Orphan Brigade (29 page)

“I assume there's a price.”

“Spoken like poor doomed Olech himself. Yes, there is. First, you agree to confess. It's a lot smoother that way, and you'll still get what you were after. Spoiled little bitch, never missed a meal, never wanted for a damned thing, and yet your whole life was one long temper tantrum because Daddy didn't pay attention to you.”

“The confession is only the first thing?”

“Oh, you're going to earn your ticket out of here. Many times over.” The radio disappeared behind him, and the smile widened even more. Large hands reached down and lifted the shirt, slowly unfastening the belt buckle. The fatigue pants dropped to the deck, showing him rigid and ready. “Now you know why they call me the Python.”

She'd never felt so rooted to a spot in her life. The cold concrete reality of the deck beneath her feet, the looming structure behind her, the woods and the water and the island loaded with Sims. She could practically feel the approach of the faux raid force, sent by the losers in the Purge, and yet her racing mind couldn't find a solution. Not a good one, anyway.

Courses of action swirled through her brain, evaluated and then discarded until only two were left. Neither of them desirable, but the plain fact was she'd been outsmarted. She'd forgotten that there were many ­people who hated her father as much as she did. She could see the report on the Bounce, the footage of Olech Mortas's daughter being dragged out of the building in handcuffs, then paraded before the reporters and her face flashed all over the galaxy.

Presented with two bad options, she automatically knew what to do. Pick the least objectionable, even if it was an act pressed on her right there on the platform. Try to salvage something, make the best of a bad situation. Ayliss forced a smile onto her lips.

“Why didn't you let me in on this sooner?” She walked toward him slowly, appraising eyes on his midsection. “I don't care who gets him, as long as I have a part in it.”

“This is your part.” The voice hard, dominant, cruel. The real Python at last. “Now get over here.”

Ayliss stopped, still smiling. She squatted where she was, two yards away. Telling herself it would be all right, that it wasn't her fault this was happening. “No. You come over here.”

“It doesn't work that way, bitch. I
own
you. You're going to do everything I say, for a very long—­”

Ayliss leaned forward, just a bit, feeling her weight shifting toward the big man, the tall man with his back to the short railing. Just as her balance passed the tipping point she pushed off with every muscle in her legs, the fibers singing with frenzied energy, terrified he'd get hold of her hair as she lunged, arms out in front, and her hands were against his shirt and her legs were driving and his eyes were enormous and then his feet, tangled in his trousers, kicked her in the chin as he went over backward.

She still came on, fingers scrabbling for the tube of the railing, moving so fast and so hard that her momentum almost carried her over. Her torso hanging out in the absolute nothingness, her feet leaving the deck for a gut-­clenching second, then she was suspended, looking down, seeing the flailing arms and the ridiculous shackles, then Python slammed into the grass below so hard that he didn't even bounce.

She stared down at him, vibrating with rage, unable to stop looking and not knowing why. Urgent commands bounced through her consciousness, but she kept staring until the true sensation revealed itself. A cold, competent joy radiated through her, and Ayliss Mortas smiled at the crushed body below. Her enemy. Her conquest. Her kill.

An escape ladder ran the length of the building, not far from where Python lay, and finally one of the orders screaming in her brain got her attention. The radio. She took the few steps necessary, looking all around to make sure the event had gone unnoticed, then she was over the railing, feeling the deadly pull of gravity, rushing down the rungs to the grass. The populated floors of the station were far overhead, and there were no windows anywhere nearby.

Walking slowly then, thrilled beyond belief, then becoming ecstatic when she saw Python twitch. Standing over him, taking in the blood that ran from both nostrils and his mouth, not sure but imagining his head was swelling, finally sure he was conscious and aware of her presence. Kneeling now, reaching under him, yanking the small radio off his belt.

“Lucky for me these things are designed to survive all sorts of accidents.” She turned it on, then switched it to an emergency frequency taught to her as a child. Her mind was performing perfectly now, and so she didn't risk having her voice caught on tape somewhere. Standing over the dying Python, Ayliss Mortas began whistling into the radio, a love song popular just a few years earlier. She stopped after the first stanza.

“Oh, but I'm being rude. This is our song, Lee's and mine. No matter where he is, he'll have some kind of device listening for it on this frequency.”

The radio began whistling back, the next stanza of the same song, and she smiled. “See? He's close.”

The radio's thin screen blinked, and a message appeared saying Selkirk would be there in minutes.

“I'm sorry, but I have to go now. Apparently Lee's
very
close.” She glanced around, found what she sought, and walked over to get it. When she returned, Ayliss was holding a skull-­sized rock. She raised it, testing the weight, seeing the fear in the dying eyes.

“I want to thank you for this experience, Python. It really is quite exciting, isn't it?”

L
ater, standing on the bridge of the Force cruiser responsible for patrolling that sector, Ayliss watched the erasure of the thing to which she was undoubtedly connected by surveillance footage and audiotape. None of that would be of any value at all, if the site itself was gone and the island's unusual tenants were eliminated. The calculation was exact, cold, and logical.

Selkirk had been in touch with Hugh Leeger since hearing of the plot from Harlec, and so every clearance necessary had been put in his hands long before he'd brought Ayliss up from the planet. The cruiser's commander was a living, breathing example of the Force officers Python had mentioned, the ones who knew that asking questions got ­people sent to the war zone. He couldn't have been more complimentary, already accepting the story that Chairman Mortas's daughter had uncovered a nest of unspecified treason that had to be eradicated posthaste.

A single rocket was sufficient for the station, where she'd last seen Kletterman running across the launch platform, waving frantically as she and Selkirk had ridden the transit sphere back up to the station. Perhaps they'd been baffled by her sudden departure and thought Python was with her, or maybe they'd found his body and had been pondering what it meant, but the ship's sensors said no one had left the station. The tall building disappeared in a circle of light on the cruiser's main viewing screen, the shock waves flattening many of the trees when they rebounded off the hill.

And then the gunships had gone in, providing much closer footage, the bizarre traitors on the island appearing to welcome them at first. Running from their huts, arms waving, jumping up and down, some embracing, all of them looking so human that no one ever thought for a moment that they were anything else.

The miniguns tore them to pieces, even the ones who tried to swim away, and when the sensors finally indicated nothing was left alive, a thermal bomb flew in and made sure.

Standing next to Ayliss, stone-­faced because of the proximity of the ship's bridge crew and its commander, Lee Selkirk couldn't ask the question that he later decided to simply forget. Watching out of the corner of his eye, sure in the knowledge that Ayliss had never witnessed real violence, he couldn't help but wonder just why the carnage seemed to have no effect on his paramour at all.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“T
hey gave him a sedative, so he'll be asleep for hours.” Reena stood outside the door to the suite she shared with Olech. Leeger stood before her, pain and remorse evident on his face.

“I shouldn't have let him go off alone like that, not with Jan's unit in that kind of a spot. He's had the same reaction so many times in other battles that I honestly thought he was just going back to work.”

“He should never have been allowed to use that room by himself. But that can wait. What is the status of the Orphans?”

“Badly chewed up, but not wiped out. They were already at half strength when they went to Fractus, so when they started taking major casualties, it looked like they'd been destroyed.”

“Do we know if Jan is alive?” Reena asked, afraid of the answer.

“Not yet, but I personally wrote the flash order telling the sector commander to find out immediately. We'll know soon.”

“All right.” Reena pondered something for a moment. “Olech was babbling away at me when I found him. Saying it was all for nothing, that Jan was dead and all he had left was a daughter who hates him. I've told him so many times that he should have taken them into his confidence long ago.”

“So did I.”

“Just before he drifted off he told me to find Ayliss and bring her here. Maybe he's going to finally listen to us. Do we know where she is?”

“Yes.” Leeger looked even more uncomfortable. “Actually, that was why I was so busy. Selkirk contacted me with a minor problem Ayliss encountered out near Broda, but it's been handled and they're both on their way back here.”

“A minor problem?”

“I wasn't going to mention it until we got a definite status on Jan.”

“It's been handled?”

“Yes. A little messy, but nothing to compare with the day we've had here.”

“All right. Get an answer on Jan, then get back to me.”

“Yes, Minister.”

Leeger was almost out the door when Reena spoke again.

“Hugh.”

“Yes, Minister?”

“Did you say the Orphans were at half strength when they went into this thing?”

B
ack aboard ship, Jander Mortas walked as if in a dream. The huge receiving bay rang with the calls of the different medical personnel and the moans of the wounded. They seemed to be everywhere, but this last load consisted of the nonpriority cases, the ones who weren't likely to die waiting for treatment. Bloody bandages underfoot, used tubing and injectors strewn about, and everywhere the filthy figures from the battle for the passes.

After what was left of Dak's squad found him, Mortas had taken charge and moved them to link up with the remainder of the platoon. Berland and Testo were both dead, and he'd quickly realized he didn't have enough healthy bodies to move the wounded, much less the deceased. Struggling to come up with an answer, he'd been saved by the arrival of Emile Dassa and Sergeant Major Zacker, leading an entire company of volunteers from the armored division that was now stuck on the western side of the passes. Both sides had fired new obstacles into the lanes, rendering the entire contest moot.

The tremendous barrage had blown the dust cloud away just far enough for the shuttles to get in, so they'd been evacuated after the wounded and the dead. Counting Mortas himself, First Platoon now consisted of fifteen relatively healthy bodies.

The battalion had taken a ferocious beating, losing Colonel Alden and the operations officer as well as the commanders of both A and B Companies. Captain Noonan and his tiny command group had been found dead inside a natural trench from which they'd ambushed one of the Sim columns as it rushed southward. Enemy bodies were strewn all around the position, and Noonan's party had used all its grenades and much of its ammunition before being overwhelmed. All three of the Orphan Brigade's battalions had been designated combat ineffective because of their losses, and would not be recommitted to the fight.

Mortas stared about him mutely, not recognizing the men on the stretchers. All of them were covered with many days' worth of dirt and dust, so it was impossible to tell if they wore the gray camouflage or the tiger stripes of B Company. Though mixed in with the wounded from other specialties, the infantrymen were easily identifiable by the ruts across their noses and under their eyes where the frames for the goggles had dug in from prolonged wear.

On the shuttle ride up from the surface, Mortas had tried to get comfortable by leaning back against a bulkhead, but kept tilting from left to right until Dak had told him to lean forward. He'd obeyed, uncomprehending, while the NCO tried unsuccessfully to adjust something on the back half of his torso armor. He'd finally asked for Cranther's knife, and dug away for more than a minute. When he was finally done, Dak had presented him with a handful of antipersonnel darts that had been buried in his armor.

A face appeared in front of him, clean, earnest. The man was wearing the full-­body flight suit of the ship's crew, and for some reason Mortas felt he should know who he was.

“Sir? I'm one of the triage techs.”

“I'm fine.” His throat was clogged with the ash from the planet, and Mortas had to clear it loudly. “Go help somebody else.”

“No, I mean I'm one of the triage techs from the night before your brigade went down there.” The face was doubtful, and a cold anger rose up within Mortas's chest. He slowly reached out, taking a handful of the tan fabric in a hand that was black with dirt and cross-­hatched with thin red lines.

“You didn't do what we said?”

“No, no!” The earnest expression returned, and the man made no effort to free himself. “Every casualty went right to surgery. Even the ones that . . . every one of them went to surgery.”

Mortas let go, his mind too fogged to go further.

“We were following the battle from up here, especially the Orphans.”

“You liked the show?”

“No. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I know you need new men.” The tech looked around him, as if fearing he'd be overheard, but then the man straightened up and looked right into Mortas's eyes. “You're the only Orphan officer I've seen, so I figured you're the man to talk to.”

“So talk.”

“I didn't ask for this shitty job, sir. I hate it. I fucking hate it. I hate my supervisors, I hate this ship, and I hate”—­he came up with a handheld that Mortas didn't recognize—­“I hate this goddamned machine, telling me who gets to the docs and who doesn't.”

The tech flung the device away from the wounded, against a dark bulkhead where it made a loud crack before falling to the deck.

“I been out here a year, and I've never seen any of my bosses stand up for anybody. And when your colonel came in with you and the others, threatening us, telling us not to send anybody to the Waiting Room, Orphan or not . . . I only wish I'd had the guts to say what I'm going to say now.”

“And what is that?”

“Take me with you.”

“I
thought you'd look a little different.” Reena Corlipso greeted Ayliss in an empty hallway at Unity. Olech's daughter had been escorted to one of the lowermost floors, which meant they were far below the surface of the Earth.

“What's that supposed to mean?'

“I dunno. Me, when I make a whopper of a mistake, it shows. But you don't think you make mistakes, do you, Ayliss?”

“I was about to say the same thing to you.”

“Walk with me.” Reena didn't wait to see if her command was being obeyed. The walls of this particular corridor were a mottled gray, a composite material loaded with sensors that reported the slightest movement, vibration, or change in the electrical field.

“So what's that you're wearing? Is this the official ‘reprimand' outfit?” Ayliss asked as she came up beside her.

Reena smiled tolerantly, glancing down at the severe black suit. “As a matter of fact it is. But you're not the recipient of today's reprimand. Not from me, anyway.”

“So you're taking me to Father.”

“I am. But I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Not surprising. We've always been so close.”

Reena stopped short. “How about thinking about somebody other than yourself for a few minutes? When the fight went against us on Fractus, Olech thought Jan's unit had been wiped out. He thought Jan had been killed.”

“But he wasn't. And he's still out there in the zone, so forgive me if I don't believe Father was all that broken up about it.”

“What are you saying?”

“That Father doesn't care about Jan or me. If he was so worried about Jan getting killed out there, he'd have brought
him
back here, not me. He never cared about us, or Mother.” The blue eyes took on an appraising glint. “I would have expected you to have figured that out by now. Unless, of course, you're not willing to consider what that might mean about you and him.”

“You really are amazing. You're so much like him—­”

“Don't ever say that again.”

“You're so much like him, and yet you can't see that it's all an act. An act he's kept up for seventeen years.”

“Tough role, especially the part where he had to screw all those young women.”

“No wonder you got fooled so easily out there. You've got his mind for strategy, but you don't use it. You don't ask any of the right questions. You let your anger propel you through life, and you were surprised when somebody used that against you.”

“I'm here, aren't I? And they're all . . . found out, aren't they? Not sure I fell for anything.”

“Lie to yourself all you want, but Hugh already debriefed your idiot boyfriend. You got lucky, both of you.”

“So what were those questions I was supposed to ask, Reena? Those ‘right' questions?”

“You could start by wondering if you're simply wrong. If your assumptions aren't as good as you think they are.”

“And what assumptions were those?”

“That your mother died of natural causes.”

Ayliss stepped in close, anger twisting her features, raising lines that Reena had never seen on her face before.

“Bullshit. You weren't there.”

“You were six years old, so you weren't there either. It was poison, slow-­acting and painful, and not hard to identify.”

“You're making this up.”

“Why would I? Why would I bother even talking to you? You have no idea how many times I've told Olech to take away your credentials, put you someplace where you can't hurt him, and
forget all about you
.”

“He already did that last part.”

“Here it is: your father was rising quickly in the Interplanetary Senate back then. One of the Unwavering, smart, loaded with charisma, but hard to control. So somebody murdered his wife to let him know that he was going to get in line or suffer more of the same. Get it?”

“Is that what he told you? He's a born liar. He's lied to me so many times I lost count.”

“I doubt that. Keeping score is one of the few things you do well. But you don't have to believe me. When Hugh's done chewing out your boyfriend, he'll be happy to confirm this. Your father distanced himself from you and Jan to save your lives. The only way to protect you was to act like he didn't care about what happened to you . . . or what happened to your mother.”

“So who's supposed to have committed this murder? I bet there's a great big nasty part of this story where a whole bunch of bad guys got chopped into little pieces. Oh wait, I got confused. That was the Purge. And it had nothing to do with my mother.”

“To this day Olech hasn't learned who murdered Lydia, and you'd be surprised by how little he had to do with the Purge.”

“That's not what Python said. According to him, that whole setup on Echo was arranged by ­people seeking revenge for what Father did to their relatives. You know, the way a normal person would react if somebody murdered someone they loved.”

“You poisonous little bitch. I'm done talking with you.” Reena pointed to the end of the dark corridor. “Your father's waiting in there. Maybe he can convince you there's something bigger than your hate.”

T
he room was dark, but Ayliss could tell it was large. The door slid shut behind her, as silently as it had opened. Her father stood twenty yards away, near the space's only light source. A single spotlight shone down from the shadows far overhead, on a piece of equipment with many reflective parts.

She walked forward slowly, not the least bit afraid. As she got closer, Ayliss saw that the piece of equipment was the size of a large desk and that it was apparently an outdated space probe. The main segment was a metallic cylinder that sprouted a ­couple of large antennae and an array of solar cells. Two small hatches stood open atop the cylinder, the doors made from the container's curved walls. The entire rig was perched on a display stand, but there was nothing to explain its purpose or why it was kept in so secure an area.

“You like it?” Olech wore one of his military-­style suits, the red ribbon of the Unwavering standing out against the dark fabric. Her father was standing slightly in shadow, and she noted that his hand gripped the display stand as if to steady him.

“Looks like a heap of old space junk.”

“It is, in a way. But it's also an important artifact. The only fitting piece to display next to this one would probably be the first wheel.”

“Bit of an overstatement, if you ask me.” She leaned over, peering inside the empty container. “Looks like one of those old ‘alien contact' probes, the ones they used to send out to see if we were alone in the universe.”

“That's exactly what it is. Sort of a cross between a time capsule and a message in a bottle. They launched thousands of the things over the decades, hoping to make contact with other life-­forms. They loaded them with tapes and video and printed pictures because they didn't know how a different life-­form might communicate. They even included star charts showing where Earth is—­pretty stupid, given what we know now.