Traitor (Rebel Stars Book 2) (20 page)

Outside, two men and a woman stood under a tree. Ced tensed, then recognized Marly. She glanced between Ced and Kansas and smirked.

Back at the office, Kansas made call after call, starting with the smaller crews and working her way up to the top. She spoke breezily, like she'd already been in contact with them. When they objected to her demands, though—she was calling a crew-wide meeting on uber-short notice—Kansas had no problem making her point by yelling.

Less than 24 hours later, they rolled up to a windowless white building. Neutral ground, with a security system meant to eliminate any chance of surveillance or weaponry. After passing through the elaborate scans, Ced put on the house-provided white coveralls and followed Kansas into a conference room.

And found it filled with nearly every admiral on the Locker.

Legs Morozo, of the Blight, sat next to Dee Winters, admiral of the Sabers. To her left, Arman Frank, commander of the Blackwings—the Locker's single largest crew—looked vaguely annoyed. In all, more than twenty crews were represented, including the leaders of the Orcs and Spartans, the Dragons' neighboring rivals.

"Thank you for coming." Kansas stood at the head of the table, easily the youngest person in the room besides Ced. "If you haven't already heard, I've assumed command of the Dragons."

"Whoopee," Dee Winters drawled. "Tell me you didn't drag us out here to brag."

"I'll get right to it. As of today, I'm eliminating the care debt from my crew."

Eyebrows raised. Jaws dropped. Venner, the Orcs' admiral, pointed across the table. "You have much to learn. Striking the debt is illegal."

"Keep up with current events, fool. Your pet pole is dead. So are the days of bribery and collusion."

Dee bulged her cheek with her tongue. "You really did it, didn't you? I didn't think you'd have the balls."

"I considered outlawing the debt station-wide," Kansas said. "But I thought it would be more fun to force you to reach that decision for yourselves."

Venner's expression roiled. "How do you intend to accomplish that?"

"Once the Dragons start offering fair terms rather than a slave job, good luck getting any recruits to sign with
you
."

He stood, chair scraping. "Would you like to start a war? How long do you think you can stand by yourself?"

Kansas laughed. "I'm not alone. Want to test me? Then I'll see you in the streets."

"Sit down," Arman Frank said. Venner blinked and obeyed. Arman turned to Kansas. "We had a system. We worked together. And the Locker prospered."

"Those on high feasted on the lowly. Resulting in shit rolling downhill. Before the care debts, the crews managed just fine. I'm sure you'll find a way to soldier on."

"We give these kids homes. Stability. Opportunity."

Kansas stared with bald contempt. "They make you rich before you pay them their first cent. Then you use the threat of more debt to keep them on, stealing away their chance to test the market. I've run the numbers. Most would be better off spending their lives at civilian jobs."

"Those profits go into more ships. Ships that protect the Locker from being smashed by corporate fleets."

"I'm shaking in my fucking boots." She gazed across the assembly of admirals. "I could have done this in secret. But I don't aim to destroy you. By giving fair warning, I mean to prove I have nothing against working together—but I will never put the good of my pockets above the good of the Locker."

She turned and walked out. A few of the others followed her, mostly from smaller crews. Ced waited at a respectful distance. As she spoke to the other leaders one on one, Kansas' body language alternated between enthusiasm and annoyance. In time, she finished up and rejoined Ced. They gathered their things from the safety lockers and headed to the garage where their car had parked.

"I'm already getting sick of asking you what's going on," he said once they were under way. "But I'll try one more time. How do you expect to stand against all the other crews?"

"How much do you know about inter-crew politics?" Kansas said.

"Less than I thought. To me, it feels like we're always fighting. Back there, you talked like we're one big happy family."

"We only fight when there's no other way to make money. Most times, it's more profitable to collude. The poles pass just enough laws to make it look aboveboard, but on the important matters, they do whatever the crews pay them to do. On matters where the crews aren't in one hundred percent agreement, they can usually get the dissenters to agree by promising concessions the next time they're at the table."

"So there are cracks."

"It's a shattered glass held together by the bloodless hand of greed."

Ced gave her a look. "If this revolution thing fails, are you planning a backup career as a poet?"

She glanced across the car. Shadows and bands of light poured through the window, fighting for control of her face. "The Dragons are now the third-largest crew on the Locker. The second-largest, Dark Star, just received a new leader. Compliments of me. They're loyal. The Sabers are with us, too, mostly to pull weight with the Trojans, who are behind us all the way. Now, the Blackwings will buck, and maybe they'll pull the Blight and a few second-tier crews. Within the majors, then, we're evenly matched."

"But the minors will all side with us," he said slowly. She watched him, waiting for him to go on. "Because they've never been able to outbid the big guns, have they? They've been itching for reform."

"They'll be with us all the way. When disruption comes, those at the top are always most vulnerable. The Blackwings will fight hard to keep from falling." Kansas grinned, a deep shadow darkening everything but her eyes and teeth. "Bring your umbrella. When they hit the street, it's gonna get messy."

A minute later, her device went crazy. She thumbed through the messages with a dull look on her face.

"What's up?" Ced said. "Congratulations from the other crews?"

"Not exactly." Another message beeped into existence. "There's been a coup back at home base."

"Yet you sit there like you just heard lunch has been rescheduled?"

"I didn't say it was a good coup."

At South Street, they rode the elevator up to Garnes' former office in the middle of the building. In reception, a team of troopers in body armor stood around a closed door.

A woman retracted her visor and saluted. "Three of them. They've locked themselves in. Do you want us to breach it?"

Wrath flickered in Kansas' eyes. She shook her head. "I'll handle this." She stepped past the line of guards and pounded her fist on the door. "Who's in there? Joseffs?"

"Damn straight," a man called from the office. "You think you can roll in here and take everything? Well, we've taken it back."

"Taken what? A room with a desk in it? That office isn't what gives you power, you idiot. Power is out here, with the people. And they're with me."

The man was silent a moment. "Well, we're not coming out."

Kansas rolled her eyes at the ceiling. "If you really want to feel like you stood up for something, I can wait for dehydration to do its thing. You want to actually accomplish something, though? Step outside and work for me—or leave the Dragons with my blessing."

"You're not mad?"

"I told you, Joseffs, I've already won. You can choose to be a part of that. Or you can get the hell out."

The door cracked open. When no hails of gunfire ensued, the door opened wider, revealing three sheepish-looking officers.

"We have decided," Joseffs said, "to assist you in this time of transition."

"Wonderful," Kansas said. "Your first order is to get drunk. Tonight, we party." She turned and walked away.

Ced jogged beside her. "Congratulations on not shooting them."

"Thought I'd try it your way for once." Her expression softened. "I'm not a monster. Garnes and Furley, that wasn't about having fun. It was about cutting out the cancer so the body can heal."

She wasn't kidding about the party. Ced spent the rest of the day alerting the crew and arranging logistics. Kansas had barely been back from the vacuum for a full day, but already she'd rubbed out Garnes, set up a showdown between the Locker's biggest crews, and was about to throw a celebratory blowout. It was as though she'd been planning her ascendancy for years. Or else, now that she'd achieved it, she couldn't slow down for a moment, or her hold would slip.

The Dragons had a few people out in space, and a handful of others needed to stay on the streets or the net, wary of incursion from the Blackwings. Minus those members, however, the entire crew of four hundred people had assembled on the roof by eight that evening. People milled about, grabbing anxiously at passing trays of snacks and booze.

The lights arranged around the edges of the roof dimmed. People gasped. At the far side, the rectangle of a device lit up, illuminating the angles of Kansas' face. She wore a traditional admiral's coat, thigh-length with a flared collar, blue fabric trimmed with white and studded with silver buttons.

"My name is Kansas Carruth." She gazed across the array of faces. "Most of you don't know me. But here's why you want me in charge: as of this moment, all of your debts are erased." She thrust her device over her head and tapped the screen. Figures flashed. "And the care debt is abolished. Permanently."

The crowd went as silent as video shot in vacuum. Devices lit up like the skyline at night as people checked their balances in disbelief. A great cheer rolled from the roof, drowning out all noise of the city below them.

Kansas stepped down into a swarm of officers and crewmen. Ced smiled. A hand landed on his shoulder. Heddy stood beside him, smiling in wonder. He'd only seen her a smattering of times since the days of the jukes and he couldn't believe how adult she looked.

"What is happening?" she said. "How is she doing this?"

Ced shrugged. "At a guess, sheer balls."

"She reached out to us. The former CEOs. Let us know that if we backed her, she'd change everything. I didn't think she meant
everything
."

He felt stung by this—he'd been a CEO, however briefly, and Kansas hadn't said a word to him—but it was starting to make sense. The jukes had seen over twenty CEOs between them, and Kansas had known most of them before transferring to the flight teams. Those CEOs, in turn, knew scores of people, many of whom had graduated to the full crews. Among the crewman she had no personal connection to, many still carried a sizable care debt.

And she'd just radicalized them all.

"We've been looking for you," Heddy said. "Come with me."

She weaved through the crowd, bearing him in her wake. They were headed away from the flow toward Kansas and the people thinned quickly. Heddy came to a stop, presenting a host of familiar faces: Donner, Marly, Jole, Niki, Flesco, and virtually the entire team from the early days of the Fightin' Iguanas.

"Look who finally escaped the desk," Niki said.

Ced laughed out loud. It was the first time they'd been back together since the strike. They soon drifted to the tables that had been set at the other end of the roof, encamping across two of them, fortifying themselves with food and grog. Most of the others had wild tales of their last few years on the streets, but Ced had little to offer besides office gossip, most of which had been obsoleted by the death of Garnes. He was able to drop a little knowledge about Kansas' recent activities, as well as what she'd been like back when the two of them had been a team, which the others seemed hungry to hear even though they'd been there too.

After a few hours, he felt like he'd be able to leap off the side of the building and take flight. It was easy to credit that to the company, or (more likely) the multiple glasses of grog currently navigating his bloodstream, but it went beyond that. He
had
escaped the desk. All this time, he'd been chained to it, under the watch of the admiral, weighted down by the debt that would ride him long after his first contract expired. There had been nothing to try for, and he hadn't.

Compare that to the early years of the jukes. When the only bounds to what they could achieve—and be rewarded for—were the limits of their own imagination, boldness, and willingness to work. Back then, he'd been a different person. Bigger. Better. Give a person freedom, and they blossomed. Take it away, and they withered.

Soon, he rose, only a little unsteadily, and circulated around the roof. No one had seen Kansas. He pinged her device. Minutes later, with no response, he moved to a quiet part of the roof and pulled up his personnel map. The one he'd been trusted with to help him locate crewmen who, for whatever reason, weren't replying to their messages. At the moment, Kansas' icon was down in Garnes' office. Her office.

She hadn't said a word about what had happened between them at Furley's house. A few days earlier in his life, he would have kept quiet, letting things play out on their own. After seeing the others, and remembering how he used to feel every day? He knew that, if he let this thing slip away, he'd never forgive himself.

He jogged down the stairs. Reception was dimly lit. As he neared the admiral's door, his device booped. The admiral's room was whited out. All noise canceled by the walls, leaving it impossible to snoop. It was also a de facto "Do Not Disturb" sign.

Which was probably the reason—along with a small dose of drunken paranoia that she was using it as cover for a tryst—that he pulled up his connection to the room. It was supposed to have been a way for him to interrupt Garnes in case of emergencies, but after spending enough time with the system, he'd learned he could use it to listen in, too.

"…already sent them away once." The voice was female. Bouncy, almost sing-songy, but the unmistakable tone of someone used to having their commands obeyed. "Think you should have checked in first?"

"I had no choice." Kansas' voice was tight. Defensive in a way that Ced had never heard. "I barely have a grip on this place. I'll be putting out fires for weeks. Shutting down the station was the only way to make sure none of my rivals would have the chance to bring in outside help."