ROMANE
IDCC Headquarters
Mia: I just need to know if it’s working.
Morgan: Maybe? Give me forty more seconds.
Mia ran a hand through her hair, surprised to encounter a few tangles along the way. The promised long night was far from over.
Governor Ledesme had officially declared the rioters a planetary security threat after they blew up a second commercial building, which among other things authorized the targeted use of defensive ground turrets against them.
Combined with the aerial response from Morgan and her unit, it should be enough to regain control of the streets. People would die, but people had already been killed. Innocent ones.
She’d never thought this could happen here. On Pandora or one of the small, out-of-the-way colonies, but not on Romane. OTS had shipped in protestors and staged the entire event; she was now convinced of it. It was inconceivable that this many Romane citizens felt such violent hatred for Prevos.
This wasn’t to say that Romane, progressive and advanced as it was, didn’t have an underbelly. When she’d first arrived here from another life, she’d lived on the edges of it. But the entire underbelly—poor, delinquent, criminal and thug all put together—didn’t measure up to the size of the protests outside.
She spun around as Caleb and Devon burst into the room. Devon flung his jacket against the wall in blatant anger as Caleb rushed over to her.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m surrounded by guards and encased in an ivory tower. I’m fine.” She peered past him toward the door. “Where’s Alex?”
His gaze dropped to the floor, but not before she saw his expression fall. “In the washroom. Your security does look solid inside, and I left a guard with her. She’s safe.”
“Good.” Alex’s mind was effectively impenetrable to her—to all of them—now, but she didn’t need to touch it to see what was right in front of her. Still, there were a few other things to worry about, and, she reminded herself yet again, it was none of her business. Even if Caleb was her oldest and closest friend. Even if she shared virtual mindspace with Alex.
She gave Caleb a quick shoulder squeeze then went over to Devon. “You couldn’t—”
“What? I couldn’t have gotten there any faster? No one could have gotten there any faster? Mia, you said she was protected! That’s why we brought her here, dammit. Only we delivered her straight to her death!”
She fixated on the wall behind him. He wasn’t wrong. “I know we did. I want to say they would have gotten to her on Sagan, too, but I thought we could protect her. If we’d recognized earlier we had spies in the Noesis…we should have. Being a Prevo doesn’t automatically make you a good person. I don’t know why we believed it did.”
Devon stared at her, his face contorting in frustration and grief. He chewed on his busted lip, then winced when the cut opened up and blood trailed down his chin. He wiped it off with his shirtsleeve…and Mia realized his clothes were coated in blood. How awful must the scene at the apartment have been?
“I’m so sorry, Devon.”
“No. You’re right, and it’s my fault as much as it is anyone else’s. I was so high on the shiny new revolution I’d created, I didn’t stop to consider it was made up of people, and people sometimes fucking suck.”
She placed a hand on his arm. “They do. But it’s not our fault, not truly. It’s theirs. The killers. They’re the ones who—”
“Get down!” Caleb collided with her back, sending her crashing to the floor hard enough to knock the air from her chest. The windows shattered and the sounds of a city overtaken by chaos rushed in.
Dead
Dead
Dead
Valkyrie’s grief filled Alex’s mind, swirling and spiraling her into dizziness. It filled her chest, suffocating her. It seeped into her bones until her limbs grew heavy. She rested her forehead on the cool mirror.
Want to strangle them but they’re all dead. Strangle who ordered them—
No, Alex. I don’t. I want to grieve, not kill. Those are your thoughts. Not mine.
She frowned in confusion and denial. Wasn’t she all but devoid of emotion now? That’s what Caleb had accused her of, and she hadn’t been able to dispute it.
The room spun around her, and she fumbled for the washroom counter.
So she grieved, too. It turned out the most debilitating of emotions retained the power to break through the fog. Excellent. But she’d dealt with loss, with death, before. Valkyrie had not. These terrible sensations were surely the blowback from the Artificial’s emotive disorientation.
I am not a child. I comprehend death. Only I never expected it to…hurt this much. How is it that I feel tangible, somatic pain? It is logically impossible, yet I do.
Welcome to being alive. Enjoy the khrenovuyu party.
She sank down to the floor, wrapped her arms over her knees and buried her head in them.
The weight of another’s grief on top of her own was more than she had the strength to bear. She shivered, cold to the marrow of her bones. Simply breathing was so hard….
Let me go, Alex. Shut me off.
No. You shouldn’t be left to struggle with this alone.
Alone is all I want to be. Shut me off, or I will do it for you.
Her eyes widened—and Valkyrie was gone. Bluff called.
She sucked in air and began to survey her state anew. Her chest still hurt. Everything still hurt, though she conceded some of it might be a result of the rough trip through the mob gauntlet outside.
She was grief-stricken, exhausted and mentally spent…but with each new breath she grew closer to functioning on a minimal level. Valkyrie’s suffering had in fact been that suffocating.
“Oh, Valkyrie, I’m so sorry for you. I wish you didn’t have to feel this pain. I wish I could save you from it. I wish I could have saved her for you. For me.”
She’d hung all her hopes on the belief Abigail would somehow be able to tweak a few settings and, presto, magically ‘fix’ her. Make it so she would be able to dance freely in the elemental realm without repercussions in this one. It was a horrendously selfish thing to dwell on when Abigail was dead dead dead….
But what the hell was she going to do now? How was she going to find her way through? Not lose Caleb. Not lose her sanity—
The distant but unmistakable sound of shattering glass cut through her wallowing. Great, more terrorists trying to kill them. Marvelous.
She grabbed the edge of the counter and dragged herself to her feet.
Caleb shouted above the clamor filling the room. “Everybody stay low to the floor and get away from the windows. Head for the hallway.”
His hands patted Mia down, searching for the wound from the shot meant for her but finding none. “Were you hit?”
“I don’t think so. I’m okay.”
“To the hallway. Devon?”
The response came from ahead of him. “Already there.”
He ushered several of the others forward while crawling toward the doorway and stopped to help a woman who’d been cut by the glass. But when he reached the hall and glanced behind him the room was empty of people and bodies. No one had been gravely enough wounded to not be able to get themselves clear.
He linked into the RRF comms. Harper, you’ve got a sniper on the roof across from IDCC Headquarters, Rainaldi side.
HarperRF: Understood.
As soon as everyone was safely outside any line of sight from the sniper, he tried to check Mia again, but she waved him off. He decided he had to take her at her word; next he leapt to his feet and rushed down the hallway toward the washroom.
He bumped into Alex outside the door as she exited, the guard behind her. “What’s happening? I heard a crash or—”
He grasped her by the shoulders, surveying her body for new injuries. “Sniper. Everyone’s okay. Are you?” He knew the question was getting repetitive for all involved, but unfortunately it continued to be a relevant one.
She nodded. And she did seem a little better. Her eyes were sharper—and now her own—and her gaze was a little more here.
Right now he would take what he could get. “Come on. We all need to stay together.”
He took her hand and together they hurried back to the others, who they found mostly sitting against the walls in the hallway. Someone had found a med kit and was tending to the wounded.
Mia flashed him a harried smile. “Morgan and Harper are on it—Morgan from above, Harper below. Soon the sniper is going to be way too busy to worry about us.”
“Good. But there may be more than one, so nobody goes near a window. Are the building defenses holding?”
“On the ground level, yes. I’m told we’re actually gaining traction on the street protesters.”
He exhaled, relieved the situation appeared to once again be under control, for the moment.
Alex made a noise beside him; in another life it would’ve been a chuckle. “Devon, you showed some nice moves out there. You’ve picked up impressive skills.”
He scowled. “Not really. Your mind can inhabit a spaceship. That’s far more noteworthy than a few hand-to-hand tricks.”
An uncomfortable silence loomed heavy in the air despite the distant sounds of chaos outside. Finally Devon huffed a breath. “I’m guessing that wasn’t the most appropriate thing to say in this crowd. Forgive me, I’m a bit off my game on account of Abigail being dead.”
Mia leaned across someone Caleb didn’t know to put a hand on his knee. “Devon—”
“No, it’s cool. Let’s concentrate on the shit-show outside.”
Yes, let’s. Caleb drew Mia’s attention to him. “Listen, there’s something you need to know, because it impacts what’s happening on the ground and your response to it. One of the attackers at Dr. Canivon’s apartment was Alliance military. Likely special forces.” He felt Alex flinch beside him at the mention of the murder scene.
“What? How the hell did I miss that?”
He squeezed Alex’s hand but looked to Devon, the source of the outburst. “You were focused on defending yourself. Understandable. I recognized the tactical vest design and the blade hilt on one of the bodies—both standard issue Alliance MSO gear.”
Mia gaped at him in disbelief. “Are you saying the Alliance military is working with OTS? On Romane soil? Have they lost all reason?”
“I’m saying one of the people who killed Dr. Canivon was Alliance military, but covert. And right now, that is all I’m saying.”
Devon groaned and banged the back of his head into the wall. “Alerting Morgan to the fact she may not be dealing with simple terrorists.”
“Now they tell us.” Harper grumbled as she checked the body at her feet. Oh, surprise of surprises, he wore Marine gear.
She didn’t want to think about the fact a few months ago he might have been a colleague, but for chance, a fellow squad member. Now he was here. He had tried to kill her, because he was following orders, and she had killed him in return.
He could have refused those orders. Malcolm Jenner refused them. Others refused them. This man’s actions were not wholly excusable…but they were understandable.
And now was not the time to be waxing poetic. She stood and motioned three members of her team ahead to clear the next hallway.
Commander Lekkas: Sniper down. Watch for fleeing comrades.
HarperRF: Affirmative. Chase them to us.
She paused to check the status of her people on the ground and came away pleased. It was close to being over. Romane’s jails were going to be crowded, but the rioters were being moved off the streets and dispersed or arrested.
The echo of pounding footsteps got her attention. Time to spring another trap.
She and the team members with her activated their cloaking shields—Veils. The qualitative difference was so great between the personal cloaking shields the RRF enjoyed and those used by the Alliance and Federation militaries and everyone else, Mia had decided the new technology needed a name to distinguish it. ‘Veil’ had stuck.
The ensuing encounter with the fleeing terrorists—or Marines—wasn’t a fair contest, really. Which was fine, as no one who conducted it had ever claimed warfare should be fair. Her team knocked the two fleeing combatants off their feet as they rounded the corner and subdued them without incident. They didn’t see their subduers until after the restraints were firmly in place.
She surveyed the new prisoners’ gear critically. It was blatantly Alliance-issue. Goddammit! Winslow and Fullerton were playing dirty. She didn’t feel as bad for the unfair advantage the Veils presented now.
She jerked her head down the hall. “Pello, Odaka, check the upper floors and make sure nobody’s turtled up waiting for us to leave. Verela, take this guy downstairs.”
Once they disappeared she lifted the other prisoner off the ground and shoved him—no, her—against the wall. “Any chance you want to talk to me about your orders?”
The Marine’s mouth set into a firm line as she stared silently at Brooklyn.
“Yeah. Didn’t think so. But I know a few things about black ops and plausible deniability. The IDCC obviously doesn’t have an extradition treaty—or any kind of treaty—with the Earth Alliance. As of a few weeks ago, neither does Romane. The only way you’re getting home is if your prime minister gets kicked out of office and on Admiral Solovy’s recommendation the next one makes nice with us. Though if that happens, you might not want to go home.” She shrugged. “Tough spot to be in.”
She acknowledged Pello and Odaka’s update of an all-clear on the two floors above then propelled the prisoner forward toward the lift. “You can think it over in a cell. Eventually, though, if you haven’t piped up and given us some useful intel, I’ll send my Prevo girlfriend in to melt your brain with her mind until it spills out your ears. That’s what you’ve been told they do, right?
“You should be aware, they’re still figuring out how some of the details work, so it’ll take a while to kill you. Hurts like a motherfucker, too. And the mess….” She wrinkled her nose. “Liquefied brain matter looks like curdled lentil soup—”
“Wait, wait!”
Seriously, this made the Marine break? Did she believe her mom’s stories of the boogeyman in the closet, too? “I’m listening.”
“I didn’t sign up to die for Winslow.”
In point of fact, you did. But Brooklyn wasn’t about to correct her now. “Of course you didn’t. Is that who sent you? The prime minister herself? What was your mission?”
“The orders came from…they came from Admiral Fullerton, but everyone knows Winslow is controlling the military these days—or the part of the military not loyal to Admiral Solovy. Our orders were to take out as much of the IDCC leadership as possible, but our number one priority was the Prevo, Mia Requelme.”
“See, now, that wasn’t so hard.” She saved the recorded confession in a priority folder in her eVi.
“For what it’s worth, my girlfriend wasn’t actually going to melt your brain. Probably could if she wanted to, though.”