Kill by Numbers: In the Wake of the Templars Book Two (22 page)

Raena’s first thought was relief that Ariel was safe. She started to jog after her mistress, then halted abruptly. She’d been left behind, abandoned like a broken toy. Ariel didn’t know if she was alive or dead, but her priority had been her father, not her slave.

On Nyx, slavery had been outlawed. In order for Ariel’s dad to bring Raena along to guard Ariel, he’d had to register Raena as a bodyguard instead of a possession. He’d taken off her collar. If she stayed here, no one owned her. No one could. She could only be hired, not purchased.

Free.

She’d be able to choose her own work. All she needed to do was to hide until the Shaad family returned to Callixtos without her.

The realization was so overwhelming that Raena felt lightheaded. Oblivious to the screaming and chaos around her, she sank down on a broken hunk of skyscraper to absorb her good fortune and decide how to celebrate.

A bearded old man appeared, climbing over the broken building down the street. He called her name.

Raena froze where she sat, certain that if she moved, he would see her. She stared hard at him, trying to figure out who he was, but nothing about him—from his tangled white beard to his spotted bald head—looked the least bit familiar.

As if he felt her gaze on him, his face swiveled her way. Raena watched his eyes lock onto her. A smile split his face. He looked like Death to her.

She raised her left hand to wave at him.

When he waved back, she shot him in the chest and knocked him back off the pile of rubble.

Raena opened her eyes, rubbing at the headache lodged over her right temple. Enough with the shooting Gavin dead, already. Now that she was awake, she knew that was who the old man in the dream had represented.

Enough dreams. Enough death. She had more pressing concerns now. She pushed herself up off the banquette and crossed to the comm. “What’s the status, Haoun?”

“We’re docked at the elevator, waiting for the crew to come up. There will be a slight delay before we can take off. Apparently some lunkhead confiscated Mykah’s groceries, so they’re having to find us replacements.”

“Thanks to Mellix,” Raena guessed.

“Exactly.”

She smiled, then changed the subject. “I didn’t get any chance to enjoy the view earlier, when I was working outside. Do I have time to go out for a little walk?”

“Don’t see why not. I’ll let you know when it’s time to go.”

Raena retrieved her new spacesuit from her cabin and climbed back into it. She eased the gloves on as she walked to the airlock.

It had been a while since she’d felt the need to get out for a spacewalk. Now, with Mellix aboard, the
Veracity
felt claustrophobic. She
had
to get out.

Not that the journalist had been the least bit unfriendly. If anything, he’d been too friendly. The last thing Raena wanted was to be friends with anyone who asked questions for a living.

She knew she could lie persuasively. She’d spent a great deal of her life doing just that: protecting her mother, placating Ariel’s father, pleasing Thallian. It was exhausting, all that lying.

She stepped into the airlock and closed the hatch behind her, waiting for the air to vent back into the ship before she opened the outer hatch. This hatch faced away from the station, out into space. The stars overhead twinkled in the blackness, their lights disrupted by the
Veracity
’s energy shields.

It was so lovely out here. She masked the hiss of her breathing, then cancelled out the beating of her heart. Blessed silence enfolded her.

Raena closed the outer hatch and moved away from it. Her magnetic boots connected solidly to the
Veracity
’s hull so that her hands could drift free. She felt tension evaporating from her. Too bad she couldn’t just stay out here in the quiet all the time.

She sat on the hull and clipped herself down with a second tether. The stars drew her gaze.

When she and Ariel were teenagers, they used to play a game with Ariel’s friends that they called Kill by Numbers. It was kind of like tag, but played in the target range. Everyone chose weapons from Ariel’s father’s shop, locked them on stun, then entered the range. The computer assigned each player a number—and a numbered player they were supposed to “kill.” Every time someone was eliminated from play, the numbers scrambled and you got a new target. When you played the game, alliances were temporary. Truces were fleeting. The only way to end the game was to be the last person standing.

Once the game had come down to Ariel and Raena, the last two players left. Ariel tried to boss the computer, order it to end the game and let them out. Instead, the computer mobilized drones to come after them.

Ariel fired until she’d drained her gun, but there were too many drones for her to take them all down. Worst of all, the drone shots stung. Ariel was crying in anger and frustration as much as in pain when Raena turned her own gun on herself. Unfortunately, the computer didn’t accept that. You couldn’t win by giving up.

In the end, she’d crawled over and shot Ariel point-blank.

Afterward, Ariel told her not to worry about it, that it was only a game, but Raena never played again. She knew that, when it came down to it, there were always only two choices: suicide or murder.

These dreams with Gavin reminded her of Kill By Numbers. No matter when he turned up or what he looked like, she had his number. He had to die.

She sat for a moment longer, wondering whom she had to kill to make the nightmares stop. Killing Gavin over and over in her dreams hadn’t given her any peace.

No answer presented itself. All right then, she told herself, back to work. She pulled Coni’s handheld from the thigh pocket of her spacesuit and began scanning the hull. For all she knew, Mellix’s assassins had had the presence of mind to bug the
Veracity
when they saw it come to the rescue. She wanted to be certain that no one would follow, wherever the
Veracity
headed next.

The others were in high spirits when she came in from her walk. They were so giddy that she wondered if they’d ever been arrested before. The volume and excitement were enough to make her really feel the difference between her age and theirs.

She cautioned them to check everything they brought on board for tracking devices: “To make sure no one is following Mellix,” she said. That was enough to make them eager and cautious.

While they were busy, she slipped away to her cabin.

Some time later, Mykah tapped on her door. Raena looked up from the computer, where she had been trying to sort out her memories. She knew she couldn’t have shot Gavin on Nyx—that just didn’t make sense—but the dream seemed as certain as any of her memories now.

Grimacing, she forced herself to stand up, stroke her hair up into its staticky splendor, and answer the door.

“We’re getting everything unpacked and put away, but I thought you would want this sooner rather than later.” Mykah handed her the small glass carafe of sleep drops.

Raena felt lightheaded from relief. “What do I owe you?”

“I paid for it out of the fund for ship stores. You’re covered.”

“Thank you. Really. Thank you. Do you need me for anything now?” She cradled the flask delicately in her hands. “I might just take a nap.”

“How long have you been up?”

“I dozed off for a moment, but other than that, since just before we originally docked at Capital City. I’ve lost track of how many hours that’s been.”

“Too long.” Mykah stretched. “I caught a nap while we were in station custody, but I’m headed to bed before too much longer, too. I just wanted you to know that we haven’t found any sort of trackers yet.”

“Good. No harm in being paranoid, though.”

“Mellix agrees. He thanks you for thinking of it. He says I ought to double your share of his network’s reward to us. He thinks you’ve more than earned it.”

Raena shook her head. “I’m glad for the work. Buy me more apples and I’ll be fine.”

Mykah laughed at her. “I’ll make us a victory feast, after we all get some sleep.”

“Perfect.” Raena would have said her voice positively chirped. “Sweet dreams,” she added belatedly.

“Not a problem.” Mykah waved and headed off down the corridor.

Raena locked the door behind him. She found a cup in the locker by the sink and poured herself a drink of water. She had a sip, just to fortify herself, then twisted open the flask. Beneath its cap, the bottle was designed to dispense the drug a single drop at a time. You’d have to break the top off if you wanted to get a really good gulp of it.

She dripped a scant amount into her water, raised the cup to her lips, and tested the first mouthful. It tasted like shipboard water, slightly metallic, with a comforting tang of disinfectant. If she were honest with herself, she felt so greedy for a solid uninterrupted sleep that she was fully and completely willing to risk anything that might happen to her after taking an unknown drug. It couldn’t be worse than being slowly driven mad by insomnia and hallucinations. She knocked the water back in one long swallow, rinsed the cup, and hung it on a hook to dry.

She dimmed the lights and undressed. She debated a shower, but decided she didn’t want to sleep—try to sleep, anyway—with wet hair. She slid under her coverlet, curled around the pillow, and closed her eyes.

It took a little while for the drops to take effect. She supposed it was no surprise it didn’t hit her as hard or fast as it had taken Mellix and the kiisas, but she was still disappointed. Raena tamped down on the desire to get up and have another dose. She forced herself to lie there, to concentrate on her breathing. She counted the regular deep breaths flowing in and out as a way to lull her mind.

While she fretted, sleep crept gently over her and dragged her down.

Raena sought Vezali out, just to have some company. She found the girl in the lounge, sitting on the floor in front of the screen. She had something disassembled in front of her, pieces spread out on the floor, like with like, emanating out from her in lines like rays.

“What are you watching?” Raena asked.

“Just the news. You want it off?”

“No, that’s okay.” Raena sank onto the banquette behind her, trying to puzzle out what the news was about.

Two Templars were standing in the Council of Worlds, addressing the assembly. Raena read the transcript below the screen, trying to make sense of it, since she’d come in the middle. Why was this twenty-year-old footage being shown now?

The Templars were droning on about some trade initiative. The cameras, apparently also bored, roamed through the audience, looking for reactions. Once again, Raena marveled at the variety of life forms in the galaxy. In her little shipboard cocoon, it was easy to forget that the ratio on the
Veracity
—two humans to three others—was rare in the galaxy.

The camera didn’t come across a single human face in all the Council of Worlds. Raena was about to ask about that—she’d thought that humanity always had some delegates—when the date of the recording flashed across the screen. The vote had been taken earlier today.

Raena felt the world twist suddenly and was grateful she was already sitting down. How had she not known some Templars survived the plague? She had believed that the devastation was total and therefore totally unforgivable.

The video cut to a Templar shipyard. The insectile creatures crawled all over one of their massive stone ships, performing their inexplicable tasks. Two Templars met, embraced each other with their forelegs, caressing each other’s faces with their antennae.

Raena closed her eyes. Was this a dream? All the other hallucinations had been moments in her own life. This was different altogether.

Something had changed. If the plague hadn’t succeeded, had it even been spread? Or manufactured? Maybe it had never been conceived of? Maybe Thallian hadn’t been cloned or the Emperor had been assassinated or the galaxy had become aware of humanity’s ambitions before they posed any threat …

If there had never been Thallian to take her away from Ariel, had she followed her mistress into working for the Coalition? If she’d never been imprisoned, she’d never been on the run, she’d never done any of the things that troubled her dreams …

Who was she?

Raena felt darkness closing in around her as her mind struggled to comprehend this strange new world. Was this a place where she would want to live? What was her role here? Had this timeline always existed or had it just come into being when she noticed it? How had she crossed from the other world into this one?

“You look rough,” Ariel said cheerfully, planting a kiss atop Raena’s head.

Raena stared at her. Nearly thirty years after they’d met, Ariel remained stunning: graying blond hair still pulled back in a long braid to emphasize her cheekbones, blouse unbuttoned far enough to showcase the upper curve of her breasts. She’d always liked her clothes tight enough not to get in her way if she got into a fight. With Ariel’s short fuse, a fight had rarely been far out of reach.

Raena felt herself starting to slip away, drowned by the novelty of everything. Her panicked gaze caught back on the screen.

There stood someone else she remembered. Take away the crumpled rust-colored suit and clean him up, but that was Outrider, the Messiah dealer she’d met through Gavin on Nizarrh. He hadn’t aged a day. “Who is that?” Raena gasped.

“He’s the prime minister,” Vezali said, like it should have been obvious.

The shock pitched Raena out of the dream. She woke in her cabin, face down across her bunk. She sat up, gasping, and raked her fingers through her hair.

Where had Gavin been this time? Raena wondered what he had done to make her life—the galaxy’s life—so radically different.