The Girls From Alcyone (31 page)

"You destroyed my organization, and now you want me to—"

"Rebuild it. Double it. You're going back to work, Major."

Major—now he was spouting rank…

Tarsus couldn't figure out the man's game, but the money… "If I start buying up ships now, people are going to start asking questions."

"I would imagine."

Tarsus studied him carefully and then laughed heartily as he put his thumb to the contract. "Don't you think it's time you told me your name?"

* * *

Suko woke up. Her head throbbed and it took several minutes for her vision to clear.
What had they done to her?
They'd hit her with something, but it wasn't like anything she'd felt before. The blast had thudded into her in the chest like a mallet, scrambling all her systems and frying her PCM. She searched for it now, but all access was gone. She couldn't locate any of her systems, not even her most basic bionics.

Suko surveyed her surroundings. She was lying on the cold metal floor of a small room. She didn't know where she was, but she was sure it wasn't any room in the Academy or Annex. Her wrists and ankles were bound and her clothes had been taken away, leaving her only with her underwear.

"Suko!"

Suko rolled over to discover Khepri and Lei-Fei sitting behind her with their backs up against the wall. They were also trussed at wrist and ankle.

"Thank God you're alive!" Khepri said.

Suko could see they'd both been crying. Their eyes were red, dark; half-circles lined their eyes. "You got hit so hard—we thought you were dead."

Suko hauled herself up next to Khepri as best she could. She tried to scan herself to see how badly she was hurt, but she still couldn't access any of her systems. "
My PCM
…" Suko said; her voice cracking dry as she tried to speak.

"It's fried, but it'll reboot when it resets," Lei-Fei said. "At least, it did for us."

"Where are the others?"

Khepri and Lei-Fei looked to each other. Lei-Fei spoke first. "Mei, Petra, Leia…they're dead. The others…"

"They took them," Khepri said, fear in her words. "Suko…they…
did
something to them."

Who were they?
Suko wondered. "Where are we?"

Both girls shook their heads. "We don't know," Lei-Fei said. "We definitely dropped through a relay, but where…"

They listened to the footsteps coming down the corridor outside; The two girls recoiled in fear, and she, too, slunk back against the wall. A face appeared in the grated opening near the top of the door. Two eyes studied her for a moment, then the face disappeared; the footsteps diminished into the echoes until all was quiet.

Suko looked frantically about the small room looking for any means of escape. She struggled to her feet, not easy with her ankles bound and her hands tied behind her back. There was nothing in the room but a small bucket—used, from the smell of it. Suko threw her weight against the door, but it was completely solid.

"It's no use," Khepri said. "We tried."

Stubbornly, she threw herself against it repeatedly until her shoulder was bruised and sore.

The footsteps returned—more this time. And there was something about them, something familiar, the same heavy sounds she'd heard during the attack.

The door rattled and swung open. Three people stood before her. Two were soldiers, dressed in their heavy mechanized armor, leveling assault rifles. The smaller of the two removed her helmet, shaking her hair loose and staring at Suko through narrow eyes.

Suko's eyes widened in shock. It was impossible. "
Sara…
"

"Hello, Suko," she said.

Suko couldn't believe it. The girl was alive
,
free—and
armed—
wearing the same armor as the soldiers who had attacked them.
Sara was with them?

Another man stood to her side. He looked to be in his late twenties, with jet-black hair. His eyes explored her carefully, strangely. He stepped toward her, but Suko recoiled from his outstretched hand, falling back against the wall away from him.
But his eyes…
Suko thought.
There was something…

"Suko…"

"Who the fuck are you?" Her parched words came out as a croak.

"Get some water," the young man snapped at the guards. "And, godammit—bring back her clothes." His face and voice were firm and commanding. He looked back at her, apologetically. "I'm so sorry about this, Suko. But I'm glad you're here."

It seemed impossible. It had been so long…It couldn't be.
Could it?

"Riku…?"

Riku, Suko's brother, smiled. "You do remember."

Suko stumbled back. Her older brother, Riku. She'd barely known him—he'd left when she was so young.
How is this possible? He can't be…
She couldn't believe it. "Riku…what are you doing here? Where are the girls…?"

Riku held his hands up. "I'll explain everything. I promise. You just have to trust me."

Suko gestured to her bound wrists and ankles, at Khepri and Lei-Fei, who looked so frightened. "Let us go. Then I'll trust you."

"I can't. Not yet. But I will. I promise."

Another man appeared, accompanied by two more of the armored troopers. He carried a bundle of clothes for them. Suko was given water. One by one, they were untied and allowed to dress, before their wrists were bound once more.

"Take that one," Sara said, pointing to Lei-Fei.

"
What?
" Suko cried.

"No!" Lei-Fei cried, shrinking away from them, but the bound girls were no match for the soldiers in their powered armor. They dragged Lei-Fei out, kicking and screaming. Khepri jumped on one of the hulking figures, but he easily beat her back down. Suko kicked at Sara, cracking her shin against the hard shell of her armor, and then fell backwards as Sara smacked her hard on the head with the butt of her gun.

And then Lei-Fei was gone. Khepri and Suko lay bruised and beaten on the floor of their cell.

Suko glared up at her brother and Sara, anger clouding her eyes. "Don't you hurt her."

Riku didn't respond.

Suko's heart pounded. "What are you going to do to her?"

"I'm only trying to help. You're a slave, Suko. You just don't know it."

"They've programmed you, Suko," Sara said. "They did it to us all."

"I'm going to help you," Riku said. "We're going to set you free."

"You're mad," Suko spat.

"You don't know what they're capable of. You don't know what they've done."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Riku held up his hands, imploring. "You can't know what it's like out there, Suko. Tens of billions living in abject poverty, starving, while the Federation grows fat. With each planet the CTF opens up, with all its resources, you'd think that there would be some relief, but it just gets worse. More wealth for the rich, more crippling debt for the rest of us." Riku shook his head and laughed, the tired laugh of a cynic. "And all of us so willing, so eager to sell ourselves, our children—to the very people who created the problem."

"He's telling the truth," Sara said.

"When our parents sold you…when they took you…I knew I had to do something."

Suko couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You? You're responsible for this?"

"Not myself alone, no. There are many of us. And we're going to stop them, Suko. We can do it together. With your help…we can put an end to this. We can make some real change."

Suko turned her eyes to Khepri, bruised and bleeding, to her own bruises and the restraints on her wrists. "You attack us, you kill my friends…now you say this is to help us?"

"I'm sorry, Suko. That was…regrettable."

"Let us go," Suko pleaded.

"I can't. Not yet. But I will. When it's time."

* * *

Riku closed the door and turned to the man at his side. "Satisfied?" he asked, not hiding the disgust in his voice.

Riku stood before his compatriots, Nicola Kirk and Dr. Joseph Farrington, in Nicola's makeshift office in the hastily assembled facility. Nicola had discovered the abandoned mining operation years ago during her work in the Records Office for the CTF.

Like everyone there, Nicola bore the marks of exhaustion. Dr. Farrington was lost in his calculations, his face locked on the monitor before him.

Nicola sat on the edge of her desk. She was only in her fifties, nearing middle-age, but her duties with the movement didn't exactly lend themselves to eating right and taking care of herself. It was starting to show. Still, she had a strong face and carried herself with the confident air of command. She'd proven herself capable time and again, and had risen to become one of the principal architects of the movement against the Federation and its ruling Council.

"Dammit, Joseph—you stink," Nicola told him.

Farrington didn't bother to look up. "Find me some decent water and I'll shower."

Nicola folded her arms and turned her attention back to Riku. "You're doing the right thing, Riku. After what they did to her, your sister will be better off. I promise."

Riku paced, uneasily. "She's not what I expected."

"Of course she's not. Look what they've done to her—she's as good as grown up in a cult. Who knows what kind of crap they've subjected her to."

"No, it's not like that at all. She's like—she's just like I remember. It's my sister."

Nicola pinched the bridge of her nose. "We've discussed this. Those girls have had their genetics scrambled, mutated and reassembled. Dammit—they have a controlling chip in their brain! They're nothing but a bunch of trained assassins, programmed for a CTF murder-squad."

"And now you want to reprogram them for yourself."

She gave him a sympathetic look, but her voice remained firm. "The damage has been done."

Riku stared contemptuously at Farrington. "Well, I'm not letting
him
touch her, not after what happened to the others."

"They'll be fine," Farrington said, unimpressed, not bothering to look at him. "I'm still tweaking the program. You can't expect me to undo years of work in a day."

"We'll fix it, don't worry," Nicola assured him. "We're going to need
all
those girls for the next phase. We need you for this, Riku. You're a valuable member of the movement, but if you're having doubts…"

Riku nodded away his reticence. "I know. Don't worry. I'll be fine."

* * *

As soon as the
Morrigan
emerged through the Relay and blasted its way toward Aquarii, they could tell something was wrong. The closer they came to the planet the more the surrounding space became littered with the wrecked hulks of ships orbiting the planet, some Kimuran, some of unknown origin. Sigrid gasped at the devastation.

They landed without delay. On the tarmac, Sigrid could see more evidence of the attacks—burned wrecks of fighters and service vehicles mostly, but several buildings had been crushed under the bombardment. Cleanup crews were busy everywhere repairing and salvaging what they could, and hauling away what was beyond repair.

Sigrid stepped through the airlock. She was fully armed and dressed in her combat outfit, sporting a short pilot's jacket. She helped Hitomi onto the lift, steadying her as they were lowered to the tarmac. Selene, Karen and Christian followed close behind, climbing down the short steps.

They were greeted by Markus Emerson and Hitomi's son, Shinji, who rushed to the base of the stairs. Both men were surrounded by a squad of marines in full battle gear. Sigrid noted another man in their midst, grey-haired and thin, he wore a black suit with the Federation emblem on his collar. Her PCM confirmed him as the Federation Envoy to Aquarii.

Hitomi wheeled herself forward to meet them. "Shinji, Markus. What on earth happened?"

Markus scanned the scene of destruction. "
Independents
, from what we could tell, but…I've never seen them operate in such numbers. It happened nearly two weeks ago—soon after you left."

"We must convene an emergency meeting of the Board. We'll need to deal with this immediately. I fear it's more than just the Council that is moving against us. We'll also need to send a force to Alcyone—"

"Mother," Shinji said, distress haunting his face. "Alcyone is…gone."

"No…" Sigrid moaned.

Hitomi put a steadying hand on her arm.

"What? When?" Hitomi demanded.

"A ship came back, soon after the attacks here."

"Survivors? On Alcyone?"

Markus shook his head. "Unknown. The ship barely made it away itself. We haven't been able to launch a rescue mission—not with all the work to do here."

Sigrid felt sick. "Mistress…"

"Don't worry. We'll investigate right away." She turned to Markus and Shinji. "How many ships do we have available? We must return in force to Alcyone immediately."

Sigrid watched as Markus and Shinji looked uncomfortably at each other. Hitomi picked up on it as well.

"Markus…?"

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, Milady," the Federation Envoy said, stepping forward at last.

Hitomi shot the man a disparaging look. "Markus, what is
he
doing here?"

The envoy answered for himself. "Alcyone and all materials pertaining to the project known as
Andraste
are now property of the Council for Trade and Finance." His gaze fixed on Sigrid. "
All
materials, Milady."

Hitomi's eyes hardened on Markus Emerson and her son. "I don't believe it. You took the Council's offer."

Markus cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Milady…after the attack. We had little choice."

"You always have a choice, Markus. You made the wrong one."

The envoy stepped forward, placing his hand on Sigrid's arm. "The girl must come with me, of course."

Sigrid jerked her arm from his grasp; Hitomi wheeled herself forward, putting herself between the two. "Impossible. The girl is contracted to me personally. The Council has no claim on her."

"My orders are explicit, Lady Hitomi. I am to retrieve
all
materials. Kimura has already signed the girls' contracts over to the Council."