek said he was part of the stek-la.”
“But he didn’t know what that meant,” Rhees said.
“No, he said it wasn’t clear what it was. But you see what ‘stek-la’ means?”
“I’m not getting a translation.”
“Ah.” Udun paused. “It’s from a pre-Emergence dialect. It means a person or group that is special because it is close to the middle. Trusted by the leader so able to access more secrets.”
“Not a foot soldier then. So how do we get him to talk?”
“Isza will think of something.”
Rhees had to agree. Udun’s sister wasn’t the type of person to give up easily.
They were approaching the loose globe of satellites that balanced gravity for transit and she dropped speed.
“This is where Kergis betrayed us,” Udun said. “The Hegemony came through the Point and our Defender ships were containing them. Then the Kergis ships broke ranks and started firing on our own ships.” He looked at Rhees. “We still don’t know how they did that without any warning.”
“Sensors read increased radiation,” Rhees said, “but nothing else. Fleet would have cleared the debris. Hazard to naviga–”
The ship shuddered.
“What was that?” Udun asked.
“We just launched something. Or the ship did.” Rhees looked at the boards, trying to make sense of the readouts. “Nothing on the screens. Wait … I’m getting a signal. Fuck.” The ship had launched something all right. Autonomously. “It’s a probe. Cloaked, luckily. It just attached itself to one of the Point satellites. I’m getting data packets. But no alerts on any of the Hegemony channels. That I know of anyway.”
“A surveillance device?”
“I guess it makes sense, but ships don’t generally act autonomously. Is Nok operating this thing remotely?”
“That or …” Udun paused again. It was clear he knew something she didn’t.
“You’re scaring me now. Or what?”
He seemed to be considering what he should tell her. She bit down on sudden anger. The trust they’d spoken about was still problematic in practice.
“I don’t think it’s something to worry about,” he said finally. “Nok can split his consciousness. He’s not just in the armoured suit you see.”
“He could be with us – in the ship?” Rhees looked around the cockpit, expecting some ghostly form to appear. Come out, come out, wherever you are. She almost laughed.
“Nok?” she said. But if Nok was there he wasn’t answering.
“Or it could just be a protocol,” Udun said. “To release surveillance drones at useful targets when it’s safe.”
“I’d class this as a useful target,” she said, still spooked but relaxing a little. “Good thinking, ship. Or disembodied alien spirit.” She keyed the transit drive. “Let’s get out of here.”
The satellites failed to register them as they slipped between them and gently into Voss Space.
The chamber on the other side displayed all the mind-bending architecture of a non-three-dimensional space where energy and matter swapped places in a chaotic dance. But still there were safe channels and it was here that two System Class Hegemony battlecruisers, three Planet Class destroyer escorts and a standard complement of singleships waited. There could have been more in the darkness.
The ship vibrated again.
“Son of a –” Rhees said. “Another cloaked probe. Fuck, it’s attached to the cruiser. Nok, if you can hear me, it’s our lives you’re risking.”
Of course if he could hear her he’d know they didn’t trust him. And that they’d contacted Denev on the outward leg. The second didn’t really matter, and the first … Well, it was pretty obvious given all of their backgrounds. Maybe it was easier to be upfront. At least about some things.
She moved the ship invisibly past the Hegemony vessels and into the network, making best speed for the Jantri station. They passed more sentry ships on the way out, but she was confident of their own ship’s abilities now. Nothing could see them if they didn’t want to be seen.
Once they were clear, Udun spelled her on the controls and she slept.
It was a dream she hadn’t had in a long time. The training mission over Neptune. Fleet singleships flying in precision formation – Petar to her right, Jute to her left – wingtip to wingtip as they weaved a path through a sky too full of icy rock. Bogies on tac, centre screen and closing.
No. She knew what was coming.
Cannons cycling up. The sudden rattle of pellets on her hull as the bogies fired. Wingtips touched, the barest kiss of contact. And through the canopy Petar’s face. Focused concentration turning to surprise, the first inkling that everything was going to shit.
She couldn’t look. She pulled on the controls, her dolphincraft executing an inertialess turn that would have pulped a singleship pilot. But three of the bogies were in pursuit, following her out of Neptune’s rings. Except she wasn’t there. It was Voss Space. A spitting chamber of violent energies, like being caught in an electric storm dialled up to a thousand. The Fleet ships were still on her tail, somehow keeping up with her physics-defying moves.
A comms window opened on her forward screen. The face of her father, pale and drawn, clearly pulling heavy gees in one of the singleships behind her.
“Rhees.” It was hard for him to talk, the word drawn out in a groan. “What are you doing?”
“You don’t understand,” she said. But his eyes said he did. She was betraying everything he stood for. Everything she’d believed in.
The transmission cut.
More dolphincraft appeared, flying out of the Jantri station dead ahead, angled towards the singleships.
Rhees brought her own ship to a complete stop, flipping over and back towards the Fleet ships. Towards her father.
She tried comms. “Nok. No! Call your ships off.”
Nothing.
The singleships bunched closer, taking an attack formation. On the tac, the dolphincraft vectored down from both flanks.
Rhees dived directly at the singleships, but they didn’t veer off. So she slewed her ship around, leading them now and placing herself directly in the path of the oncoming Jantri ships.
“Nok!”
The dolphincraft fired and the singleships erupted in flames as her own cockpit disintegrated.
∞
She woke with a start and looked quickly over at Udun, who was steering them down a Voss Space corridor. That had been a bad one. And it didn’t take a psychoanalyst to work out where it had come from. She could keep telling herself she was doing the right thing, but sooner or later innocent people were going to die because of her.
But what was the alternative? She hadn’t been able to think of one. Not since Volmar had left her to die on the Maagba cruiser.
“We’re here,” Udun said, and she realised they were negotiating the final twisting channels that led to the chamber holding the Jantri station.
It came into view like some storm-blasted lighthouse. Plasma raged around it, strikes concentrated on the two furthest points of the structure, like anodes in some long ago experiment. It was hard to understand how the station withstood such violent energies. Hegemony Voss bridges took advantage of the relative peace of stable transit nodes. Even the sentry installations in the channels approaching Earth had taken years of exotic engineering, incrementally dampening the local fields and slowly building a beachhead that could be extended. The Jantri station stood dead centre of untamed Armageddon. Not only surviving, but sucking hungrily at the energy expended. The Jantri hadn’t tamed Voss Space, they’d harnessed it. It was a huge tactical advantage in a place that still claimed hundreds of Hegemony ships every year.
They docked in the same bay they’d left and Udun cut the controls. Rhees felt exhaustion close in. They still had such a long way to go.
3
HDC Campus, Cape York Conurb, Earth / Sol System / Hegemony
Denev dropped by his dorm only long enough to change into his uniform, then he was on the slidewalk to Vigilance Plaza and the HDC Datahive.
All he’d wanted to do was warn off Preem and the other young Inclusionists so they didn’t throw their lives away on a terrorist attack that was really an HDC trap. But he’d been grabbed and knocked out. And when he came round he’d met Rapskel.
Think of us as the real Inclusionists, Rapskel had said. Did that mean they followed the Inclusionist manifesto without Central Administration’s interference? Or did he just mean they were the real opposition and their aims were something different? The topic hadn’t been open for discussion.
There was a point when Denev had considered Rapskel and his people might be part of some twisted plan by Volmar to test his loyalty. He could have lied to them, protested his loyalty to HDC, but his gut told him that would just get him shot. So he’d gone with the truth: that ever since Rhees – though he didn’t name her – had shown him just how fucked the whole system was, he no longer worked for HDC or the Hegemony. He was working for himself.
Rapskel hadn’t been entirely convinced. He’d injected a monitor and bomb into Denev and right now the device was in his neck or his bloodstream or maybe even nestled in his brain. The deal was simple: Denev could prove he wasn’t loyal to the Hegemony by assassinating Cerise Laneaux, the head of SolSec, and the bomb would come out. If he did anything else the results would be messy.
If Rapskel’s group could evade SolSec and HDC surveillance, why hadn’t they moved against the CA before now, Denev wondered. There was only one tactical reason that made sense. They weren’t as powerful as they made out. They could hide, but they couldn’t strike back. Which meant they could be bargained with, especially if Denev had something they could use.
He took the sideband down towards the plaza. All this would be academic if the Datahive security systems detected or triggered the device. It would either go off or Rapskel’s people would detonate it remotely. But there was a third option. If the Datahive scanners were able to neutralise it as soon as it was detected – which wasn’t outside the bounds of possibility – he could claim he’d been captured, implanted and released to target the Datahive as an unwilling suicide bomber.
There’d be questions, of course. Why hadn’t he just sacrificed himself instead of bringing a lethal device to HDC headquarters? There were a number of arguments he could use – the strongest and perhaps most believable, but ultimately damaging to his career, would be that he panicked.
But all that was in a tentative-looking short-term future. He had to get through the Datahive doors alive first.
His mouth was dry. That would help with the panic alibi. He clamped down on a manic laugh and, without slowing his pace, walked through the glass doors as they parted and into the cool foyer.
His head was still firmly on his neck. No klaxons. No rushing guards with rifles levelled at him. The operative behind the long black reception desk looked up from his screen, eyebrows raised.
Denev took a deep breath, nodded to the operative, headed for the farthest elevator, which travelled only to Volmar’s office, and pushed the contact.
The car halted on its way to the topmost level of the Datahive. Somewhere above, Volmar was being notified of the elevator request and who the occupant was. Denev would be scanned again.
Again, his head remained intact. The car continued its ascent.
Volmar was seated at his desk and concentrating on screens when the doors opened.
“In-person reports aren’t necessary,” he said, then looked up when Denev didn’t reply immediately. “What’s happened?”
“A slight hiccup,” Denev said, moving to the centre of the room. To his left, the angled window looked down on the steeply raked tiers of the Datahive. “Preem and my other co-conspirators have gone a little cold on the plan.”
“Scared?”
Denev shook his head. “More like other things to do. Not as committed to the cause as we’d hoped.”
Volmar put down the stylus he was holding and pushed his chair back from the desk, watching Denev all the while. Calculating.
“Can their resolve be hardened?”
“I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. But I have thought of something that might be more … sensational than a group of boys blowing up a power relay. An assassination.”
Volmar picked up his stylus again and tapped the end against his bottom lip.
Denev knew he mustn’t overplay his hand. If he appeared too keen, Volmar’s antennae would twitch. And the comptroller had very good instincts.
“You have my attention, Antwer.”
“We have enough surveillance and DNA data on the boys. They were very vocal at the rally and the records of their interactions can be moderated to suit our needs.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
Here it was then. Volmar was still focused on him, giving nothing away.
“SolSec were responsible for Alderman Minch’s safety on Mars. Ultimately the responsibility for his death rests with Cerise Laneaux.”
The silence stretched. Volmar replaced the stylus on his desk and laced his fingers together. A crease appeared at one side of his thin lips.
“It would certainly be … provocative. Why Laneaux?”
“She’s visible, so relatively easy to get to – and culpable in the eyes of the Inclusionists. And she deserves it for challenging you.”
The crease by Volmar’s mouth deepened. “Two birds with one stone.”
The desk chirped and Volmar waved a hand over it. “What is it?”
“You asked to be informed when the Fleet was ready to transit, sir.”
“Indeed. Sit down, Antwer.” Volmar indicated a chair. “You picked the right time to visit. You can view the fruits of your labours.”
As soon as Denev sat, the desk linked with his band and opened a neural pathway, just like a datanook. He was blind for an instant and gripped the seat arms to reassure himself the reality of Volmar’s office persisted. Then he had a ship’s-eye view of a Voss Space chamber strobing with violet bands of energy. An armada of ships floated around him. Massive Omega Class heavy carriers, still dwarfed by the crackling columns of plasma spanning the dark void, were flanked by destroyer escorts, while Sector Class battleships – which were little more than giant self-propelled guns – flew in clouds of darting singleships. He quickly saw from the composition of the Fleet that this was the main force that had taken the more direct route to the Hanloi border.
Ships began winking out, transiting to space. In seconds the chamber was empty.
Denev’s view jumped – flashes of distended energy twisting and spinning, then gone. Blackness. Stars crowded far too close together – and in front of him the Fleet, forming up and under full thrust.
“No sensor contact.”
That was Lamark’s voice. He was the embedded HDC liaison. His ship – a Hurricane Class corvette, which was furnishing the images – was hanging back from the main force, monitoring.
The attack force spread in a broad line of engagement, singleships swarming around to cover every possible attack vector. Denev dipped into the various sensor feeds available, some stretching across the full electromagnetic spectrum, others probing the subatomic structure of space, and yet others focused on the tightly wrapped dimensions below and above the visible three-dimensions. But still, there was no warning.
One moment the space ahead of Fleet was empty. The next, a vast structure blinked into existence. A Hanloi ship. Too big to comprehend and moving ridiculously fast, its leading edge leaped at the Hegemony force’s flank. Ships bloomed into silent firebursts as the structure sliced through them, sweeping everything in its path and blotting out the rest of space.
The feed died.
“Get it back. Switch view!” Volmar shouted.
“The relays are down, Comptroller.” The voice of the comms operator.
“Then reconnect them.” Volmar’s voice was quiet again after his outburst, and all the more dangerous for it.
Denev blinked, back in Volmar’s office. The comptroller was staring at the surface of his desk.
“In light of events, it’s important we get our domestic house in order,” he said, and looked directly at Denev. “Your new mission is approved.”
Denev stood. “At once, Comptroller.”
He took the elevator down to reception again and rode another to one of the topmost galleries of the Datahive. The air was cool there and dim light picked out the curves of the datanooks that extended side by side around the inner wall of the walkway. The soft murmur of data interpolation was like waves lapping on a beach. Denev knew HDC would be throwing all its resources into analysing how the Hegemony had just been so easily beaten.
He sat at the nearest vacant nook, felt the seat unfolding around him and pulling him into the wall as the synapse shunts engaged. Laneaux was his primary objective and he opened a search to collate background details and her schedule for the next few weeks, before dipping deeper into the telemetry on the latest encounter with the Hanloi.
The relays were still dark and what ship feeds he could directly access told him no more than he already knew. The pincer movement had failed and Fleet had been caught flat-footed. Thousands were already dead, maybe tens of thousands, and no way to tell what was coming next.
He backtracked on the relay network to see how far the effect extended. It wasn’t his job any more, but he’d run tactical analyses for Volmar and that gave him reason enough to be looking, particularly now. If there were lessons to be learned, he was best placed to learn them.
The relays were out for a hundred light years in all directions. The escape route through the Lenticular was still green. He studied a sub-file on force deployment there. Again, he had a good reason. If there were survivors from the Hanloi attack, it was vital the route was as secure as possible now. He committed the details to memory. He’d promised Rhees he’d get that intel for her and he couldn’t risk making a copy.
Laneaux’s dossier was ready. He moved it to his band and disengaged.
∞
It took less than half an hour to get back to his room in the dorms, where he ditched his uniform and changed into civilian clothes. A short walk from there to the hypertube station, where he caught a public car heading for the conurb, ready to drop back into his life as a renegade. What had Rapskel’s people told Preem when they’d grabbed him and Denev at the rendezvous? Hopefully they had Preem and his two friends somewhere safe and out of the way. Particularly as their DNA would soon be all over Laneaux’s murder site.
The car halted at a dimly lit urban station whose curved walls glistened with an abstract mosaic that shifted like an ocean current. A hiss and the doors sealed and they were picking up speed again. It was then Denev heard the voice, like a whisper in his ear. “You did well.”
He turned but no one was nearby. Just a kid at the end of the car with the blank-eyed stare of a shunt, and an older woman looking out the window at the tunnel flashing by. She may be shunted too, it was hard to tell.
“Don’t freak,” the voice said. It was Rapskel. “I told you we’d be watching and listening to everything you do. You can talk back. Just sub-vocalise. I know you HDC types are good at all that covert shit.”
“What do you want?”
“Want? We own you. We want everything. What were you doing in the datanook?”
“Getting the Laneaux intel.”
“The other stuff. You weren’t reviewing those files for my benefit.”
Rapskel wasn’t getting out of his head anytime soon. Which meant he’d find out about Rhees as soon as she contacted him again.
“I told you, I’m not working for HDC any more. I have a friend. She needs intel on Fleet and troop dispositions.”
“Oh no, you work exclusively for us now,” Rapskel said. “I told you: we own you.”
“So go ahead and blow my head off. See how that helps you.” Denev waited. His head remained intact. “No? Maybe you’re not as powerful as you’d like me to imagine. You can hide from the Hegemony but you can’t act against them, or you’d have done so already. You’re not a resistance, you’re a parasite. You’ve found an ecological niche where you can survive, but that’s all.”
“And how are you any better?”
“Maybe I’m not. But just maybe, I’m an opportunity. I’m not going to expose you, so why don’t you let me do what I need to do and we’ll see what happens?”
“Because if you do something stupid, they’ll find our device and it won’t take long to figure out we exist.”
“Or you could blow my head off before then. But the results would be the same, wouldn’t they? It seems we both have something to lose if this goes wrong.”
Rapskel’s voice rose angrily. “Which is why you should do what we tell you.”
“Not going to happen.” The car slowed again and Denev stood. “This is my stop. Can you at least keep quiet for a while? I have an assassination to plan.”
4
Jantri Station / Tenspace / Lenticular
The main bulkhead doors opened on my breach sister, Isza. I unstrapped, and Rhees followed me through the lock and onto the deck.
Isza pulled me close as soon as I was clear of the ship. “You made it,” she said, holding me at arm’s length and looking me up and down as if inspecting me for damage. Then she turned to Rhees. “You kept him safe. Thank you.”
“I had something to do with keeping myself safe, you know,” I told her.
“I doubt that,” Isza said.
“Don’t argue with your sister,” Rhees said, then turned to indicate a familiar banging from the ship locker. “We brought you a present.”
I went back up the steps with Rhees in case she needed help. She opened the door gingerly, as if expecting Amaroc to lash out, but he was slumped against the internal bulkhead.
“Come on,” she said, tugging on his manacles, and he pulled himself up and followed her docilely enough.
As soon as Isza saw Amaroc and the House Kergis torque he wore, she grabbed him by his chest plate and threw him skidding across the deck. A Defender appeared in the bay doorway and picked him up.
“Welcome to the free Kresz,” Isza said and indicated for the Defender to march Amaroc into the corridor.
“Tzek couldn’t get him to talk, but I hope you’ll be able to,” I said.
“You saw Tzek?”
“Yes. He’s well. They’re hiding out in the deep desert.” I paused. “Czerag is dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Isza said. “I know how much he meant to you.”
She was right. Our hierarch had trusted me when others wouldn’t. But I knew how Isza felt about what Czerag had done when he set us against Kergis and the Merchants Lodge. I wondered if Kergis would have betrayed us to the Hegemony if he hadn’t felt threatened by Czerag’s plans to break the trade monopoly. I pushed that thought away. Might-have-beens wouldn’t help us now.
“Come on. We have food,” Isza said as she led us through the inner bay door. “You have to tell me how the mission went.”
“We didn’t go anywhere near Aktiuk,” I said. “But from what Tzek told us, life is bad there and worse on the rest of Homeworld. Kergis has complete control and they’ve taken all the children for ‘re-education’. In a single generation, House Kergis will be all that exists.”
“He has a nasty surprise coming,” Isza said. “Nok’s been a little more forthcoming. The Jantri are fabricating hand weapons for a ground assault.”
“Ground attack’s fine,” Rhees said as we entered a lift and ascended to the Kresz habitat level. “But we’ll need air support. We saw some of the ships the Hegemony have round Homeworld. The Jantri are going to have to supply pilots.”
“We’ll see,” I said. I didn’t think Nok would do that. But we did need ships and people to fly them.
As the lift door opened, I heard yelling coming from the converted cargo hold. Amaroc was surrounded by other Kresz who were shouting and pushing at him. He didn’t look as belligerent as he’d been on Homeworld.
“This could get violent,” I said. “We need him alive.”
Isza was about to intervene when the door opened again and three suited instances of Nok entered.
The closest Jantri shouted, “Get away from him!”
The Kresz pushing at Amaroc fell silent and backed away. Amaroc froze at the sight of the Jantri bearing down on him. There was nowhere to run.
Two of the Jantri forced him to lie on the floor, their suit servos whining as he struggled against their grip. The lead Jantri, who I decided was Nok, kneeled next to Amaroc’s prone body and ran a gauntleted hand over him.
“What is it?” Rhees asked.
“Unknown tech,” Nok said. “Sensors picked it up in the lift. He has something … Ah.”
“He’s carrying a bug?” Rhees said.
An image hovered above Amaroc’s abdominal plates and I could see something artificial inside him. A four-pointed star.
“Let’s hope it’s not a tracker,” Nok said.
“Let me go!” Amaroc screamed.
One of the Jantri suits clamped a metal hand down on Amaroc’s mouth, instantly silencing him.
“That’s more like it,” Rhees said.
“Is this Kresz tech?” Nok asked me.
I stared at the image but I’d seen nothing like it before. “Not that I know of.”
“It has to come out,” Nok said.
Amaroc strained harder to escape. It was clear he didn’t want anyone to know what was inside him.
Nok held up his other hand and a crimson laser beam, barely three centimetres long, shot from his middle finger. “Be still,” he told Amaroc. “Or I might cut something you’ll need later.”
The image of Amaroc’s insides still hung in the air between us. Nok pulled aside an abdominal plate with his other hand to reveal as much flesh as possible.
Isza hunkered beside me, looking at the image. “This is strange.”
“I know,” I said.
“No, you don’t. He’s screaming and struggling – waves of fear should be flying off him. I should be feeling that, but all I feel is hate and a certain amount of fascination. Exactly what they’re feeling,” she added, indicating the other Kresz in the hold who had gathered around Amaroc’s body.
Nok brought the laser beam down to part the flesh beneath Amaroc’s plate. Even though he was gagged, we could hear his muffled scream of agony. I smelled searing flesh and tried not to think about it.
“We should be feeling that pain too,” Isza said.
“You’re not feeling anything of what he’s experiencing?” Rhees asked.
“Nothing.”
Something was interfering with the empathic link.
The beam cut deeper. Yellow rusz spurted from the wound, but not much. It seemed the beam cauterised whatever it cut.
“Nearly there,” Nok said.
The main bulkhead doors opened on my breach sister, Isza. I unstrapped, and Rhees followed me through the lock and onto the deck.
Isza pulled me close as soon as I was clear of the ship. “You made it,” she said, holding me at arm’s length and looking me up and down as if inspecting me for damage. Then she turned to Rhees. “You kept him safe. Thank you.”
“I had something to do with keeping myself safe, you know,” I told her.
“I doubt that,” Isza said.
“Don’t argue with your sister,” Rhees said, then turned to indicate a familiar banging from the ship locker. “We brought you a present.”
I went back up the steps with Rhees in case she needed help. She opened the door gingerly, as if expecting Amaroc to lash out, but he was slumped against the internal bulkhead.
“Come on,” she said, tugging on his manacles, and he pulled himself up and followed her docilely enough.
As soon as Isza saw Amaroc and the House Kergis torque he wore, she grabbed him by his chest plate and threw him skidding across the deck. A Defender appeared in the bay doorway and picked him up.
“Welcome to the free Kresz,” Isza said and indicated for the Defender to march Amaroc into the corridor.
“Tzek couldn’t get him to talk, but I hope you’ll be able to,” I said.
“You saw Tzek?”
“Yes. He’s well. They’re hiding out in the deep desert.” I paused. “Czerag is dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Isza said. “I know how much he meant to you.”
She was right. Our hierarch had trusted me when others wouldn’t. But I knew how Isza felt about what Czerag had done when he set us against Kergis and the Merchants Lodge. I wondered if Kergis would have betrayed us to the Hegemony if he hadn’t felt threatened by Czerag’s plans to break the trade monopoly. I pushed that thought away. Might-have-beens wouldn’t help us now.
“Come on. We have food,” Isza said as she led us through the inner bay door. “You have to tell me how the mission went.”
“We didn’t go anywhere near Aktiuk,” I said. “But from what Tzek told us, life is bad there and worse on the rest of Homeworld. Kergis has complete control and they’ve taken all the children for ‘re-education’. In a single generation, House Kergis will be all that exists.”
“He has a nasty surprise coming,” Isza said. “Nok’s been a little more forthcoming. The Jantri are fabricating hand weapons for a ground assault.”
“Ground attack’s fine,” Rhees said as we entered a lift and ascended to the Kresz habitat level. “But we’ll need air support. We saw some of the ships the Hegemony have round Homeworld. The Jantri are going to have to supply pilots.”
“We’ll see,” I said. I didn’t think Nok would do that. But we did need ships and people to fly them.
As the lift door opened, I heard yelling coming from the converted cargo hold. Amaroc was surrounded by other Kresz who were shouting and pushing at him. He didn’t look as belligerent as he’d been on Homeworld.
“This could get violent,” I said. “We need him alive.”
Isza was about to intervene when the door opened again and three suited instances of Nok entered.
The closest Jantri shouted, “Get away from him!”
The Kresz pushing at Amaroc fell silent and backed away. Amaroc froze at the sight of the Jantri bearing down on him. There was nowhere to run.
Two of the Jantri forced him to lie on the floor, their suit servos whining as he struggled against their grip. The lead Jantri, who I decided was Nok, kneeled next to Amaroc’s prone body and ran a gauntleted hand over him.
“What is it?” Rhees asked.
“Unknown tech,” Nok said. “Sensors picked it up in the lift. He has something … Ah.”
“He’s carrying a bug?” Rhees said.
An image hovered above Amaroc’s abdominal plates and I could see something artificial inside him. A four-pointed star.
“Let’s hope it’s not a tracker,” Nok said.
“Let me go!” Amaroc screamed.
One of the Jantri suits clamped a metal hand down on Amaroc’s mouth, instantly silencing him.
“That’s more like it,” Rhees said.
“Is this Kresz tech?” Nok asked me.
I stared at the image but I’d seen nothing like it before. “Not that I know of.”
“It has to come out,” Nok said.
Amaroc strained harder to escape. It was clear he didn’t want anyone to know what was inside him.
Nok held up his other hand and a crimson laser beam, barely three centimetres long, shot from his middle finger. “Be still,” he told Amaroc. “Or I might cut something you’ll need later.”
The image of Amaroc’s insides still hung in the air between us. Nok pulled aside an abdominal plate with his other hand to reveal as much flesh as possible.
Isza hunkered beside me, looking at the image. “This is strange.”
“I know,” I said.
“No, you don’t. He’s screaming and struggling – waves of fear should be flying off him. I should be feeling that, but all I feel is hate and a certain amount of fascination. Exactly what they’re feeling,” she added, indicating the other Kresz in the hold who had gathered around Amaroc’s body.
Nok brought the laser beam down to part the flesh beneath Amaroc’s plate. Even though he was gagged, we could hear his muffled scream of agony. I smelled searing flesh and tried not to think about it.
“We should be feeling that pain too,” Isza said.
“You’re not feeling anything of what he’s experiencing?” Rhees asked.
“Nothing.”
Something was interfering with the empathic link.
The beam cut deeper. Yellow rusz spurted from the wound, but not much. It seemed the beam cauterised whatever it cut.
“Nearly there,” Nok said.
Another cut and then he thrust his gauntlet into the wound. On the image, we could see his hand, intensely bright. Finger shapes probed inside Amaroc then closed around the tech, pulling it free.
Isza gasped, falling back as Nok pulled the device from Amaroc’s body.
I helped her kneel again. “Are you all right?” I asked.
“It’s him,” she rasped. “I can feel him now. When Nok removed that thing from his body.”
Rhees took the small object from Nok and wiped it clean on her suit leg. She held the star up and we could see it was made of a dull alloy. The Hegemony’s double circle was etched along one of the points.
“It’s Hegemony tech all right,” she said. “Some kind of empathy shield?”
Isza blinked. “Not a shield. I thought I could feel him before. But when Nok came in, Amaroc’s reactions didn’t match what I was feeling from him.”
We stood and moved away from Amaroc.
“A more subtle effect then,” I said. “What did you feel?”
“Hatred,” Isza said. “Understandable. It’s what everyone in the room was projecting.”
“He hates us as much as we hate him. That’s what Tzek said,” Rhees reminded me.
Isza looked down at Amaroc. Nok was applying some sealant to the wound. “He knows exactly what this is,” she said. “I can feel it.”
Nok stood while his two other suits continued to hold Amaroc. He took the device from Rhees. “We’ll analyse this. But if it’s as Isza says …”
“It’s standard Hegemony tactics,” Rhees said. “Find a disaffected group within the target society and give them an edge.” She pointed at the device. “However this works, it allowed secrets to be kept in what was an open society.”
“It doesn’t create an absence like a shielded room,” Isza said. “That would be picked up easily. It’s more like a synthesis of the prevailing mood. It picks up whatever is there and reflects it back.”
“The stek-la,” I said. “The inner circle. A group that could be briefed by Kergis and then move around freely without giving away a hint of the plan. This is a piece of the puzzle.”
Isza grabbed Amaroc by his chest plate, hauling him to his hoofs. “You have some explaining to do.” She pulled him along and signalled to two of the Defenders. “You come with me.”
∞
Rhees watched as Isza pushed Amaroc ahead of her towards the far end of the hold. When he resisted, one of the other Kresz grabbed him violently, half-dragging him along behind. It looked like he was in for a long night.
Rhees had to get some rest. “Is there a cabin I can use?” she asked Nok. “Or I’ll sleep in our ship.”
The cabin Nok directed her to wasn’t much different from her room on the other Jantri ship. She wondered how many other cabins like this one were on the station, and why Nok hadn’t allocated some to the Kresz. Was the communal camp another experiment to encourage the survivors of the different houses to bond?
She was too tired to care. She lay on the chaise and it reconfigured, seeming to know how best to make her as comfortable as possible. She fell asleep almost immediately.
Waking was an indeterminate line. Her dreams had been full of jumbled images: Voss Space, Erdjis’s head parting from his neck beneath the rapid fire of her flechete pistol, the intense bright of the deep desert, the ship firing a surveillance device in the Point. Something she’d said in the hide beneath the deep desert came to her – an advanced species that prefers to stay in the shadows isn’t going to be enough.
Slowly her thoughts became more directed. The Lenticular was home to a lot of different aliens, and the Hegemony’s action here was secondary to the Hanloi offensive. Unlike a full-scale occupation, penetration of systems in the Lenticular would be prioritised and targeted based on available resources and risk profiles. Some systems would escape interference completely. How could she separate the two? Now she had the campaign comms protocols from Denev, it should be easier to work that out. But it might not tell the whole story. Some HDC operatives went dark during missions – no comms at all, but plenty of latitude to do whatever was expedient.
She needed eyes across the Lenticular and the processing grunt to analyse the raw data they captured to reveal anything that might point to outside interference. Just like Emba had done when he’d found those unusual trades in the Telsus and Aphsan systems. But that kind of network wasn’t easy to conjure out of thin air. Nok could do it, but it would take time. It would be so much easier if the network had been in place and monitoring before the Hegemony moved in. Not just to provide a baseline, but to catch the deep infiltrations that were already in place. If they stood up a listening station now, they’d completely miss those operatives.
Her eyes snapped open and she was completely awake.
“Nok, can you hear me?”
She wasn’t as disconcerted as she should have been when the Jantri answered almost immediately. “Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in station control. I can be with you in a few minutes.”
“Never mind.” She spoke quickly, outlining what she needed and the problems she’d identified.
“We already have a network like that,” Nok said. “Stealth-equipped surveillance satellites have been in place around every planet and colony of the Lenticular for a very long time.”
Rhees understood what she was hearing but she was struggling with the why. “So you saw the Hegemony coming?”
There was only a moment’s hesitation. “As soon as they made their move, we saw it. But we had no hint of their preparations beforehand. That alone made them worthy of further study.”
“Udun said he first met you when he travelled to the Lenticular Council to ask for help. If you knew what was happening then, you could have added your voice to his.”
“And a hastily mobilised Lenticular force would have blundered into Voss Space. The Hegemony had just invaded Homeworld. A counterattack was a planned contingency for them. It would have failed.”
“That’s not why you kept quiet.”
There was no reply this time.
“The ship you gave us launched probes into the Point and one of the ships on the Voss Space side,” she said.
“The availability of data is its own justification for collecting it.”
Rhees sighed. “I’m trying to understand why you’re doing this.”
Nok’s next words exactly mirrored her thoughts. “Because you worry we’re just like the Hegemony.”
“Did you monitor my conversations with Udun on the stealth ship?”
“No. I could review the ship’s log now, but I choose not to.”
She was beginning to regret this whole fucking deal with the Jantri. She felt less and less like she understood what she’d gotten into. “I feel like a lab rat in an experiment.”
“There’s nothing I can say that will convince you you’re not being manipulated. Is suspicion a default for Humans?”
“Not without cause,” she snapped back.
“Real or imagined?”
“You really are fucking annoying to talk to.”
“If it’s any help at all, everything is as I told you when we first met. Events turn around certain individuals. It is our design to supply those individuals with the resources they need and see what happens.”
“There must be key individuals supporting the Hegemony’s invasion. Volmar for one.”
“There are always sides. But out of luck, circumstance or whatever motivation you choose to ascribe to us, we are on yours.”
“Or you’re lying to me and supporting both sides for your fucked-up amusement.” She could go around in circles like this with Nok forever. “Look, I need my comms gear, access to your spy network, and logs of all the traffic monitored since before the invasion.”
“It will be assembled and waiting for you in the cargo bay when you are ready.”
Through a sliding door in her cabin there was a head and what she’d come to call a “light shower” during her time on the other Jantri ship. It was bright, definitely not wet, but it cleaned off the sweat and grit of Homeworld. When she tied her hair back and re-entered her cabin, a clean onepiece was waiting for her on the bed, courtesy of her creepy ally.
If Nok betrayed Udun and his people …
Fuck, there was nothing she could do if he did. They’d all be screwed.