No More Heroes: In the Wake of the Templars Book Three (37 page)

“Yeah. It should be clear now.”

“Got the prisoner transfer paperwork?”

“Gisela does. I’m glad Jim dug up that antique datascreen.”

They stood there awkwardly, until Gisela commed back to them. “There’s a welcoming party forming up outside,” she reported. “A heavily armed welcoming party.”

“You okay?” Kavanaugh asked her.

“I’m under control,” the girl promised.

Mykah looked curious, but he didn’t ask. Instead, he tugged his uniform jacket down and asked Kavanaugh, “Ready?”

“Let’s do it.”

Mykah opened the door and Kavanaugh went in to sling Raena over his shoulder. She weighed little more than a child.

*   *   *

Jim met them at the hatch with the restraints. He and Gisela pinned Raena’s arms behind her back, then hobbled her at knees and ankles.

Mykah tugged the uniform jacket down one last time and nodded to Gisela to open the hatch. He stepped out of the
Veracity
first, followed by his “aide.” Kavanaugh came last, with Raena slung over his shoulder. Jim stayed hidden aboard the ship.

Ten Thallians stood on the landing pad. All but one stood at attention. The last, dressed in silver and black brocade, was Aaron Thallian, head of Thallian family security.

Raena had drilled Mykah on how to behave. Any Imperial officer, she said, believed himself superior to any planetary officer. Mykah was to hold himself graciously, managing neither to condescend nor be too familiar. He was better than the Thallians, but the character he was playing still wanted a favor from Jonan and, by extension, his family.

“Thank you for taking her off our hands, Lord Thallian.” Mykah reached out to Gisela, who placed the datascreen in his hand.

Aaron seemed in no hurry to take it. “She doesn’t look very threatening, Captain Chen.”

“Not now,” Mykah agreed. “However, I’m sure your brother has apprised you of her criminal record.”

A moment ticked past and Mykah understood that Jonan Thallian had done no such thing. He changed the subject. “With your kind permission, we will await the arrival of the
Arbiter
here. We have some necessary repairs to make before we resume orbit.”

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“The last time we allowed her to become conscious, Zacari managed to kill two more of my men, Lord Thallian. We have a hastily patched hull breach to attend to.”

Aaron Thallian looked back at Raena. Mykah had suggested that she simply pretend to be sedated and attack the Thallians on the landing platform, but Kavanaugh pointed out that they couldn’t assume the Thallians would shoot to stun, especially once she started killing them. It was better, Raena agreed, that they underestimate her—even if that would insult Mykah’s character’s vanity.

Aaron Thallian took the datascreen and signed off on the prisoner transfer. He signaled one of the clones to step forward and take Raena from Kavanaugh’s arms.

Mykah kept his face impassive as he accepted the datascreen back. “Do we have your permission to make our repairs?”

“Yes,” Aaron said grudgingly. “Let us know if you require assistance.”

*   *   *

As Jim watched the security detail go back into the city, he studied the city’s defenses. Not surprisingly, the wall had a genetic lock, which Aaron overrode to take Raena into the city. She would need that same code to get herself out.

The boy had yet to set foot in the city where his family lived before the War. He’d seen its ruins from a distance, of course, but even a decade after the bombing, the rubble had still been too contaminated to explore.

In that future, Uncle Revan had believed that the boys should know their history, so he had taken it upon himself to model the city for them—in hopes that someday the boys would be able to bring it back to life. Jim wasn’t alone in believing Uncle Revan was deluded about ever living on the planet’s surface again. Even so, family history had interested him. He’d been an attentive student.

After daybreak, when family members started to come and go into the city, Jim combed his hair a final time and checked the shine on his boots. Then he slipped out of the
Veracity
.

His first real test would be the gate in the city wall. Jim approached it casually, aware that Kavanaugh and Gisela were hidden behind him on the mountainside, watching his progress through snipers’ rifles. Gisela promised that if anything about Jim triggered the city’s defenses or alerted the guards on the wall, she would give him time to run.

No alarms went off. The city recognized him as a Thallian.

Jim turned left inside the gate and walked to the boys’ barracks. Luck was with him. He didn’t have to wait very long before a boy about his age came back from breakfast alone. Jim waited until he was sure which locker belonged to the boy, then snuck up behind him and slapped the palm needle into the back of his neck. Raena was right. The saxitoxin worked almost immediately.

Jim caught the boy as he collapsed. He dragged him over to an unused locker and tucked him inside. Raena had warned that while the toxin would make his victim docile, it would also make it difficult for him to breathe. He had to be propped up somewhere, or he’d suffocate.

Jim hadn’t thought he would care. He had loathed his family members with varying degrees of hatred. This kid was a stranger who merely shared his likeness. But now, facing his doppelgänger, Jim couldn’t help identifying with his cousin. The boy shared Jim’s gray eyes and jawline, the blue-black hair and the long straight nose. Maybe he was a victim of his elders’ abuse, just as Jim had been. Something like pity trembled through Jim. Before he left, he would try to leave the kid where someone could find him and give him the antitoxin.

Then Jim took a deep breath, shut the locker door, and returned to the kid’s own locker. He stole the boy’s clothing, datascreen, and security passes. Jim hoped that any adults he encountered would be too preoccupied to examine him closely. Despite what the
Veracity
crew believed, the clones were adept at telling each other apart. Jim was glad Gisela had cut his hair to be less distinctive.

Jim left the barracks and entered the library next door. Inside, after roaming a bit, he found a quartet of isolated study carrels. Because his family’s tech never progressed after the War isolated them, Jim knew what to expect from the city’s computer systems. He’d come prepared. After a few minutes, he had his anachronistic handheld connected to a terminal. Opening his translation of the Templar Master’s formula, he called on the city’s databanks to begin analyzing it, taking pains to keep the data flowing into his handheld, not the other way around.

The handheld lit up with an initial screenful of information. He’d been right: it indicated a foundation of human genetics plus viral manipulation. Unfortunately, it was at a much higher level than he could comprehend. He asked the computer to begin a deeper analysis and attached the handheld to the underside of the desk to let it process without interruption.

Jim moved to the carrel adjacent and cabled another handheld—Mykah’s—to the terminal there. This handheld contained nothing but a modification of Coni’s kill-switch program. He readied it to run as soon as he finished his analysis of the Templar formula. Once started, the program would begin to multiply itself, overwriting the city databanks with random bytes and destroying all of the family’s research.

Jim settled into the next carrel and turned on its terminal. He poked through the research reports in his family’s files. Some of what he found was familiar: projects that had been built upon while he was living at home. Other things, especially the art and musical experiments, had been abandoned after the War.

Something strange caught his attention. There were references to his father’s last visit home and the “animals” he’d brought along. Jim hadn’t known that the family ever kept a menagerie beyond the beasts they bred for food.

He suspected the handheld decoding the Templar’s message would be working a while longer. He had time to take a walk and see what had captured his father’s interest.

*   *   *

When Raena woke, she lay on a smooth white block of stone. Assaultively bright light filled the cell. In place of its fourth wall hung a forcefield so steady and seamless as to be invisible. Outside it stood a gray-eyed man with strict military posture.

Raena looked up into the Thallian clone’s face. This one looked much more like Raena’s memories of Jonan than the man she’d set on fire in his bed. This clone wore a short black beard, cut close to emphasize his jawline, but his eyes glowed the same hard silver as she remembered Jonan’s did.

“Tell me why my brother wants you kept alive,” the clone said.

Raena smiled. “I used to work for him aboard the
Arbiter
. I served as his aide.”

“Past tense?” he asked.

“I objected to his treatment of a Coalition prisoner,” Raena said. “Your younger brother put a bounty on me when I left his service.”

“Not a reason for your continued survival, then.”

“This is: as far as Jonan knew, I was still imprisoned in the Master’s tomb on the Templar tombworld. He will want to know how I escaped. I consent to be your prisoner until he comes to reclaim me.”

“You consent?” the clone scoffed.

“Yes.”

That fazed him enough that he left without a response.

*   *   *

Jim stopped inside the building’s doors to let his eyes adjust. At the heart of the darkened bunker, several clones of his father’s generation had gathered inside a plastic-sheathed room. Beneath hyper-bright lights, they were garbed in surgical robes and wore breathing masks.

Jim tried to look like he had a purpose as he drew nearer. He traced the pipes running into the surgical tent. One was labeled as cyanogen, a hot-burning gas he had used for dismantling ships. Jim glanced around, seeing stalls instead of machinery. He stared at the surgical suite, trying to figure out what they were doing here.

Inside the tent, something spasmed, something deep brown and covered with wiry whiskers. It took Jim a moment to identify it as the hind leg of a Templar.

“Lock that down,” snarled one of the clones. Jim shivered at the familiar tone of command.

Another clone restrained the flailing limb.

A third clone sparked a cutting torch. Jim could smell it, poisonous and hot, before they cut into the Templar. The scent abruptly went putrid.

“That’s lighting it up good,” the first clone said. “Keep on with that.”

Swallowing hard against the bile that burned his throat, Jim walked with measured steps out of the bunker.

He marched over to the vehicle depot. Using his stolen ID, Jim checked out a jet bike. He’d concocted a story about where he was going, but the bored clone manning the garage didn’t care. It was a beautiful sunny day. That was excuse enough.

Jim went over what he was going to tell Captain Chen, but he couldn’t think of anything that kept him from feeling ashamed.

*   *   *

After the girl had been given her breakfast—which she refused to eat—Aaron Thallian returned to stand outside the forcefield. This time he brought an armed guard, in case he needed to interrogate the girl. “You were correct,” he told her. “Jonan wants you alive. He is coming home with all speed.”

The girl nodded calmly. “Did he tell you also that he’s bringing a message from the Emperor?”

Aaron stared at her. “How could you know that?”

“Who do you think let me out of the Templar Master’s tomb?”

“Why didn’t Jonan do it?”

“He has a mission to fulfill. Has he given you any indication what that might be?”

Aaron did not like the way the girl played with him. Granted, his interaction with females had been limited, since family doctrine forbade him to mate. Be that as it may, she appeared too much in control for someone ostensibly his prisoner.

He touched the lock outside her cell, then passed through the forcefield. She merely sat on her bunk and watched him.

“Who are you really?” he insisted.

“Your brother told you who I am.”

“The Empire executed Raena Zacari for treason.”

“You haven’t found any recording of my execution, have you?”

Rather than answer, he said, “The wanted poster shows that Zacari had a scar across her face.”

“I had it removed,” Raena said.

“Jonan said your back would be scarred.”

Zacari stood languidly. She grabbed hold of the zipper of her jumpsuit and opened it to the waist. She let the sleeves drop from her shoulders, then turned to display the ridges of scar tissue that striped diagonally across her back. “Did he tell you how he marked me like this?”

Aaron’s mouth went dry. He wanted to touch her scars so badly that he quivered.

She did not turn to gauge his reaction. Instead, she stood at attention, proud of what she’d survived. She might have been a Thallian herself, Aaron thought, before he shook the thought away.

“He striped me with accelerant and set me on fire,” she said, “in his stateroom aboard the
Arbiter
. He was furious that I’d dared to distract him from torturing a Coalition smuggler. He couldn’t forgive me for being jealous.”

She turned to face Aaron again, naked to the hips except for a tight black band across her small breasts. She pointed to the scar just beneath her ribs. “While protecting your brother, I was shot in the conference room aboard the
Arbiter
. Your brother licked my blood from his gloved fingers.”

When she didn’t say anything more, Aaron dragged his gaze back up to her face.

“Shall I tell you the stories of the rest of my scars?” she asked. He would have said she was flirting with him. “Or have you seen enough?”

“Enough.” Aaron tore himself away, retreating out of the cell.

Raena Zacari shrugged back into her clothing and sat down again.

*   *   *

“Vivisection?” Kavanaugh echoed, disgust thick in his voice. “Why would they need to do that to make the plague?”

“They’re not making the plague yet,” Mykah corrected. “Thallian hasn’t brought them the order. They’re just learning to torture the ‘bugs.’”