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The data flashed up, and Kara froze, staring at the name.
Doctor Jocelyn Laxarn.
No, it couldn’t be.
There had to be some kind of mistake. That had to be it. The voice match was only eighty-four percent. Except, that was only from two words.
But Jocelyn Laxarn couldn’t be the traitor.
It wasn’t possible. Her husband was Jade Fleet Admiral Finn Laxarn. She’d worked with him in the Council Chambers. She would have known if he’d betrayed them, wouldn’t she?
She felt sick.
Clutching at the display in front of her, the edges buckled under her hands, leaving imprints of her fingers in the metal frame.
Had they known who she was all this time?
Had they just been biding their time?
Except, Finn had never seemed agitated or stressed in her presence, no more so than someone dealing with bureaucrats and red tape felt. Was he part of the plot, or was he also being used?
Was Jocelyn acting on her own, using her husband’s connections?
The possibilities fractured and spiralled out into so many different scenarios. She brought herself up short. She’d just seen a possible voice match. It wasn’t confirmed; she had to make certain.
This time she ran the audio against audio grabs of Jocelyn talking at conferences, during Council meetings, in lectures, and in the news.
The results came back swiftly.
It was an exact match.
Her tormentor, the person who had destroyed her life, had been but one step away from her all this time. They’d passed through the same circles. Talked to the same people. Jocelyn was working for the Council as a medical advisor, had attended meetings with Isra. Kara shook all over, the tremors spreading through her, her hands shaking, head pounding. Sounds came in and out.
This couldn’t be true.
She had been so close this whole time; had had the answer in her mind. Had carried the key to unlock this all, and she just hadn’t thought to do it. Hadn’t had the time. Had still tried to avoid what she’d become. She’d failed everyone again.
The shaking became worse. Her vision blurred. Breaths short.
Her augments flashed warnings to her: panic attack.
Her body was going into shock.
It was her fault all over again.
Her inability to face reality.
Gasping for breaths, she tried to stand.
Her legs buckled and she tumbled to the floor. The metal grating felt cool against her cheek. Tears leaked from her eyes and her vision swam in and out.
“Help...please,” she gasped out, not sure who she was speaking to. Not sure what it would do. Just knowing she had to reach out to someone, anyone.
She shook, curled up on the cold metal floor.
Her thoughts scattered, spiralling down into an abyss of painful, torturous memories.
Loud thuds came from near the hatch. It opened, and Daku was there, dropping to his knees, wrapping warm arms around her. Pulling her onto his lap, murmuring soft indistinct words to her. Rocking her, reminding her to breathe. That it would be okay. She wasn’t alone.
Voices spoke above her. It was too hard for her to understand, too much effort. She sank into Daku, clung to him.
Slowly, she came back to herself. She became aware of the awkward and cramped space where she and Daku crouched. Her body ached, muscles tight. But that swiftly faded as her nanites went to work. Her body stabilised.
Isra crammed in behind Daku, halfway in the doorway still. She and Daku had taken up what little floor space there was. Kara pulled herself up and sank back into the pilot’s seat. She took a final deep calming breath before looking back at Daku and Isra.
Neither was fully dressed, both with bare feet. Daku had pulled on pants, but they weren’t fastened, and his shirt was inside out, the seams sticking out, and on backwards. Isra had at least pulled on coveralls, but her curly hair was in a sleeping cap. The ubiquitous gloves were on, though. Did she sleep with them? The inane thought popped into Kara’s mind.
Daku still crouched next to her, one hand on her chair, his brow pinched, eyes searching her. “What happened? Are you okay?” He reached out and clasped her hand.
Isra slipped past him and sat in the other chair.
Kara swallowed, licked her lips, and glanced at the screen in front of her. The voice analysis results stared back at her. The pop-up box obscured the rest of the data in the background.
She turned back to Daku, squeezing his hand gently in reassurance. “How did you know I needed you?”
“You asked for help. It came through on the comms.”
Kara blinked. She hadn’t used the ship’s comms, but when she spoke it must have been broadcast as she was still linked directly to the ship systems to run the memory bank scan against the data Tarsk had. Small blessings.
“Thank you.” She smiled at him.
Isra leant forward. “What did you find?” As always, she cut to the core of the issue.
“I ran several searches. The FPC Dralden leader is what they say, a victim of the Dark Raiders, too.” She swallowed again, her throat tightening. But she was safe. Daku was here with her. “And I know who the traitor is. The one who used me as a human test subject.”
Isra straightened up, eyes flashing to the display next to Kara. Daku stiffened, his hand clenching, his grip tight on her hand.
She pointed to the results pop-up. “Dr Jocelyn Laxarn is our enemy.”
Isra’s expression didn’t change, but she held her body abnormally still, her shoulders rigid, her knuckles prominent where her hands gripped the armrests.
Daku surged up. “What—No, that’s not possible. She’s been vetted by the Jade Fleet. She has security clearances even. This has to be wrong.” He jabbed at the display.
Kara kept looking at Isra. “My only mistake was not running this memory bank scan before. I had that...panic attack because I had the key to this all along just stored in my mind. If only I hadn’t assumed that I knew Gardrey was the one responsible. If only I hadn’t assumed it was just the Dark Raiders. But it wasn’t. All this time, Jocelyn Laxarn, an Imperial citizen, has been working with them. Maybe she’s even been leading them. She certainly seemed in charge based on my memories.” She shifted, looked back at the data.
“Is it possible you’re wrong?” Isra tapped a finger against her armrest. “As Nightwyn said, she’s been vetted. She’s the wife of one of the four Fleet admirals. This is a serious accusation.”
“It’s all there.” Kara stared with hard eyes at the console. “It’s a complete match.”
“But what are you analysing?” Daku rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Kara, it’s not that I doubt you, but this just doesn’t make sense.”
She clenched her hands and looked between Daku and Isra, who both stared back at her in concern and doubt. Her shoulders dropped. “I’ll show you.” It didn’t take her long to bring up the video records of Jocelyn, and only a few minutes to pull the voice recordings from her augments. “Listen and look at the analysis.”
The cramped bridge filled with the modulated and kind voice of Jocelyn. Kara remained immobile, cold anger burning in her. She’d exact her revenge.
Daku and Isra remained intent on the display, replaying it several times and comparing different snippets of conversations.
Daku sighed heavily. “I didn’t want to believe this. It’s still...how could she do this?”
“There’s more.” Kara lent forward and ran the video of Jocelyn in the hospital. “This is the audio my augments matched it with.” She paused on a still of Jocelyn’s face.
Isra bent forward and stared between it and the other videos. “It’s her.”
“I’m sorry, Isra,” Kara murmured. “I should have made this connection long ago. There’s so much I could have prevented.”
“The past has gone.” Isra waved her hand. “We can’t change it. You are not the only one that has made mistakes. You, however, always seem to learn from them.” Isra took a deep breath, relaxing her body. “We know now. We aren’t blind anymore. We can end this now.”
“This is explosive.” Daku grabbed the back of Kara’s chair. “Dr Laxarn’s a leading authority on health and medicine in the Fleet and the Council. How did she get there without someone else being involved?”
Kara reached up and clasped Daku’s hand. “We have to assume Admiral Laxarn is involved. Everything points to Fleet involvement.”
“That’s yet another assumption,” Isra said. “Did you find anything that directly ties either the Admiral, or any other member of the Fleets to this?”
Kara bowed her head. “No. I didn’t. Maybe he’s covered his tracks better, or maybe I just haven’t found it, but either way, we can’t risk thinking he’s not involved. We can’t trust him. Even if it’s only Jocelyn, he’s still compromised. Who’s to say he won’t put the Empire at risk purely to protect his wife?”
“Fuck.”
“My sentiment exactly, Daku,” Isra said, pressing her hands to her head.
“Dr Laxarn’s been a traitor for years and gotten away with it. But...why?” Daku scrubbed his face. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Kara shrugged. “Power is addictive, and few think they are in the wrong. On Mirrow V, one of them said that they were trying to make the human race better. That we could be superior to other species.” She snorted. “As if you can even quantify something as nebulous as ‘better’. It just speaks of a person who’s scared, measuring themselves against someone else all the time. Thinking they are lacking. I should know. For so long, I thought I wasn’t worthy to be myself, to even live. And they tried to design me to be a ‘superior’ human. It’d be a joke, if so many hadn’t died because of it.” She looked at Jocelyn’s image on the display, the light casting an eerie glow across her face. “She needs to pay for this.”
Isra went pale. “Wait, Jocelyn is part of the royal physicians. What if she’s planning on being assigned to my mother?”
“She wouldn’t dream of harming Her Majesty, would she?” Daku said. “Not in the Onyx Palace. She’d never make it out alive.”
But Isra shook her head and stared at Kara, her eyes wild. “We have to get back to Catera right now!” Isra lunged for the navigation controls.
Kara surged forward, blocking her. “Stop.”
“Don’t you understand? She knows too much. If she has access to my mother...she could reveal—,” her eyes flicked to Daku and she swallowed. “We can’t leave her there.”
“Neither can we blindly charge in,” Kara snapped. “You could fall into a trap.”
“Kara’s right, Your Highness,” Daku said. “If we rush in, we’re playing right into their hands. Her Majesty sent us out here to protect you and her. Kara and my situation hasn’t changed, if anything, it’s only gotten worse. We don’t even know if we could enter Rhaslok Prime space, let alone land in the capital. I’m still a fugitive from the Jade Fleet.” He glanced at Kara, his brow furrowed. “And if they see Kara with you, it’s only a matter of time until they realise that’s she’s the bio-cyber. And when they do, what will you do?”
“I’m the heir. The Onyx Fleet will obey me.” Isra glared at him.
Daku pressed his fingers together. “Can you be sure of that?”
“It’s the Jade Fleet we have to worry about,” Isra said.
“That’s what we’ve thought. But now? We know Jocelyn Laxarn betrayed us, and everything is pointing at Admiral Laxarn being a traitor. What if he’s not the only admiral involved?”
Isra stared at him. “No.”
“He’s right,” Kara said. “It’s too great a risk to charge back in.”
“But my mother is in danger!”
“Our greatest weapon is secrecy.” Kara tapped the nav panel. “No one knows where any of us are. And we need to keep it that way. If we don’t, then we’ve wasted the entire time we’ve been out here. You may as well have handed Daku and I over to the traitors right at the start.”
“A surprise attack is far more effective than a full on assault,” Daku said. “We’re not letting them get away with this. Hell no, but we need to be smart.”
“Isra, stop thinking like a princess and expecting people to obey you just because of your rank. Or a daughter scared for her mother,” Kara said. “You’re the leader of the Elites. Act like it.”
Isra froze before she nodded, resolve hardening her face. “They’ll pay for this.”
“Your orders?” Kara asked.
Isra straightened up. “We can’t flee. We will return and gather those who are still loyal to us.”
“But we can’t just go back.” Daku stared between the two of them. “The Jade Fleet is still looking for me and you’re still in danger, Your Highness. Nothing’s changed since we left.”
“But it has,” Isra replied. “We know who our enemy is. We know where she is. And we won’t let her get away with her crimes.” Isra smirked. “Take us to Dalor, Shadow.”
“With pleasure.” Kara sat forward and flicked up the nav system. “We’ll stop Jocelyn before she can get to our queen.”