CHAPTER 15

The grays herded Raena and her crew into a shuttle that would return them to the Veracity, still parked on the planet’s surface. On the ride, Raena looked her crewmates over. Kavanaugh looked none the worse for wear, even if he was old enough to be everyone else’s father. Mykah was taut with resolve, aware he was about to do the grandest thing he’d ever attempted in his life. Jimi’s face was expressionless, but she suspected his thoughts were busy behind the mask. Gisela had gone paler still, practically ill with excitement.

Raena wasn’t sure whether this Kavanaugh was the real one or the copy. She wasn’t sure if the Templar Master planned to send androids back with them to make sure they got the job done. But if androids could do the job, surely the Templar Master would have already dispatched them. All the same, she decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to test her crew. She’d just have to come up with the right riddles to ask.

On the planet’s surface, the grays escorted them back onto the Veracity. One of these guards was a copy of Raena herself. “We will escort you to the Templar tombworld,” she said. “If the Veracity deviates from the course we set for you, one hostage will be executed. If the Veracity fires on our ships, one hostage will be executed. If the Veracity does not return from the past, all hostages will be executed. The elimination of the human race will begin in one standard week’s time, unless you succeed in erasing the plague.”

Raena studied the android. It was hard to see where it differed from her, other than it still bore the scar her mother had given her, the one that bisected her left eyebrow and nearly cost her an eye. Raena supposed that meant that the android had been manufactured before she’d gone to Capitol City and had the scar removed. She wondered what sort of trouble it had stirred up in her likeness. Had it been one of the soldiers she fought outside Mellix’s apartment?

“We are ready to go, as soon as we can warm the engines up,” Raena said. “Get off our ship.”

The Raena android smirked at her, but turned on its high-heeled boot and left.

The real Raena sighed. She hoped she had never flounced out of anywhere like that. It was just embarrassing.

As Kavanaugh and Gisela went forward to warm the Veracity up, Raena followed Mykah into his cabin. “Question,” she said. “Tell me the ingredients in your nightcap.”

“Cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, rice milk, and rum.”

“What’s the secret to making one?”

He looked at her skeptically. “Pouring the rice milk into the rum from a height, so that the heat of the milk doesn’t boil away all the alcohol.”

Raena smiled. “You pass. You are not an android.”

“You think one of us is a spy?”

“I don’t know. Since Kavanaugh shot me the last time I saw him, I thought it would be a good idea to check.”

“How do I know you’re not an android?” Mykah asked.

“Test me.”

“How did we meet?”

“That’s too simple, Mykah,” she scolded. “You were working in that restaurant on Kai. I climbed up the cliff from the beach and you were my waiter. After I’d had a couple of drinks, I put the lily from the table decoration over my ear.”

“What did I tell you about you and Ariel later?”

“You thought I was flirting with my mother.”

“You pass. Let’s find Jim.”

The boy was in the lounge, strapping himself down. He looked up at them. “Am I in trouble?”

“What was the first photo you sent me?” Raena asked.

His answer came immediately. “I sent you a picture of me with the sabershark I’d caught. I was trying to impress you.”

“What did I send you in return?”

“A holo of you sitting on a jet bike. You had on gargoyle sunglasses. You only let me see the image for a moment, before it evaporated.”

“He passes,” she told Mykah.

“Three down,” he said.

The vibration of the Veracity’s engines began to hum beneath their feet.

“I don’t know Gisela well enough to test her,” Raena said.

Jimi suggested, “Ask what her favorite game is.”

So Raena went up to the cockpit and put the question to the girl. Raena wasn’t sure what she expected, but Gisela said, “We call it Kill By Numbers. We play it in the target range.”

Raena laughed. “I know it. I used to play with your mom.”

“You testing us for robots?” Kavanaugh asked.

“Yeah.”

“Go ahead and hit me.”

She saw he chose the phrase to tease her. She was pretty sure he was not an android, but she asked, “When we met, we played cards to pass the time. What was weird about how I played?”

Without hesitation, he said, “You cheated to lose. I couldn’t figure out how or why, but you lost more than statistically plausible.” He looked at her. “So which of us is the android?”

“No one,” Raena said. “I don’t understand what the Templar is doing.”

“You’ve got time to puzzle it out. Go strap yourself down. We’re ready to fly.”

Raena went to her bunk and climbed into the crash web, still worrying about the androids. What was the Templar Master using them for? Why had it been important to let her know he had one that looked like her?

For that matter, why was the Templar Master trusting the Veracity’s crew to do his bidding back in time? What if instead they decided to kill him in the past? That assumed they could distinguish him from the other Templars of the time, but was there any real reason to let him live?

She rubbed her temples, still hungry and disoriented from being stunned. If they assassinated the Templar Master in the past, who would unleash the gray soldiers in the present time? Would it make any difference to the galaxy if the grays didn’t hunt her, if she didn’t fight them? She was proud of surviving her encounters with them. She didn’t want to give those memories up. And the galaxy had decided she was a hero now, so score one for humanity.

She was too selfish to be a hero, Raena decided. She didn’t want to sacrifice who she was to save the galaxy.

*   *   *

The gray soldiers, in a trio of refurbished Imperial-surplus ships rescued from the wreckage of the Thallians’ hangar, kept pace with the Veracity and made certain it didn’t stray.

Raena put the Veracity under a communications blackout, which was rough on Mykah. She let him watch the news coming in, but forbade him to contact Mellix to consult on the upcoming exposé on Kai. She warned him not to draw the gray soldiers’ attention to Mellix, even through a series of scramblers.

For similar reasons, she and Gisela didn’t speak to Ariel, either. It was better that they do this job quickly and quietly and didn’t draw anyone else in.

Mykah cooked to pass the time. Raena worked out with anyone who would join her in the gym. Kavanaugh taught the kids to play poker. Jimi tinkered with the Veracity’s weapons systems. Gisela’s head finally healed up enough that Raena stopped worrying about her.

*   *   *

Raena was surprised when Jimi Thallian walked into her gym.

“I never thought I’d miss sparring,” he said. “My father used to pit us against each other. Jain won almost every bout. He didn’t care who got hurt or how. He just wanted the praise our father heaped on him afterward.”

Raena stopped chinning herself up over the bar to listen.

“I thought I hated the fights. I never avoided getting hurt, because I didn’t enjoy hurting the others.” Jimi pulled off his heavy engineer’s boots and lined them up precisely beside the door. “But I miss the camaraderie when we all fought against my father, when he was trying to form us into a team.”

Raena dropped to her feet. “How long has it been since you’ve sparred with anyone?”

“Since before we saw that video of you flying on Kai. After that, Father was too focused on capturing you to declare the games.”

“Come at me, then,” Raena suggested. “I’ll only defend.”

For someone out of practice, Jimi was still in pretty good shape. She recognized a kick combination as something his father had taught him. An intensity came into his gray eyes that took her back: a combination of determination and admiration marked him as his father’s son.

Raena went easy on him, merely blocking his attacks, but he was fast and lithe and she found herself enjoying the exercise. With her boots on, he was almost exactly her height.

They were both warmed up when Jimi stepped back. He held up a finger—one of his father’s gestures—as he caught his breath. Then he said, “Teach me something my father doesn’t know.”

Raena turned a one-handed cartwheel and came up quickly, punching hard with her other hand. “Nice,” Jimi said. “Teach me that.”

*   *   *

Mykah couldn’t believe how much he’d missed being in the galley. This was his first opportunity ever to cook for a wholly human crew, so he went for comfort food: breaded pork chops, mashed potatoes, strawberry shortcake. He felt like he was recreating an ancestral meal—one none of the others, with their shattered childhoods, had ever had a chance to eat.

Once they had settled around the table and had a few moments to enjoy the food, Mykah asked, “Do we have a plan?”

When no one else spoke up, Raena said, “No. I can’t figure out what game the Templar Master is playing with us. I don’t trust him. I don’t think the Templars were ever cuddly, fluffy intragalactic friends. I think they were rigid, brutal, and shortsighted. As much as I think it’s a tragedy they were wiped out, I’m not convinced the galaxy wants them back in charge. This Templar Master has a goal, but he sent back an assassin and a Thallian to see it met. That’s not a peacekeeping team.”

“He wants us to stop the plague,” Kavanaugh reminded.

“How?” Raena asked.

“We know the Thallian family created and manufactured the plague,” Mykah said. “We know Jonan Thallian spread it across the galaxy. Can we stop it at either of those points? Let’s make it simple, try to change as little as possible.”

“Change as little as possible?” Raena scoffed. “The Templar Master sent us back to stop the plague. That will change everything. If there’s no plague, does the War ever end? If the Empire doesn’t win, do the Templars? Can you imagine them ever making peace with humanity? And on an entirely selfish note, Kavanaugh won’t get me out of that tomb, because the Templars will still be guarding the planet.”

“You might not be imprisoned,” Kavanaugh countered, “if Marchan couldn’t get down onto the planet to lock you in.”

“If I vanish suddenly, I guess you’ll know that the Empire decided on a firing squad for me after all.” Raena sawed off a bite of pork and chewed on it meditatively.

Gisela watched them with a puzzled expression, but Jimi and Mykah clearly understood what she was talking about. Raena could not bear the compassion in Mykah’s expression, so she turned away from it.

“Marchan got down to the Templar tombworld somehow the first time,” Raena said. “The plague hadn’t been unleashed when they locked me up. The Templars should have still been guarding the planet. But somehow Marchan got me into the Templar Master’s tomb . . .”

“You think the conspiracy goes that far back?” Kavanaugh asked.

They stared at each other. “I don’t know what to think,” Raena said.

“If we don’t stop the plague,” Mykah said, “Coni and Haoun will be killed. The human race will be wiped out.”

“The Templar threatened that,” Kavanaugh pointed out, “but how is he going to accomplish it? The galaxy knows about the Outriders and the Messiah drug now. We don’t know how many grays there are, but we haven’t seen enough to crew a warship. What kind of weapon do they have to wipe humanity out? We’re scattered . . .”

“A plague,” Gisela guessed.

“A plague that wipes out humanity,” Jimi said. “That would be poetic justice.”

“Don’t look to me to solve this,” Raena said at last. “I’m too paralyzed by the enormity of it. I don’t dare make a move.”

*   *   *

Eventually, they reached the Templar tombworld. “I never thought I’d have any reason to come back here,” Kavanaugh said. He flew over the abandoned bunker complex and the Templar Master’s tomb, for old times’ sake. He pointed them out to Mykah and Jimi, but Raena didn’t bother to look. She made certain her knives were sheathed in her boot tops. If anyone got any ideas about imprisoning her here again, she was going to slit her own throat. Everyone else would have to fend for themselves, but she was taking no chances.

The grays sent over landing coordinates. The landing zone turned out to be inside one of the mountains. When they reached it, another crew of androids had already opened the cave’s entrance. It was large enough to fly the Veracity inside.

An android that Raena did not recognize called over a final message. “The device is prepared for you. It is locked onto a time coordinate in the past and keyed to the Veracity’s numerical ID. If the Veracity is damaged, you will have to retrieve its ID signature. No other vehicle number will trigger your return.”

“What happens when we arrive in the past?” Mykah asked. “The Templars will still be guarding their planet. Will they let us out of here?”

“Yours is not the first Imperial ship we’ve commandeered,” the android told him. “They will assume you are on a mission from the future.”

Gooseflesh shivered over Raena’s skin. She wondered again how Marchan had succeeded in locking her into the Templar Master’s tomb at the height of the Human-Templar War.

“What happens after we succeed in preventing the plague?” Mykah asked. “When we come back here in the past, Templars will still be guarding these tombs. Will they allow us to use the time machine to return?”

“Play them this message,” the android said. It sent over a fragment of flashing colors: Templar speech.

“Anything else we need to know?” Mykah asked.

“For the sake of your species, do not fail.”

“No pressure, then,” Kavanaugh muttered. He rotated the Veracity around and backed it into the cavern.

Raena’s head pounded as if it would split, so hard and fast that she feared she would have a stroke. Sweat slicked her whole body. Mykah came over to hold her in his arms. Raena scrunched her eyes closed and clung to him. It didn’t help. She felt like she was dying.

“This is only a panic attack,” he whispered. “I know it feels like it will kill you, but it won’t.”

“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to be trapped again.”

“I know.”

“How will we know when it works?” Gisela asked.

“The Veracity’s clock will reset,” Kavanaugh said. “It’s linked to GST.”

The Veracity gave a horrific moan. Raena echoed it.

The ship’s power shut off abruptly. The Veracity started to fall out of the air. Kavanaugh fought for control as Gisela slapped blindly at switches, trying to regain some kind of spark. Suddenly, independent of anything they’d done, the ship blazed back to life. The engine reengaged. The repulsors caught them before they bottomed out.

Jimi leaned forward to check the clock. “We’ve gone back,” he said. “The War is on, but the plague hasn’t begun yet.”

*   *   *

Raena drew a shaky breath and pushed gently out of Mykah’s arms to stand on her own feet again. Her body felt wrung out. She put a hand on the bulkhead, just for stability, and asked, “Mykah, do you have Vezali’s translator?”

“It’s in my cabin.”

“Let’s listen to the Templar Master’s message before we play it for anyone else.”

As he went to retrieve the translator, Kavanaugh asked, “What do you expect it to say?”

“Kill us all,” Raena said. “The Templar Master can’t let us return to the future, knowing he has a time machine.”

“What makes you suspect it?” Gisela asked shakily.

“That we’re not supposed to play it until we get back to the planet. If this trip is straightforward and the Templar in the past would support what we’re doing, why don’t we have a message for them when we come out of the machine now—so they could help us?”

They stood around in tense silence until Mykah returned. “You know how the translator works?” Raena asked.

“Not really. I think it’s on all the time, unless you intentionally switch it off, which I don’t know how to do.” He set the translator on the Veracity’s console. Kavanaugh triggered the message to play.

The translator reeled off a bunch of syllables. They didn’t make any immediate sense to Raena. “Play it again,” she said.

Afterward Kavanaugh asked, “Is that Standard?”

“It’s a formula,” Jimi realized. He pulled a handheld out of his jacket, poised to take notes. “Let me hear it again.”

Kavanaugh played it a third time.

“Yeah, it’s a formula. Some of it’s chemical, some’s genetic.”

“Can you decipher it?” Mykah asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe. We all had to study genetic code, but it wasn’t what I was best at.”

“If it’s the antidote to the plague, why would the Templar want us to play it to the Templars guarding the tombs after our mission?” Gisela asked.

“It could be the plague to wipe humanity out,” Raena said. “The Templar Master probably got hold of the Thallians’ notes and made a few tweaks, since our physiologies are supposed to be so similar.”

The others stared at her in silence.

“I know how we can decipher it,” Jimi said at last. “We just need to get onto Drusingyi and access the family’s computers.”

*   *   *

As Kavanaugh eased the Veracity forward out of the mountain, the constant wind rocked it. He turned to look over his shoulder at Raena. “While we’re here . . .” he started.

She cut him off. “No. She would be insane by now. She would kill us. If not as soon as we opened her tomb, then as soon as she saw this ship. She would recognize it and know where it came from.”

“But she would know me,” Kavanaugh protested. “She would recognize you . . .”

“No,” Raena repeated. “Don’t tempt me. If we let her out now, who knows what that would do to the future? I could cease to exist. We could all cease to exist. All the Templar Master would know in the future was that we did not come home. We can’t risk the fate of humanity. Let her be. As long as I don’t suddenly vanish, we know that she survives her imprisonment.”

Templars crawled around in the gritty wind on the tombworld, but none of them paid any attention to the Imperial transport exiting from one of their mountains. A shudder ran through Raena as the Veracity headed into space.

“What are we doing then?” Mykah asked.

“Set a course for Drusingyi,” Raena suggested. “Jimi needs to access those computers.”

He suggested, “My father could get us clearance. And we have the perfect bait for him.”

Everyone stared at the boy, but Raena understood what he meant. “Me,” she said. “Jonan will come anywhere in the galaxy to get me. It’s just a matter of luring Jonan into suggesting he meet us on Drusingyi.”

“What if he thinks you’ve been captured by bounty hunters?” Mykah suggested. “Kavanaugh and I could claim we tracked you down.”

Raena looked at them: Kavanaugh with his bristling red beard, Mykah with his headful of braids. They could pose as hunters, if not for the Veracity. “I hate to suggest drastic changes in your appearance, gentlemen, but we’re aboard an Imperial transport. Do you think you could pass for officers? Mykah, you’d have to captain. Gisela could be your aide. Jimi, you’ll have to make certain your father doesn’t see your eyes.”

“Call me Jim, please,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to be that other person any more.”

Raena nodded. She of all people could appreciate that.

“What would we do for uniforms?” Kavanaugh asked.

“We still have the Thallian soldiers’ livery in the ship’s stores,” Raena said. “We can spin you as some kind of Special Ops.”

“What are you going to do to distract them while Jim works?” Mykah asked.

Raena gazed at him and slowly smiled.

“I’ll draw up a map of the city,” Jim said, “so you’ll know where to meet us if you bust out of detention before I can come and get you.”

*   *   *

Raena took apart Eilif’s former cabin and reconfigured it to look more like an Imperial detention cell. She removed every comfort that Eilif had added and reinstalled the restraints.

She couldn’t restore her long hair or replace the scar across her face, but she was certain Jonan would recognize her despite the superficial changes. Especially if she dressed in such a way to highlight her other scars.

Once she’d gotten the setting arranged to her satisfaction, she checked on the other actors.

Mykah and Kavanaugh had shaved off their beards. Gisela had cut their hair in passable approximations of Imperial style. Jim found uniforms for everyone, along with appropriate sidearms.

“Here’s the scenario,” Raena said. “Feel free to tweak it. I’ve escaped from the tomb. You lucky gentlemen found me. If we send the message from the vicinity of Drusingyi, Thallian should suggest that we meet him there. He won’t want the Arbiter’s officers to know what he’s up to. I’ll do what I can to provide distraction for the Thallians while you figure out the Templar Master’s message and what to do about it. Without that message—or something like it—we can’t get back onto the Templar world to get home, so you’ll have to figure that out, too.”

“With any luck,” Mykah said, “we can get the job done and get out of there before the Arbiter arrives.”

“I particularly like the part where we leave before Thallian arrives,” Kavanaugh said.

Raena turned to Jim. “Come to the galley and tell me everything you remember about your family before the plague.”

He followed her and joined her at the table over bottles of cider. Mykah and the others came, too.

Jim bit his lips before he began. “Uncle Revan used to tell us stories about the time before the planet was destroyed. The family lived in a city-sized palazzo on the edge of the Shining Lake. The lake was in the middle of a mountain range, which protected them from the monsters that crawled in and out of the ocean.”

“How many in the family?”

“Seventy, more or less. There were some left from my grandfather’s generation, then twenty or thirty of my father’s generation. The rest were Aten’s sons. Not all of them would have been at home at once. Some followed my father into Imperial service. Others would be out trading or traveling.”

“How many slaves did they keep?”

Jim looked puzzled by her bitterness. “None.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“It’s true. The initial settlers brought slaves, but there was a revolt. After that, the family just cloned enough sons to keep the city running. Well, they used sons and machinery. They didn’t allow anyone into the city who wasn’t genetically related, other than the alpha’s wife. And she couldn’t get out without a genetic escort.”

“So,” Raena said, “Seventy Thallians at the outside.”

“You don’t think that we could just talk to them?” Mykah asked. “Explain what will happen to the family—and the galaxy—if they decide to manufacture the plague?”

Raena looked at Jim, but he didn’t answer. She said, “I don’t imagine that they had very much choice in the matter. Whether Jonan was onboard to disseminate the plague or not, the Thallians on Drusingyi were a small out-of-the-way outpost. The Empire only had to threaten. They had no way to defend themselves.”

Kavanaugh made a disgusted snort.

Raena only smiled, remembering the old political arguments with Ariel.

“Who was the alpha clone then?” Raena asked.

“Aten. He was injured during the War and had to live in a mechanized chair after that. You might have seen him on Drusingyi.”

Raena remembered seeing his corpse. “What about the one who was the head of family security when you ran away?”

“Merin. He served on the Conciliator during the War. He won’t be on the planet now.”

“Was Revan at home in those years?”

“Not often. He was kind of an adventurer. He made supply runs for the family.”

“Good. Then we don’t have to worry about the brothers who survived the War seeing either of us, as long as we can keep out of Aten’s way. Were there boys your age, so that you can get in and out of the palazzo?”

“Yes. Aten’s sons.”

“Maybe we can capture one and you can pass for him?” Mykah suggested.

When Jim didn’t answer immediately, Raena said, “This is where we need you, Jim. You have a better chance of understanding the Templar’s formula than any of us and a much better possibility of disrupting the Thallians’ design or manufacture of the plague. Can we trust you?”

“This is a lot to process,” Jim said slowly. “I’ve always thought that my family’s participation in the Plague was horrific. But now I wonder: were they set up to be scapegoats? Why did the Emperor ‘honor’ my family? Surely there were other scientists working in genetics that could have created this plague. Why were we chosen?”

Raena answered, “Because of your father. Because Jonan had become a threat to the stability of the Empire. He was an unrestrained serial killer in command of one of the most powerful ships in the Imperial fleet. He wanted to be in line for the throne. But while the Emperor didn’t trust Jonan, he couldn’t get rid of him either. Your father had allies across the Empire—and your family to back him up. As long as Jonan was obsessed with finding me, he wasn’t an organized danger. After I was locked up, the Emperor put Jonan in charge of the plague. It was his last chance to prove he was more useful than Marchan.”

Gisela asked quietly, “You were alive during the War?”

Mykah laughed. “I don’t know why Coni went to so much trouble for your cover story.”

Raena shrugged. “Yes,” she admitted. “There’s only one of me and I’m it.”

Working it out, the girl said, “You were my mother’s slave.”

“Yes. And Jim’s father’s girlfriend. And I was imprisoned in a Templar tomb before the plague was spread. And Kavanaugh let me out six months ago. That’s my sad and sordid life.” Raena sighed. “I just want to move forward. Why does the past insist on dragging me down?”

“Because your former boss exterminated a people who seem to have had more than one way to bend time,” Mykah pointed out.

“It needs to stop,” Raena said. “I didn’t have anything to do with killing the Templars.”

“Now you have the chance to rescue them,” Kavanaugh said. He changed the subject back. “What are we going to say to Thallian?”

“You two are errand boys who answer directly to the Emperor. That will explain why Thallian doesn’t recognize the ship. Mykah is going to be a young upstart, eager to make himself useful and get a boost up the chain of command. The key here, Mykah, is that very few people could lie to Thallian and survive.” She nodded at Jim to underscore her point. “So keep your pitch short and get the camera onto me as soon as you can. I will sell the story to him.”

*   *   *

Raena let Mykah set up the camera angles and the lights in the cell she’d made. She coached him through a couple of practice runs of his speech, until she was certain he could hold the character. Then she lay facedown on the bench in her new cell, out of camera range, and listened to him record the first message.

“Lord Thallian,” Mykah said. “I am Mykah Chen, in command of ISS Veracity. While on a mission on Lautan, we recaptured an Imperial deserter. I understand that you were her commander.”

Gisela moved forward with the second camera to focus in on Raena, who swooned on the bench as if under heavy stun. Raena had chosen to wear a breast band over a pair of leggings, which left the scars on her bare back visible.

In voiceover, Mykah continued, “With the rate at which we’re having to stun her to keep her docile, I am becoming concerned about the potential for permanent damage. Can you advise?”

Gisela held the shot, then Mykah said, “I’ll get that edited and sent off to him. How long do you think it will take him to reply?”

“At a guess?” Raena asked. “Don’t take off your uniform.”