Traitor (Rebel Stars Book 2) (29 page)

Benson rolled his lips together. "How can you be sure she'll take it in private?"

"You know her well enough to answer that."

"Because Iggi Daniels is her master. And Kansas will never let anyone else see her bowing down to another person." He laughed, shaking his head. "I'm convinced."

"Sounds like you have sources on the inside. Can you get me in?"

"That will not be a problem."

"A minute ago, you acted like her security was invincible," Ced said. "You're awfully confident about your ability to crack it."

Benson smiled airily. "Kansas has fear on her side. I've got something much stronger: loyalty."

* * *

36 hours later, Ced waited in the darkness of a shoe store. Like everything on the block, it had been closed down, windows sealed behind plastic shutters. The back room was perfectly still. It smelled like rubber and faux leather. He heard no sounds from the street—they were within Dragon territory, blocks removed from the front lines.

In time, footsteps scraped outside. Multiple sets. He drew his pistol. Plastic, gray, and highly compact, the weapon looked more like a vague sketch than something capable of taking lives. He'd put in enough practice over the last day and a half to see what it could do.

The front door squealed open. His body tensed. He breathed through his nose. Two sets of hard shoes clicked across the floor. One set stopped; the other continued toward the back room. The door opened. Dim streetlights silhouetted a figure in hardshell armor holding a wicked-looking rifle. The soldier turned its visored gaze on Ced—the helmet was equipped with full night vision—and stepped forward. Ced kept the pistol tight to his hip.

"Ced?" The soldier flipped up the visor. A small light within the helmet revealed Heddy's grinning face. "Gonna give me a hug? Or are you married to that pistol you're trying to crush?"

He laughed and walked toward her, pocketing the weapon. They embraced. Her armor was hard and cold.

"Everything's lined up on our end," he said. "Yours?"

"All set." She unscrewed her helmet and began to rapidly disassemble her armor, the parts of which could be clicked on and off like children's blocks. As soon as she got the chest pieces off, he looped them over his shoulders, sealing them around his body. The interior padding adjusted automatically to the differences in his build. With her last piece off, she moved to help him clip on his legs.

"Your partner," he said. "You're sure you can trust him?"

"If not, then I'm dead, too." She winked. "Lee knows what's at stake here. He's got your back. Once you're inside, though, you'll have to change out in a hurry. I have to be there for the squad's debriefing."

He snapped the helmet into place. "Got it." Modified by the helmet, his voice was no longer his own—it was Heddy's. Another part of the ruse. "Thank you, Heddy."

"We should be thanking
you
. If someone doesn't throw some water on this fire, it'll burn down the whole station."

Ced closed his visor and exited to the store's front room. Between two shoulder-high racks of shoes, a figure in armor watched him from behind a mirrored visor.

"All clear?" the man said, voice carrying over radio.

"Nothing but foot holsters."

The response was code. Inside his armor, Lee nodded. They headed out into the street. Ten armored troopers awaited them. Lee let the others know the building was empty. Apartment blocks towered above them, dark and silent. On their way to the head office, they checked several other storefronts, finding nothing. Before Ced knew it, they were filing through the rear entrance of the office. There, they scanned the devices on their wrists, passing through a second door. This opened into an empty hallway.

Ced hung back. Lee moved beside him, speaking on a private channel. "This way."

The man broke from the others at the next intersection. They made their way to the elevators and headed up, exiting on the twelfth floor where Garnes had kept his simpler, more private office. Anonymous in their suits of hardshell, Lee and Ced continued to the floor's large, unisex bathroom. Ced headed into a stall and disassembled his armor as fast as he could. He was already wearing nondescript technician clothing. While Ced worked on the last bits of armor, Lee walked out of the bathroom.

Ced waited. A minute later, the door creaked open. A woman cleared her throat. Ced did the same. He unlocked the stall. Heddy entered and started clipping on her armor. Ced lent a hand, but halfway through, his device beeped.

"Good luck," she whispered.

He put a hand on her shoulder and walked out of the bathroom. The hall was vacant—and so, according to Lee's ping, was the office. Ced walked to it as fast as he dared. Reception was empty. Heart thudding, he coded his way into the interior office.

It was as dark and silent as the shoe store. A private bathroom extended from one side. He entered and let out a long breath.

He checked his device. Almost forty minutes until the call was scheduled. They'd built the plan to make sure he had time to get in position, but now that he was here, he wished they'd cut it closer. After twenty minutes, a door opened, distant; someone clunked around in reception. He'd come here for Kansas. What would he do if someone else found him in the bathroom first?

He pressed his back to the wall beside the bathroom entrance. The inner office door opened with a questioning squeak Garnes had never bothered to have oiled. The door clicked shut. A light came on, spilling into the bathroom. Steps whispered; chair wheels rumbled on the muffling carpet.

"Keep pushing me," he heard Kansas say. "See how much longer you stay above ground."

For one hair-raising moment, Ced thought she was talking to him. Then he understood she was muttering to herself, anticipating Iggi Daniels' call.

He lifted his pistol, switched off the safety, and rolled around the door into the office.

19

Rada lurched backwards, stumbling against the step down to the recessed strip at the front of the bridge. She plunked on her rear. On the screen, the Swimmer stared down at her, its two bulging eyes unblinking, expressionless. She had seen a living alien before on the FinnTech vid, but this one was looking at her.
Talking
to her. She couldn't move.

Webber lifted one hand. "Thanks. Uh. Congratulations for what?"

"You have survived." The alien's claws and tentacles swooped and flicked, but its mouth stayed closed. Its voice was non-gendered and eerily flat. Computer-generated. "We did not expect such for far longer." It clacked its small claws; a flicker of amusement or excitement entered its voice. "Again, humans show much devotion to the Way."

"Yeah, we're real Way-Heads, all right." Eyes bulging, Webber glanced at Rada, who was still seated. "Would you mind explaining…everything?"

The Swimmer drew back slightly. "Such as such?"

Rada found her feet. "That ship we fought. Was it one of yours?"

"No."

"Was it human?"

"No." The alien spun its claws. "What it is is hard to say."

"Because you haven't seen it before?"

"Because we do not know what you would call it. For us, we call it—" The creature's tentacles continued to gesture. The automated voice halted a moment, then caught up. "Those with Words of Friends and Hearts of Treason."

"This is a third species?" Webber said.

"You. Us. And Those."

A wave of lightness swept over Rada's head. She put her hand on the back of a chair in case her knees gave out. "Are they the ones who've been attacking us? When we've tried to leave the System?"

The Swimmer rocked its long head forward. "Yes."

"But why?"

"Because they cannot kill you all. Because they are watched."

"By you?"

"And such as others."

"You're watching us?" Webber said. "Like, to help us?"

The Swimmer nodded again, even more exaggerated than the first time. "We help, but as we are watched as well, there is only so much help to help. So we do as we can."

Rada pressed a fist to her forehead, which swam with more questions than there were stars in the void. "Why do Those want us dead?"

"Fear. Fear of us and also of such as you might become."

MacAdams folded his arms and laughed. "Why in hell would they fear us? We're nothing. Nobody."

"It is much to say and too much for me to tell," the alien said. "But you prove today you are ready to climb out of the sea and onto the land. So this proves you are also ready to learn that Those await you."

"You talk like you're our friend," Rada said. "But we know what you're doing. The vaccine you gave to Horton/Kolt. It was never meant to help us. It was meant to make us vulnerable to a new virus. So you could finish what you started a thousand years ago."

The Swimmer straightened its chitinous, crab-like legs, raising itself to a height greater than any human. With its blank eyes, and a face composed of hard plates and thick rubbery skin, it was impossible to get a foolproof read on its emotions, but there was no mistaking the anger and aggression in its posture.

"That was done as to help," it said, pitch rising with each word. "To strengthen you against Those. As with the gift of gravity. It was
your
people who took that which is good and did that which is bad."

"Remind me to send a thank-you card." Webber stepped toward the screens, eyes flashing. "How can we trust you? First you tried to kill us, now you're out here lurking in the darkness? How do we know these 'Those' aren't another one of your tricks?"

"Because if your death was our desire, we would have sent that death a thousand times. Our people who attacked you long ago, they were traitors to the Way. We could not undo what was done. But we promised ourselves and to all others that humans would have the chance our traitors almost denied you. That no power would be allowed to destroy you besides those of the stars and of yourselves."

Webber snorted. "Funny you say that. Thanks to that little gift you gave Thor Finn, we're on the brink of destroying ourselves right now."

"He's using your tech to seize control of our solar system," Rada added. "We need your help to stop him."

The Swimmer wagged its head side to side. "It is not our place to help."

"But it's your fault it's happening!"

"We give to help. To undo that which was wrong. If you use such to do more wrong, then you fail the Way—and prove unworthy of help."

"So you're just going to wash your tentacles and walk away?" Webber said.

"This struggle is your own," the alien said. "We will not interfere. If you prevail in it, we will speak more."

MacAdams pointed at the screen. "This ain't right. You tinker with us when it's convenient, then bail as soon as it gets heavy."

"I do not understand your words." The Swimmer swished a tentacle through the air. "You must go. Or Those will come. Relish in struggle, for this is the Way."

The screen blanked. Rada swore. "We come all this way, and that's all we get? A pat on the head and some mystic mumbo-jumbo?"

"We got more than that," MacAdams said. "We got answers. To questions we didn't know were out there."

"Answers? To what? What are we supposed to do about 'Those' when we don't even know what they are?"

"We know they're not cool," Webber said. "So how about we get the hell out of here before they come back for us?"

Rada sighed raggedly, ordering the
Tine
to come about and make all speed toward the Hive. The trip would take nine days. At the moment, communications with Toman would have a six-hour roundtrip lag. Her first step was clear: transmit their conversation with the Swimmer back to him before any new troubles befell the
Tine
.

After some consideration, her next step was to fall into bed. It took so long to fall asleep that a part of her tried to convince her to soothe her nerves with a drink. She'd possibly saved humanity's soul from FinnTech, after all, not to mention becoming the first human to survive a dogfight with an alien species that no one knew existed—with the exception of the Swimmers, one of whom she'd
also
just spoken to. And who had claimed, incidentally, that its people had been covertly helping the humans for generations. She wasn't sure if she believed it, but some of what it had said was absolutely true. After the plague, if the Swimmer species as a whole had decided to finish the job, humanity wouldn't have stood a chance.

It all added up to the best excuse to get hammered that she'd ever heard. The problem with
that
was that she was justifying. Bargaining with herself. And that meant, deep down, it wasn't what she truly wanted. If it was, why would she need to convince herself?

She woke. Her device told her it was eleven hours later. She was irritated she'd overslept, then realized her undisturbed sleep meant nothing else bad had happened. On the bridge, MacAdams and Webber were in the midst of an animated discussion, voices on the verge of anger.

"Hey," Webber said, oddly guilty. "Message in from Toman."

She moved beside them, but opted to stay standing in the hopes it would help her clear the fog from her brain. Webber called up the Needle on the main screen.

"Gentlemen," Toman said. "And Webber. The footage you sent me is…indescribable. Reminds me of my close visit to the sun. Terrifying, all-consuming, but also illuminating beyond your ability to imagine. It's always been my dream to study the Swimmers. To truly know them. To better understand our past, and to arm ourselves for the future. If what you've learned is true—that the Swimmers mean to help us, to protect us against a third species that
does
mean us harm—then that erases everything we thought we knew."

He broke into a grin of pure wonder. "And I couldn't be happier. Because as frightening as it is to be menaced by a people whose existence was a secret until a few hours ago, we can be comforted by the fact we're finally on the road to the truth. A truth so large that humanity may finally be forced to take it seriously. I'll be making my broadcast of your discoveries as soon as I conclude this message."