THE ANNIHILATORS

A few hours later they were back on the Palatine, showered, dressed, and fed. Nova and Mal had even grabbed a few precious minutes of sleep in their quarters before meeting once again with Hauler on the bridge to debrief.

Rourke was there, as well as all six of the other ghosts. Nova looked around at her new team. She and Mal had read their files carefully enough to come up with nicknames for them, but had barely had the chance to get them together in one room yet. Bones, the thin one who had helped her search Oasis, skilled at teep interrogation; Lethal, a pretty young woman who was an expert in hand-to-hand combat; Rook, a cocky young man fresh out of the academy, with an IQ over 150; the Veteran, a distinguished-looking man with graying hair and the oldest and most experienced assassin; Rip, a woman with a shaved head and rippling muscles; and Guns, another sharpshooter and weapons expert.

They went over everything they had so far, including the most recent information gathered about a Umojan spy sighting, Nova’s run-in with the mysterious cloaked figure, and the possible meanings of the words spectre and Shadowblade. Nobody could make the puzzle pieces fit together.

“Whoever is behind the disappearances of the ghosts has military training,” Hauler said. “It’s clear by the sheer amount of planning and the execution of these missions. If you’re going to abduct a ghost, you’d damn well better have your plans set and tested. And they do.”

“Could be UED after all, sir,” Rourke said. “Makes sense.”

Mal shook his head. “There’s nothing we’ve found that indicates a link like that, other than planted information meant to lure a ghost into a trap. UED cells would need support, a line of trade for supplies. There would be a paper trail.”

“Can we even be sure that the abductions and the terrorist attacks on Dominion targets are related?” Rourke said. “Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe the ghosts are going AWOL.”

“They’re related,” Nova said. “Ghosts wouldn’t go AWOL with their neural inhibitors in place. And eyewitnesses report psionic abilities among the attackers. There’s no question about it. Our job is to find out why they’re doing this and try to recover the missing ghosts. It’s that simple.”

“There’s something else.” Mal turned to the holoprojector and put up a hologram of a map. “I’ve plotted the abductions and the attacks, looking for patterns. I’ve discovered something interesting. If you look here”—he pointed to red and green dots in the Koprulu sector—“you’ll see what I mean.”

The red and green clustered around each other, roughly pairing off: one abduction, and an attack. But that wasn’t what stood out the most to Nova. The entire group of dots, when taken together, looked more or less like a straight line.

“They’re mobile,” she said. “They’re attacking short range from some kind of base, but it’s not on any one planet or space platform. It’s moving.”

“Exactly.” Mal looked around the room. “They’ve got something large enough to transport them all and their weaponry, but small enough to remain hidden.”

“That’s impossible,” Hauler said. “Our sensors would have picked up something like that.”

The room fell silent. Nobody wanted to admit what they were feeling: that even after all their work, there was precious little to go on.

“Battlecruiser approaching, sir,” the communications officer said. “Appears to be the 22nd Marine Division. Hailing on comm channel 244 and asking to board.”

“Spaulding and the Annihilators,” Mal said. “Just when I thought our luck couldn’t get any worse.”

“What the hell does he want?” Hauler said. “All right. Tell him permission granted. Although if he pisses me off, I’m going to boot him right back to where he came from. The rest of you are dismissed.”

Half an hour later, Major Spaulding was pacing back and forth on the bridge, his bulbous nose reddened, mustache twitching with anger. He’d brought Vincent with him, a former sergeant and veteran of the fall of Tarsonis, now a captain and the Annihilators’ second-in-command. Vincent stood behind him near the door, arms crossed and looking as if he were ready to chew nails.

“How was I not informed of this operation?” Spaulding said. “That was my ghost who disappeared on Altara, and it’s my responsibility to find out what happened to her. Kelerchian, do you understand what I’m saying? I’m talking to you.”

Nova was struggling with her composure, her entire body shaking. These strange visions were becoming too much to bear, and the appearance of Spaulding and Vincent brought back another wave of memories, none of them good. Their hard, war-scarred faces triggered a mixture of anger, fear, and sadness in her, and she kept getting vivid glimpses of those long, hard days on Tarsonis under the drug dealer and crime lord Fagin’s thumb, ordering her to do things she shuddered to think about now. Spaulding and the Annihilators should have been heroes to her, but instead he and Ndoci had written her off and literally brought the roof down around her head. If Mal hadn’t been there to save her with his suit’s shield, her life would have ended in the crumbled remains of a Tarsonis drug den. For the first time in a while, she wondered if things might have been better if it had.

And there was another odd thing she had noticed immediately, another uncomfortable association back to Fagin and those days in the Gutter: she couldn’t read Spaulding at all. When he had arrived on deck, he was wearing a psi-screen.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have lost her in the first place,” Mal said. “Ever think of that?”

“You son of a—” Spaulding stepped forward, but Colonel Hauler stuck a forearm out to stop him.

“This is my ship,” Hauler said. “These orders are straight from the emperor himself. Nova and Kelerchian are in charge, and we are to provide any means of support necessary for the success of their mission. End of story. You don’t like it, you take it up with him.”

“Maybe I will,” Spaulding said, but the fire had gone out of his eyes, and he seemed to sag against Hauler’s muscled arm.

“What’s with the screen?” Kelerchian said. “Getting paranoid in your old age?”

“I don’t trust her,” Spaulding said, waving in Nova’s direction. One hand wandered up to the screen behind his ear and touched it, then dropped to his side. “I don’t trust either of you. This isn’t over, I promise you that.” Then he turned and stormed out of the room, Captain Vincent on his heels, Vincent’s thoughts echoing in her head as the door slid shut.

(deal with that slike later)

“What bug crawled up his ass?” Hauler muttered.

“We have some history,” Kelerchian said, staring after them. “His commanding officer, Ndoci, wasn’t exactly a pal of ours, and I think he blames me and Nova somehow for her death. Don’t ask me why. What I heard, she was killed when her dropship crash-landed in a zerg firefight.”

“To be clear, I don’t give a damn about any of that. Just keep it off my ship.” Hauler turned to Nova. “According to Mengsk, you and the wrangler are in charge. I’ve made that clear enough to Spaulding. So what now, big shot?”

“I …” Nova blinked, trying to focus herself. But that was proving difficult. Behind Colonel Hauler stood Julius Antoine “Fagin” Dale, his shaved skull gleaming in the bright lights of the bridge. He was grinning at her, teeth filed to familiar points, his muscled arms rippling as he flexed his hands.

About time we met again, little curve … I got some plans for you. I think you’re gonna love ’em.

Nova clenched her jaw to keep from screaming. When she looked away and then back again, Fagin was gone. He wasn’t real: she knew that. And yet seeing him again after all these years, remembering all over again the pain and terror and horrible things she had done under his command … it made her feel as if she was losing her mind.

“I—I need a minute,” she said, ignoring the looks of the others on deck as she stumbled from the room and into the hallway, legs threatening to collapse under her. She was relieved to find it was empty; the last thing she needed now was some marine looking her up and down and imagining all the things he would do if he got her alone.

But as she tried to center herself again, the lights flickered and dimmed, and Fagin’s second-in-command, Markus Ralian, stepped from the shadows, his face bloodied and torn, brick dust in his hair, a flap of skin hanging from his cheek and exposing his teeth and jawbone.

You killed him, you slike, he said. It might have been my hand that pulled the trigger, but it was you who forced me to do it. He pointed a finger at her, his bloodshot eyes shining in the dim light, his exposed jaw looking like a permanent grin. You remember that.

“You’re not real,” Nova said. “You’re dead.”

Maybe so. But I’ll always be inside your head now. Me and Fagin and everyone else you hurt. What about all those people you killed back on Tarsonis with that mind blast of yours? Some three hundred of them at once, wasn’t it? That’s some record right there. Don’t think even Fagin killed so many. And since then you just kept on killing. Joined the ghost program to get away from that and forget, but here you are, a trained assassin, still killing for others. It’s what you’re good at, ain’t it? You might look like a little angel, but inside you’re empty and dead too, just like us.

Nova was overwhelmed by a wave of emotions. She knew none of this was really happening, but it felt so real. She had fought so hard to erase all traces of her past, who she was and what she had done. Now these visions were hammering it all back in again. And it was all true, wasn’t it? She’d been dead inside ever since that day back at her childhood home when she had found her parents dead and watched her brother slaughtered, all of them betrayed by her mother’s trusted confidante—someone none of them would have ever suspected. The same day that she had lashed out in agony at the sight, her psionic burst instantly killing everyone within a hundred meters of her.

Becoming a ghost was a way of running from what she had seen and done. But that was so long ago, and she had lost sight of all that had ever meant anything to her. The Old Families were long gone; the Confederacy had toppled; and she was now a ghost in every sense of the word, adrift in a sea of corruption and violence, doomed to end her life alone and forgotten.

“Hey, you okay?” Mal Kelerchian was at her side, his face lined with worry. She realized she was on the floor, her face wet. She tried to speak, swallowed against a lump in her throat. She had never been good at being vulnerable, even though she felt that way inside more often than she would ever admit. To everyone else, she knew, she was like a rock, a stone-cold assassin and the best weapon in the Dominion’s considerable arsenal. But inside, she was still that little girl lost and alone in the Gutter, hiding behind an AAI—an advertising artificial intelligence unit—and wishing she could just go back to the way things were.

“Come on, easy now.” Mal touched her arm, bringing her to her feet, his voice tender and gentle. She sagged into him, forgetting for a moment that she was a ghost agent, so relieved to let someone take the weight from her for just a moment.

He looked her in the eyes, forcing her to focus. “What happened out here?”

“Something’s really wrong with me, Mal,” she said, drawing a great shuddering breath and letting it out slowly. “I need to see Shaw. Right now.”

“Hmmm.” Dr. Shaw fiddled with a monitor and ran a wand over her temple. “Your neural implant seems to be functioning properly. All other cognitive and physical tests are normal—if anything, you seem to be functioning at a higher level.” He set the wand down and stepped away from the bed so subtly as to be barely noticeable, if it weren’t for the feelings of discomfort and dread radiating off him. To Nova, they were as clear as if they had been painted across his forehead.

(stay away stay away stay away)

She sighed and turned to look at Mal, who had taken a seat in the corner. “I’m seeing things,” she said. “Things that aren’t there but are as real to me as you are standing here. I’m remembering things about my past that should have been wiped away. Tell me how that’s normal.”

“Sometimes,” Shaw said, “when the mind is under a great deal of stress—”

“Cut the bull, Doc,” Mal said. “Nova’s been through one hell of a lot worse than this, and it’s never made her hallucinate. The woman’s hurting here, and she needs an answer. It isn’t stress. You need to report it.”

Nova looked at him gratefully. It had been a long time since anyone had acted as if they cared about her. “What about the results from the samples of gas we were able to collect from the refinery leak?” she asked. “Have you run any more tests on them?”

Shaw hesitated. “The gas is fairly unstable. The samples we took did not remain active for long, and it was difficult to gather much more data …”

(don’t tell her)

“Don’t tell me what?”

Shaw took another step back. “I don’t appreciate you intruding into my thoughts,” he said. “There are rules about that sort of thing, you know.”

“I don’t give a flick about the rules,” Mal said. “She asked you a question.”

Shaw’s eyes darted from Mal to Nova and back again. “I—I’m really not sure it’s appropriate at this point to discuss the implications.”

“Oh, it’s appropriate,” Mal said. “I give you permission, Doc. Spill the beans. Or should we just let Nova interrogate you?”

Shaw sighed and rubbed the white stubble on his head. “Please understand that this is only preliminary. It could confirm most of the symptoms you’ve been experiencing, but I don’t want to speculate beyond that. We’ve tested a chemical compound I’ve isolated on living brain tissue. It would appear to have the capability to repair damage done by processes like mind wipes. I’ve seen what seem to be nerve cells regenerating in the lab. If that’s true …” Shaw nodded. “It could explain the hallucinations.”

“It’s doing more than that,” Nova said.

(she knows)

“I know what?”

“I’ve also seen some activity in areas of the brain that we have linked to psionic activation,” Shaw said quickly. “It may have the potential to heighten hidden psionic abilities.”

“What are we talking about here?” Mal said. “Normals who suddenly start hearing voices?”

“For those who possess a psi index that we consider normal, this probably wouldn’t be noticeable. But for those who are low-level teeps, or classified as candidates for the ghost program, it may enhance their abilities. Possibly a full point or more.”

Mal’s fone chirped. “Why don’t you take that?” Shaw said. “I have to attend to the wounded. The fight with the zerg caused a lot of injuries, some very severe, I’m afraid. I’ll be back shortly.”

“I’d like to talk to you—”

“I really have to go,” Shaw said. “We can talk later.” He turned and almost ran from the room.

“He’s hiding something,” Nova said. “I didn’t get anything else from his thoughts—he was working pretty hard on suppressing them—but he’s not telling us everything.”

“Agreed. But what—and why?”

Good question. Nova glanced at Mal as his fone chirped again. “You going to get that?”

Mal nodded and reached for the fone, placing it to his ear. She watched as his eyes widened. “It’s an encrypted message,” he said. “Directly from Mengsk, recorded a few minutes ago. It’s not entirely clear …” His voice trailed off as he listened. “Oh, fekk.”

“What?”

“It’s the capital,” he said. “Augustgrad is under attack.”