Into the Dark: Five

Co-authored by Ciarente and Silver Night

*****************

Camille crawled slowly, counting.

She'd measured against one of the cartons Papa had stacked against the wall in the big tunnel he'd set up kind of like a room for him and Camille and Cia. Each left-right-left was half of a meter. If she counted every time she moved a hand and timesed it by six, she could tell how long each bit of the tunnel was.

Thirty five, thirty six, thirty seven, thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty ...

She stopped, and said the very worst words she knew, the ones she'd learnt the day Cia had gone into the water after the man fell in and the LES 'craft hadn't been able to pick her up until after she'd gone under Fifth Bridge, the ones that had gotten her paddled by Mama when she repeated them later. In her head, so Papa wouldn't hear any voice in the tunnels where she wasn't supposed to be.

Then she crawled back to the last turn, and started again. One, two, three, four ...

It was hard to concentrate on the numbers when she was a little bit scared.

Just a little bit. Not really scared. I'm practically grown-up!

Five, six, seven ...

It was easier to concentrate when she was mad, rather than scared. Camille concentrated on her mad.

Papa saying That woman, Amieta, she's been lying to you, cherie. To get you to like her and do what she wants. She's one of them, those Sansha, and they're all liars, trying to control people, change what they think.

The first time, Camille had tried to tell him how wrong he was. Ami's not a liar! She's my friend! And Cia's friend!

That had made Papa mad. Madder even than Camille's best mad.

The next time, she'd listened with her listening face and nodded and thanked him for explaining it.

Remembering it made her stomach feel funny, even if Ami had said it was okay when Camille had got Fisk's earpiece working and crept away into the tunnels to call her. You did the right thing, the smart thing, dear. I'm proud of you, ok?

Thinking about Fisk made Camille's stomach feel funny too. The earpiece had been covered in stuff she'd had to clean off before she could get the cover off and start fixing the wires and bits inside. Even looking at it made her remember what he'd looked like, lying on the floor of the shuttle. Once the earpiece was as fixed as she could make it, it had taken her a little while to make herself brave enough to hook it over her ear so she could call Ami.

But I did. Cia said I had to be brave, and I was.

She lost count again, and leaned against the side of the tunnel, hugging her knees to her chest.

Ami said Fisk was all right, she reminded herself. All of them. Because of the back-ups. Even Helmi. Because it wasn't really Helmi, who shot everybody, and let Papa in.

And Ami'll come and get us. She said. And find out why Cia's acting funny.

Why she isn't a pilot anymore, why the things on her neck are gone.

Camille fingered the earpiece in her pocket, wishing she could call Ami again. But I have to save it for emergencies. Every time I use it there's a chance Papa will find out. Only emergencies.

And feeling sniffly wasn't an emergency.

So she tried to remember, instead, what Ami's voice had sounded like. Camille? I got you honey. Are you alright? it's ok. I'll be there for you soon, ok?

Soon. Camille wanted soon to be now.

She'd tried to answer all Ami's questions, but she couldn't answer the big, important ones.

Where are you? Is Cia alright?

All Camille'd been able to say was I'm not sure.

She'd told Ami everything she could think of, about being able to hear a river and a church, about the boxes of food and supplies and the names on them ... but it was all just ordinary stuff. Just stuff like normal.

And she'd told Ami about the locked door, about the things she could hear from behind it when she crept down the tunnels to just the right spot. The woman saying We can't try again. There's already too much damage. And the man talking about traditional methods.

Papa saying Cia, you just have to tell me, and we can all go home. And Cia's voice. Fire can't answer questions. Cia had to go.

And crying.

And screaming.

Camille closed her eyes tightly and tried not to think about it. Cia was back in the other room when I went back there. She said she hadn't been anywhere. Maybe she hadn't. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe I fell asleep and had a nightmare. Like the ones I had after Cia went in the water that time.

It hadn't been a nightmare, though. I know her voice. I know what I heard. Ami beleived me. She said she'd figure it out. When she came and got us.

And when she comes she'll need to know about the tunnels. So I have to be able to tell her. I'm like rec-onny-sans. Like on the holo.

Camille wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Marines doing rec-onny-sans don't sit on their backsides crying like babies, she told herself fiercely. Fisk didn't. He was brave, like a real marine, even all shot up like that.

I wish I could have given him his gun.

It was hard to be a real marine, though, in the tunnels, especially since Papa had taken her jacket, the one that Mr Burke and his people had given her, with the Mordu's Legion stuff on it.

Come on, Cami, she told herself. What would Ami say?

She pretended she could hear Ami's voice. It's not clothes that make you a marine. It's what's inside.

Marines were brave. Like Ami. Like Fisk

So I'll be brave too.

Camille crawled back to the corner and started counting again. One, two, three...

She could hear Cia screaming again.

Trying not to listen, Camille crawled on into the dark.

Into the Dark: Four \ Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Eight

Co-authored by Ciarente and Silver Night

*****************

It ought to fit. Mitch turned the gasket a millimeter to the left, turned it back. It ought to fit.

It didn't.

He held it under the worklamp bolted to the side of his bunk and considered whether or not to file another fraction off the rim. Too much more and we'll be dealing with lateral movement when she spins up.

Maybe one more pass with the file ...

The door chime interrupted his thoughts. "Yeah," he said. "S'open."

Nerila.

She stepped inside, breaking rule one, tapped the keypad by the door to close it behind her in violation of rule two, tapped it again to engage the privacy lock in flagrant and direct contravention of rule three.

Never be in each other's quarters. Never be alone together in any place either one of us might be known to expected to be. Never do anything that might make Luisa suspicious.

"Sweetheart ... " Mitch said. His quarters were so small he would only have needed to stretch a little to touch her. He resisted the temptation. "This is asking for trouble from the XO."

Nerila folded her arms and hunched her shoulders, shot one quick glance at him from red-rimmed eyes, and stared at the floor. "I don't care," she said to the deckplates. "I don't care."

Mitch put it together then: her hair still damp from the shower, the false-floral scent of soap that eddied around her every time she moved, her long surgeon's hands reddened by scrubbing, the note of sour alcohol on her breath.

"Autopsies?" he asked gently.

Nerila nodded.

It turned out he didn't need to stretch at all, or perhaps she was already moving towards him as he opened his arms to her. She pressed her face against his shoulder, clutching at him as if she were drowning.

As if we both were.

"Six!" she blurted, heaved a shuddering sigh, and was silent for a long time.

When she finally let go of him and lifted her head, Mitch asked: "Were they all .. in Significance?"

Nerila nodded. "Yeah. So tomorrow, or the next day, or next week ... " She shrugged. "It'll be like it never happened. For them, anyway."

He brushed his fingers over her cheek, erasing traces of tears. "That's good."

"It happened, Mitch." She sighed, slipping her arms around his neck, more loosely this time, and leaning against him. "But yeah. It's good. Mitch?"

"Mmm?" he murmured against her hair.

"When did you have your last scan?" she asked.

"Dunno, exactly." He thought about it. "Couple of weeks after the first one? Maybe ... three months?" He shrugged. "Got busy, you know?"

"Me too," Nerila said. "If I got shot in the head tomorrow, I'd wake up ... none of this would have happened."

He ran his hand down her back. "It would have happened."

"Not to me," Nerila said. "Mitch, let's go tomorrow, let's get the scans done. I don't want ... I don't want this not to have happened. I don't want to forget. Tomorrow, Mitch, I don't care how busy it is. Please?"

He tightened his arms around her. "Yeah," he said. "First thing."

Nerila sighed in relief. "Okay," she said.

Mitch hesitated, and then asked: "Do you ever think about it?"

"About what?"

"About ... about what it'll be like. In the long run. Once, twice, three times ... losing a week here, a month there. Who we'll be, ten years in the future. What we'll keep."

Nerila shook her head. "Ten years? I don't think about ten days, Mitch. Day at a time." She laughed without humour. "Had a future, once. Traded it for a glass vial. No. Ten years? No-one can plan that far ahead."

"You never think about it?" he said, smoothing his hand over her hair, gently so the callouses on his palm wouldn't snag the strands. "What you want?"

She sighed. "You know, if Pilot doesn't ... if Ami can't find her, if she's too late ... you know where she left her money to?"

"Camille, right?" he said. "And her family. If anyone can find them."

"Mostly. Enough, for the kid to live out her whole life in luxury, that's for sure. But not all. The rest ... to the crew. To us." She drew back a little, looking up at him. "That's how life is, Mitch. Someone can just stop, a pilot even, a pilot inside her own security. And people like you and me can wake up richer than we ever dreamed. What kind of plans can anyone make in a universe like that?"

Mitch shrugged.

Nerila narrowed her eyes. "What, you have plans?"

"Some," he admitted.

"Like what?" When he hesitated, she poked him in the chest with one long finger. "Like what? And so help me, if you say anything that involves marriage and babies and a fishing lodge on some backwater planet ..."

He smiled down at her. "Marriage and babies such a bad idea?"

"With me it is," she said seriously.

"Not what you want?"

"What I want ..." She shrugged. "This ship. This job. My license. This. Today, and tomorrow."

"And the day after?"

"Worry about it then," Nerila said. She studied him. "That a problem?"

"No," Mitch said. "No. It's not a problem."

"Good," Nerila said. She yawned suddenly. "Can I stay? Tonight?"

"Bunk's pretty small," he said.

She grinned. "I'll fit."

"Sweetheart ... " Mitch said. "Asking for trouble."

"Not if Ami can't find Pilot," Nerila said sadly.

"She'll find her," Mitch said.

"Let's blow that bridge when we're on it," Nerila said. "Mitch. I can't be - let me stay."

He couldn't say no to her. I couldn't ever say no to her, not from the first time she sauntered into the engineroom with that smile.

And I knew we were asking for trouble, even then.

The bunk was small, and neither of them were built on the petite scale. Nerila fell asleep almost immediately, her drop into oblivion one Mitch remembered from the days when he was still drinking his way down the ranks, one he envied her now.

No, it's not a problem.

Not yet, it isn't.

He shifted her a little, not needing to worry she'd wake, trying to stretch the cramp out of his arm. Marriage and babies ... He wouldn't have put it that way, exactly, but he couldn't deny that some idea of a life where he and Nerila could eat together without worrying about rumours, could talk about the day ... Could wake beside each other, every morning. Could lie like this, every night ...

Maybe in a bigger bed, he thought, trying to stretch his arm again.

Blow that bridge when we're on it, he thought. Won't be today, or tomorrow.

Or the day after, even.

He lay and thought about the uncertain future, about bridges and trouble and somewhere there might be a bigger bed and shared breakfast, listening to Nerila breathe, staring sightlessly into the dark.

*****************

Want to read more of the 'Conversations?' Head on over to Ciarente's IC blog, where there is a complete list. Don't forget to read the blog while you're there!

Into the Dark: Three

Co-authored by Ciarente and Silver Night

*****************

Ciarente Roth sat as still as she could, her gaze fixed on the cold window between her and the infinitely colder vacuum outside.

If she sat still enough for long enough, everything would stop. All of it. There wouldn't be, wouldn't have been, any blood, any gunfire.

Beside her, Camille squirmed, and Ciarente tightened her grip.

"Hush, Cami, hush now," she murmured.

"But I - " Camille started to say.

"Hush!"

"Just this one time, you should listen to your sister, cherie," Jorion Roth said from the front of the shuttle.

His voice broke the spell Ciarente had been trying to weave around herself, and all at once she knew there was no way in the world she could get back to a place where those five or six seconds of gunfire hadn't happened. She began to shiver.

"Cia, you're hurting," Camille protested, and Ciarente tried to loosen her grip.

"What - " Her voice was dry, dusty dry, dry as space, and she had to pause and swallow hard. "What are you going to do? With us?"

"Why, take you home, of course," Jorion said.

"Really?" Ciarente couldn't keep the hope out of her voice, hope that made her heart leap in her chest and for a minute erased the memory of small-arms fire and bodies ... "Really?"

In the dark shadows behind her father, a woman made of fire shook her head. Ciarente looked away, even though she knew that she would come closer when she wasn't watched. Captain Vikarion's prescription is wearing off, she thought. The pills were in her pocket. If she took one, everything would be fine.

But nothing will be fine. Helmi would still have drawn her gun and shot and shot and shot ... Fisk and the others would still be lying with the awkward, unnatural stillness of death on the deckplates where they'd fallen ... Papa would still have lifted his gun and shot Helmi in the face.

"Not right away," Jorion said. "But soon. First you have to be debriefed."

"Debriefed?"

He nodded. "You spent months with these people, these Sansha, cherie. You know more about them than any informant we've ever had."

Informant. "I don't know anything," Ciarente said. "Nothing that the FIO would be interested in."

"You let me decide what the FIO is interested in," Jorion said. "Any information, however trivial - a habit, a residence, a parent's name - you let me decide what's important."

A parent's name. Ciarente swallowed. A name.

Amieta looks levelly over the rim of her brandy glass. "S'not a good name to be using, Cia. Not safe."

"Papa," Ciarente said desperately. "I don't know if I'll be able to remember anything."

The fire was closer now, past her father, coming closer still. You promised. You promised you'd never tell.

It's not my fault, Ciarente thought frantically. It's not! I can't - I can't -

You promised...

"Oh, you will," Jorion said. He fished in his pocket and took out a small clear tube, the curved surface making the trans-cranial micro-controller inside look elongated, like a slim mechanical insect. Just waiting to crawl inside my brain. "You'll remember everything."

Ciarente hesitated. "Papa," she said. "You call them these people. But they're my friends. I don't want to trawl over everything they've ever said - "

"You will," he said. "You will want to. And you will. Every detail, cherie. Don't worry."

Every detail.

She knew it was true. The tiny chip in that tube could make her think Amieta and Silver were her worst enemies, could make her think that Camille's life depended on her answers to every question. It wasn't that she wouldn't be able to keep from answering. I won't want to.

It was even funny, in a way. I spend six months with Sansha's Nation and my father is the first person to try and make a True Slave of me.

The flicker of humour died. I promised. Promised I would never tell.

"Cia?" Camille asked. "Cia? What is it?"

"It's alright, cherie," Ciarente said automatically. "It's alright."

You promised.

The fire was very close to her now, scorching heat a painful contrast to the cold radiating from the window.

You promised.

I know I promised. I know. I can't ... I can't ...

The fire was implacable. You promised.

Then help me! I can't stop him! Help me!

Hands reached out for her, wreathed in flame, blackened and burnt. Yes. You promised.

"Listen, cherie," Ciarente said to Camille quietly. "I have to go away. You'll have to be brave."

"Go away? But - "

"Just listen. I have to. I'm sorry. Can you be brave, cherie?"

Camille nodded. "Of course," she said stoutly. "Cia, I - " She glanced at Jorion and bit her lip. "Yes. I can be brave."

"Good, cherie. I'm sorry." Ciarente pressed her lips to Camille's forehead. "I'm sorry. I can't help it."

The fire was all around her now.

Ciarente closed her eyes, and reached out her hand. It hurt, those burning fingers closing around hers, but not as much as the thought of answering her father Yes, actually, Amieta did say...

She tightened her grip on the fire, and let it draw her, through the flames, into the dark.

Into the Dark: Two

Co-authored by Ciarente and Silver Night

*****************

There are certainly worse ways to end your career than working dock security at the Poksu Mineral Group Refinery Station, Ilari Yomoki thought as he locked his office and started along the dock-front towards the transbus that would take him home. Regular working hours, decent restaurants, a bar I can call my 'local' with a great view of Nonni III ...

"You!"

He turned. Two squads of marines, their combat armour and weapons recognisably Caldari but not the kind familiar to Ilari as issued to Sukuuvestaa's Peace and Order Unit, were spreading out across the hanger behind him, and closer to him, and heading straight for him, a slim woman in a corporation uniform he didn't recognise.

She was the one who'd spoken. In the time it took Ilari to realise that she'd reached him.

"You're Poksu Security?" she asked brusquely.

"Yes, I - " Ilari blinked, tried to regain control of the situation. "What's the problem?"

His question went unanswered. "Wake up your boss. Close the station down. No-one in or out."

"What? We can't do that, the cost - "

The woman turned away briefly, gesturing to the marines. "Work outwards, fifth squad down the row, ninth up it. Look everywhere, every office, can, locker, hanger, shuttle, loader and lifter. Everywhere." She turned back to Ilari. "There's a woman and a little girl missing, abducted. Wake up your boss. Close it down."

Ilari shook his head. "I'll report it in, we have procedures -"

"They don't have time for procedures!" Her voice rose, thin black lines creeping past her collar and up toward her face. "Do it now or- "

Anything further she might have been going to say was lost beneath the blare of a warning klaxon, signalling the activation of a nearby docking bay. It died away to silence as the bay repressurised, and the doors opened to reveal a handful of shuttles, ramps down, more marines pouring out of them at double-time. Their light power-armour was identical to the marines Ilari had seen before, and without seeming to need orders they split into teams of two and joined the search.

Behind them came a group of what seemed to be civilians, although most had the upright bearing that said military despite their lack of uniforms or insignia. As far as Ilari could tell, these last arrivals seemed all to be Intaki. Some were wearing the protective clothing of lab technicians, and those headed straight for the single shuttle sitting in the Roth hanger.

Ilari tore his gaze away from what was now a medium sized assault force. "Look, who are you?"

"Commander Invelen," the woman said. "XO, Utopian Ideal. Chimera class. And I swear on my ancestors, the last person you'll ever see if you don't stop arguing and start co-operating."

Chimera class. Ilari had never even seen one. He wondered why Invelen, so clearly Caldari, hadn't mentioned the corporation she came from, but the look in her eyes made him think twice about asking any questions.

"I'm not arguing," he said quickly. "Just saying - they won't close the station for a missing persons case."

"What would it take for them to close it?" Invelen asked.

"Uh - " Ilari racked his brains. "Um, they'd wave off ships if there was a major fire. Oh! A bomb, if they thought it was on the docking bay accesses, the external accesses. They'd hold ships in dock while the search - "

"Good lad," Invelen said, although Ilari guessed she was at least twenty years younger than he was, and turned away for a moment.

As she turned back the low, penetrating tone of the alert siren began to echo through the docking area. Ilari's earpiece buzzed to life. All personnel, we have an active incident in progress. Security procedures Alpha Nine now in place.

He stared at Invelen. "Did you - ?"

She dismissed his question with a curt gesture. "Now, I want you to pull everyone in your direct line and get them looking. Starting at this hanger, the Roth hanger, and working outward. They're looking for three Intaki: a man, bit taller than me, fair hair, woman, 'bout this big - " She gestured. "And a little girl, seven, reddish hair. We'll have pictures for you in five minutes. The man's dangerous. Very. Suspected anti-Provist terrorist, in fact. The other two are hostages. And I want to see your security footage of this section of the docks, right away."

Ilari nodded. "How far do you want them to search? I mean, they've probably left the station and - "

"We're querying CONCORD records now. If they jumped, we'll follow. If they docked up somewhere, we'll know. And if they're lying low in some asteroid field, well." Invelen smiled predatorially. "I know a pilot who won't find that too much of a challenge. But if they're still here - this station is going to be searched top to bottom. Every apartment, shop, office, hab unit, corridor, storage unit ..."

"Do you know how long that will take?"

"I will take this station apart with my bare hands and leave the pieces to burn up falling into the planet if I have to," Invelen said levelly. Ilari glanced at her hands and realised for the first time the grey colour was not due to gloves but to the dull metallic gleam of undisguised prosthetics. She noticed his look, "And I'll take apart anyone who gets in my way. Now show me that footage. Move!"

Ilari moved.

It felt to him like he didn't stop moving for twelve hours.

He'd barely finished showing Invelen the footage when a half-a-dozen of the Intaki civilians showed up at his office door. This is Tanith Burke, Invelen had said. Give him what he asks for. Burke, I've got to speak to the station's security director. Keep me posted on what you find.

Burke and his people had taken over the office, politely but implacably. Whatever Invelen said in her meeting with the station's security director resulted in new orders for Ilari and all the other Poksu Security staff: full co-operation.

And a rider, only for him: Officer Yomoki to act as liaison with our visitors, dockside.

That meant opening up the security mainframe for Burke to suck footage and records onto the terminal he'd set up at Ilari's own desk. It meant pulling up maps and occupancy records, and pointing out to politely efficient marines the nooks and crannies that every dockworker and security officer knew could hide a crew-member shirking work or a student playing truant. It meant making calls to annoyed business-owners to tell them that if they weren't down to unlock their premises in five minutes the door would be opened with the kind of master key that you could load into a shotgun.

It meant making himself a buffer between the increasingly tired searchers and the increasingly large number of station inhabitants who'd been woken from sleep, roused from their beds, their homes searched by professional soldiers whose priority was speed rather than courtesy. And if the residents here are upset ... Ilari had overheard enough of Burke's orders to know that ships that had undocked from the Poksu station in the past hours were being held and searched all over the system, and the ones who'd left Nonni were being tracked. The resources that implied were staggering.

Being dockside liaison also meant he was out on the dockside, trying to calm an engineer who wasn't being given access to his ship, when the first bodies were carried out of the Roth shuttle.

One, two ... The sight silenced the irate engineer. Three, four ...

"Spirits," the engineer said, shook his head, and turned to leave.

Five, six ...

One of the technicians stumbled at the end of the ramp, and grabbed at the trolley to steady himself, nearly tipping it over.

"Careful!" Invelen snapped, making Ilari jump. Where did she come from? I didn't hear a sound! "Gently!"

She strode forward to right the trolley herself, glaring at the hapless fumblefoot.

"Commander," Burke called, and with a final frown Invelen turned. Wordlessly, Burke shook his head.

Invelen clenched her fists. "Where haven't we looked?"

Ilari wondered if he should go back to the office, but the temptation to eavesdrop was irresistible.

"Everywhere has been searched," Burke said. "Between the marines and our own personnel ... we turned up sixteen unregistered exotic pets, a hundred and forty three caches of prohibited or restricted substances - seven of trafficking quantity - fifty-seven illegal small-arms and the body of a junior executive whose wife reported him missing last week after he filed divorce papers. But ..."

"No Cia. No Camille."

"Security footage picks them up here, heading down toward B-72. A shuttle docked there this morning, name of Pilot Cory Flien. It's not there now. CONCORD records have it outbound via Litiura jumpgate. It's one of fifteen we're still tracing. Top of the list."

"I want any information we pick up on that shuttle sent directly to Captain Night as well as to me," Invelen said.

Burke nodded. "But, you realise, every time he docks up somewhere it adds another ten or twenty ships as possibilities. Running them all down, to rule out the false trails ..."

"Takes time," Invelen said grimly. "We don't have time, Burke. They don't have time."

"We're moving as fast as humanly possible. Faster, even. I'd like to reach out to some of our associates and get them involved to - "

Invelen cut him off. "Do it. Pay what they want. Just get it done."

She turned, surveying the dockside as exhausted-looking marines arrived back in twos and threes, their search fruitless, and again her fists clenched with a faint grinding sound.

Ilari was still staring at her when she glanced around and caught his gaze. "Don't think I said 'please' when we got here," she said with a ghost of a grin. "So it seems like I ought to say 'thank you' now." She gestured around at the open doors on shopfronts and the containers and cans in disarray from the search. "Especially since this is going to take some cleaning up, and I'm afraid we can't stay around to help."

"You're going to try and find that terrorist, right?" Ilari asked. "And his hostages?"

"Not try," Invelen corrected him. "I'll find him. And he'll be sorry ... for all of it."

Ilari nodded. "They're important, these people?" he ventured. "The ones he took?"

Invelen paused. "Yes," she said at last. "Important." She looked at the abandoned shuttle, empty now of its dead. "More than you can begin to imagine."

Someone called her then from inside one of the transports that had brought her troops. Ilari watched as she strode across the dockside and up the ramp. The landing lights stippled her uniform and glinted off her metal hands, orange, yellow, green, and in the shifting light Ilari thought for a moment that Invelen looked as tired as her troops, as tired as he himself was.

Then she lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders. Just a trick of the light, Ilari thought, watching Invelen as she reached the end of the ramp and, stepping over the rim of the hatch, disappeared into the dark.

Into the Dark: One

A word from one of the authors: This series was a collaboration between myself and Ciarente. Many of you have likely already read it, but I am working on copying it over here so it won't be censored and so it can be easily found in the future. For those who are new to it, or who are re-reading it, enjoy.

*****************

Fisk Hurun tried to crawl.

His legs wouldn't work, not even to push him along the floor. Fingers scrabbling on the smooth deck of the shuttle, he tried to drag himself forward. Moved an inch.

A wave of darkness then.

When it passed, the pain was back. The bullets had torn up something important inside him, something that sent out distress signals in jagged flashes of pain that made him retch.

He tried again to crawl, failed again. Dragged himself another inch.

The comm, he thought. Get the comm. Tell the XO. Pilot ...

His earpiece was gone. That had been the first thing he'd thought of when he'd woken face down on the shuttle deck, still thinking Alpassi shooting, wrong, wrong ...
But when he'd felt for it, lifting his hand to his left ear, his fingers hadn't touched hardened plastic but something soft and wet and spongy. His hand had come away smeared with blood and bone splinters and flecks of something worse.

No earpiece.

Get to the comm.

Dark again. When he came to this time he was lying awkwardly on his side, jaw clenched and aching. He opened his eyes and found himself staring straight into the dead face of Helmi Alpassi, neat bullet hole in her forehead.

You shot me, he thought. Who shot you?

The shot comes from behind him and Fisk reaches for his sidearm even as his conscious mind is still processing the sound. He has his gun out of its holster and is half-turned toward the sound when he feels a massive blow to the side of his head. Half-in-instant's flash of Alpassi, gun drawn, bodies of her squad-mates on the ground, and then nothing.

Nothing until he opened his eyes some uncountable time later to see the man at the top of the security watch-list standing with a gun drawn and levelled at Pilot Roth. Pilot's father. Jorion Roth Hell of a family.

Fisk had felt surreptitiously for his sidearm, found the holster empty, and then seen it lying across the other side of the shuttle. Felt for his earpiece and found -

Tried to gather himself to throw himself unarmed against Roth and discovered that his legs wouldn't so much as twitch in response to his brain's frantic commands.

Pilot hadn't seen him wake, hadn't seen his scrabbling attempts at movement, her gaze fixed on the man standing over her, wide and glassy. Shock, Fisk had guessed. Shock, and those pills she keeps taking.

Nor had the man Pilot called Papa.

The little girl had, though. Camille. Fisk had looked for her, hoping she hadn't been hurt, and met her intent, frightened gaze.

It'll be all right, Camille, he'd tried to communicate with a look, aware that with half his head blown off he probably wasn't going to be particularly reassuring to a seven-year-old. It'll be all right. Somehow.

It was then he'd seen his shattered earpiece lying a few feet from his left hand. Carefully, trying to avoid making a sound or drawing attention, he'd reached for it.

The little girl had seen what he was doing, her eyes widening, and turned to the other two. For a horrible instant Fisk had thought she was going to point out his movement to them.

"Papa, papa, when we go home, can I have a pony?"

She'd jumped from her seat and scampered to the other side of the man with the gun, so as he turned to look down at her his back was to Fisk.

Fisk had got his hand on the earpiece, but it was immediately apparent to him that it was dead, probably hit by the bullet that had hit his head. Maybe fixable. If I had time.

Time was what he didn't have, by any calculation.

Jorion Roth had started herding Pilot and her sister toward the door.

Maybe fixable.

Fisk remembered the hours Camille had spent tinkering with the circuits on the scrapped Rifter some rich pilot had given her. As she passed him on the way to the door of the shuttle he flicked the earpiece towards her across the floor.

Camille had not missed a beat, stooping to adjust her shoe and sweeping the earpiece up in her hand and then into a pocket as if she'd spent a life-time making dead-drops for covert organisations.

Good luck, Fisk wished her, wished her sister. Ancestors shelter you. Spirits protect you. Since I couldn't.

He'd started trying to reach the comm as soon as the door closed, shutting him in with the dead. How long has it been? He kept losing himself in unexpected holes of blackness, and every time it happened there was less and less of the world to come back to.

Fisk tried to get purchase on the deck-plating to drag himself further but his fingers were going numb and fumbled uselessly against the cold metal.

Come on, Fisk. Get to the comm. Call the XO.

Another inch.

Sound behind him. He wanted to to turn and see what but the movement was beyond him. Another inch.

There was a voice. He turned his head a little, saw a gunmetal grey hand, a woman's face.

"Fisk, it's Amieta, you shouldn't move." Her hand was on his shoulder, so gentle it barely caused him any pain. "What happened, Fisk?"

I know her, Fisk thought, the idea coming to him slowly and distorted, like sound underwater. Pilot knows her.

A deck of cards, Nerila dealing, her and Mitch pretending they weren't going to be spending the night together in a storage locker later and Fisk and the XO pretending they didn't know ... A cool metal handshake, a level gaze ... the XO nods and Nerila deals Amieta in. Pilot's friend. Tell her.

But the words stuck somewhere between his mind and his lips. Fisk heard himself a long way away, "C-c-c-c- ... ex. Ex. ex."

"XO? Call? I'm getting back on com with her now," Amieta said.

Pilot's gone. The words wouldn't even begin to form. Desperately, he sought others. "Queen ... girl. T-t-t-took."

"Queen girl? Captain?"

"Yes! " The man on the watch list, Jorion Roth. Papa. "Wa - wa- wa ... tall man. Tall. Wa - wa - wa ..." He willed the words out, to no avail, reached for Amieta as if he could convey the message through touch.

Amieta took his hand, a grip that could have easily broken bones closing around his fingers so delicately he barely felt it. "Don't move, Fisk. Tall man? A stranger?"

Watch list. "No. No. No st-st-st - "

"Someone you know. Friend of the pilot?"
Not friend. Fisk didn't know if he'd said that as his vision fragmented into shards of colour and then blackness, pain lancing through his head.

"Fisk?" Amieta's voice brought him back out of the dark. "You there? Fisk? Was it someone you were to look out for?"

Yes. He wasn't sure if he said it or only thought it. Another voice was saying something about putting him under and Fisk tried to protest.

Amieta held up a hand and the other voice stopped. "Someone on your list?" she asked. "Jorion? Fisk, Pilot's father?"

Yes. "Y-y-" He was tired. So tired. More tired than he'd even been in his life. The urge to sleep was almost irresistible and fighting it was harder than anything he'd ever done. "Girl ... girl ... ha-ha-ha ... ear. Ear"

"Camille?"

"Yes. ha-ha-ha ... girl ... ear. Ear!"

"Ear?" Amieta frowned.

Fisk willed her to understand. "Ga-ga-gave. Ear."

"Gave Ear... Gave to who? Camille?"

Yes.

Darkness again then, no matter how he fought it. Somewhere in the black he found the hand that held his, clutched at it, felt the metallic grip squeeze his fingers in return. Amieta was speaking to him, and he fought to hear her, her words sliding and breaking around him, trailing colours across his vision, making no sense that he could grasp.

Find her, he tried to say. I lost her. Find her.

The spirits gave him a gift then, one I don't deserve. The flashes and sparks across his vision faded and let him see Amieta's face, a light in her eyes that would have been frightening if he'd thought it was directed at him.

"There's nowhere I won't find her," she said, and her voice carried absolute conviction. "Nowhere."

He wanted to thank her, tried to.

All his words were gone.

Fisk Hurun closed his eyes and fell into the dark.

Interrogation

Colonel Sarakai Voutelen followed Commander Amieta Invelen into the interrogation cell. As Sarakai took up a position against the wall near the only door, the Commander continued forward.

Sarakai didn't even need to look around the room to know it was grey-on-grey: steel table and chair, bolted to the dull grey deckplates; grey walls, grey ceiling, silvery one way observation window in one wall, grey right down to the cuffs that held Roth's hands behind his back.

Amieta was the XO for the ship - all the ships, really - and Sarakai's immediate superior, and would do most or all of the talking, so Sarakai was free to observe. She studied the man sitting in the chair, hands cuffed behind him. Jorion Roth. Fair hair, worn shoulder length. Brown eyes, perhaps a touch above average height, fairly nondescript. He also seemed calm, considering his situation. Amieta stopped on the other side of the table, looking down at the man, and said conversationally:

"How've you been, Mr Roth?"

"Very well, thank you, Commander Invelen. And yourself?" Roth's Gallente accent was almost undetectable, and he accompanied the question with a slight smile. "Hmm? I hear Ennur is very pretty this time of year."

"Well, I'm pretty good." The XO answered, taking out a pack of cigarettes and tapping one out, "Ennur's a shit hole though, believe me. Now, I know what you were doing. We aren't trying to establish your guilt here. I'm not the police."

"No," Roth agreed.

"I'm just wondering," Commander Invelen paused and squeezed the tip of the cigarette between her thumb and index finger where it flared to life, "what you thought killing me would accomplish?"

His slight smile hardly flickered, "Your death?"

Commander Invelen continued, almost as if she didn't hear him, "I mean, hell, I'm backed up. Even if you hadn't fumbled it Jory, it wouldn't have gotten you much. Two weeks of my life really worth the risk?"

Sarakai pursed her lips as his eyes flickered slightly. What was that for?

"You did know I was backed up, right?" Amieta took a drag on her cigarette and exhaled lazily, "I mean, cause you cocked up the rest of it pretty good."

"It's a safe assumption to make, isn't it, Commander? After all, it's common practice among pilots. And those with certain ... dangerous jobs." Roth smiled again.

Did he not know? Or is the XO getting close to something else?

"Like FIO agents, right? Course, you don't die, they don't wake the new copy up, do they?" The XO's smile wasn't pleasant, "And if you're chipped, you aren't dead."

"You're collecting a full set, are you? A row of Roths, all nicely chipped and obedient." There was a note of anger in his voice, quickly covered.

Did he - He really thinks we're going to chip him, Sarakai realized.

The XO drew on her cig, "You ever think about actually checking on that? Before you hauled off and started trying to kill people? Before you tried to poison your own damn daughter?"

Sarakai saw Roth tense, but when he answered his tone was even, and he seemed calm, "A simple hand-scanner showed me the chip in Ciarente's head when I met her. No doubt you don't see anything wrong with living like you do. But Ciarente would have thought it an abomination, when she could still think for herself."

"That was the doing of her boss, actually. Inhibits suicidal behaviour. Probably needed it because you were such a fuckhead when she finally managed to retrieve you." Amieta shook her head, "Hell, you even bother to check whether I was chipped Jorion? Maybe try talking this thing out?"

"Ah, her boss." Roth nodded, "I've learned quite a bit about Captain Vikarion and his 'harmless' chips, over the past few months."

"If it was a True Slave chip, I'd have had it out with a fucking combat knife if I had to. Maybe if you hadn't jumped to conclusions, maybe tried talking, she would have just gone home with you, instead of still being around Vikarion." The Commander dragged on her cigarette, no longer smiling. "All she wanted, you know. Go back to normal."

Roth studied her, "It's quite a complex fantasy they've built for you, isn't it?"

The XO managed a chuckle, "You think so?"

"Or you're an excellent liar." He shrugged awkwardly, the cuffs that held his hands behind his back limiting his movement, "Which is also possible."

Stubborn bastard, Sarakai thought, If he was a little less stubborn, it wouldn't have come to this.

"That chip is gone now. You might have seen that if you had used your little scanner again instead of poison." The Commander sneered as she went on, "What do you think I'm lying about sunshine? Hell, why would I lie? We're the evil Sanshas remember? I can put whatever the hell I want in your head, can't I?"

"I really couldn't begin to guess your motivations. Maybe this is what you've put in my head. I'll just have to wait and see."

"Think so?" Amieta laughed, the frustration of a moment ago apparently gone. Sarakai knew her well enough to know it wasn't, Just shoved down, and for how long?

Jorion Roth shrugged again and the XO continued, "Really though, I'm curious, what makes you tick Jory? Hell, you did some research on me to find me, what in there makes you think I would join the Sanshas?"

"I didn't imagine they'd given you a choice." Roth smiled sadly, and to Sarakai it looked genuine. "I'm sorry, Captain. If you're in there, somewhere. I thought I could ... free you."

"I can do without that kinda freedom, thanks for the offer. Unlike you, I wouldn't be dumb enough to get caught by Sanshas, Jorion." It was said with a hint too much force. Sarakai saw the hand not holding a cigarette twitch as if it wanted to clench into a fist.

Careful XO, he is a professional. He has been on your side of the table, he knows what to look for, Sarakai thought, as her superior continued, "Anyway, I think this whole thing is because you're too arrogant to believe your daughter could accomplish what she did. It had to be a Sansha plot. Not you screwing up and sliding so far into cover you couldn't get out again."

"You're..." Roth paused and smiled again, "I almost said 'you're free to think what you like', but of course, that would be a little inaccurate."

The Commander considered him, "You know, when I met you, the you that had the broken head and thought he was an Angel, I was a little relieved. I thought to myself, 'Hey, the real Jorion can't possibly be this much of an asshole.'"

That slight flinch of his eyes again. Something he didn't know? Or a sensitive subject?

Amieta continued, "I'm sure as an FIO officer, you know all about that though, right? Why you woke up on that station in Delve in that crazy bitch Tenebrae's clutches?"

Roth nodded slightly.

"Kinda wishing I'd lied to Cia here and there, told you that it wasn't possible, couldn't be done - bringing you back I mean. Discouraged her." Commander Invelen sighed, "You couldn't just stay there on the 'locate - low priority' list either huh? Had to walk right up to me?"

"You expect me to wait around for you to take the children I have left?"

"That what you think we're doing?" The XO shook her head, "Cia is my friend. The sister she cares about the most is Camille, and she was in the hands of the psychotic prick who tried to kill Cia. Of course I'm going to help her save her sister."

"Oh, 'friend'. Well, how touching." Roth leaned forward slightly, and said levelly: "I had five children, Commander. Then four. Now three. But you'd know that."

"If I brought Cia in here, and you told her everything would be how it was before, she would happily go back to being a student on Debreth. Try to put the things that have happened to her as a pilot behind her. You could even check with a scanner, she doesn't have any non-standard implants." The Commander paused, "I wish that was an option."

"And of course, your technology is always so reliably detected." The bastard is actually smiling again, Sarakai thought, "And I take her back to Debreth, and she goes back to being a student, until the day she ... activates, or whatever you call it."

"We activate her? Because our evil plan is to unleash a.... 20 year old girl on Debreth?" Amieta's tone was dry despite her frustration, "The horror."

"Do you think I'd take the risk of letting her anywhere near my family?" Roth snapped, the first completely unguarded reaction Sarakai had seen from him.

"So, first a basic scanner is sufficient." Frustration was fast mounting in Amieta's voice again, "but when it isn't convenient to your little paranoid fantasy, we are suddenly so much more competent. Not that I blame you for thinking we are competent, after how easily we bagged you. None of that was anything to do with Sansha, of course. That was pure Watch Marine training."

"I would have let her go, Commander. I told her that." Roth said, his voice even and matter-of-fact again, "But she kept looking."

"Only one person here has tried to kill a family member Jorion. It isn't her. You snapped, then when she dug you out of that hole, you tried to kill her." Amieta's voice rose as she continued, "What would you do? Would you leave your family with someone like that?"

"I'll protect what's left of my family from anyone." He paused. "Even those who used to be part of it."

"Far as I'm concerned, the only one who has given up their right to a family is you."

"I don't much care what concerns you." Roth said coldly

"Tell you what, you're only going to have what we want you to have in your head when you leave, right? What do you want to know? You ask, go for it."

What are you doing, Invelen? Sarakai thought, That is the exact opposite of how to conduct an interrogation. To the extent this is really an interrogation.

Sarakai kept her face blank as Roth glanced over at her before looking back at the Commander, "You said you weren't taken by Sanshas, Commander. Why did you drop off the grid in '00?"

Right to it. He may be stubborn and blind, but he's sharp. She gave him the clues, and he's still a professional.

"I," there was an almost imperceptible pause, "joined the Guristas."

"Just like that?"

"Watch dropped me, Guristas picked me up." She tapped her left side with two fingers, "I can show you my tattoo if you'd like."

"'Dropped' you?" Roth pressed. "Your file says presumed KIA."

"We were killing Blooders, it went pear shaped. You have a problem with killing Blooders too?" The XO dragged on her cigarette, though Sarakai could see the struggle to stay calm in the set of her shoulders, Hopefully Roth can't, she thought. "Then, like I said, Guristas picked me up."

"You're the one allied with Blooders, Captain Invelen, not me."

Amieta grinned wolfishly, though Sarakai could still see the tension, "Have a pile of blooder tags weighs more than you do that says I, personally, am not allied with them." Amieta looked slightly pale behind the grin to Sarakai, "Anyway, then Guristas, then I came to work for Silver. Well before he joined Naqam."

"And now," Roth said contemptuously, "You fly in fleet with Blood Raider slavers as they hunt others."

"It's a nasty cluster out there." Amieta nearly snarled, "Not poisoning any of my family is a great comfort to me though."

"Oh, just sell yours to Captain Cyshade, I suppose." Roth needled, "Is that what you have planned for Ciarente and Camille?"

"I wouldn't even give you to blooders Jory. And unlike you, I don't write off family."

"Just take other's?" Roth asked.

Sarakai stood silent by the door, wishing she could intervene. Don't let him get to you Amieta. He thinks you are planning on chipping him. He's trying to goad you.

Amieta crushed out her cigarette a bit more energetically than she needed to in one metal palm and flicked it away, "When it is that or leave them with someone who tries to murder them? Sure."

"A mercy killing. If you'd known Cia before you people got your hands on her, you'd know she'd agree, if she still had her own free will."

"We found Camille alone at the shuttleport, you know. She ran away on her own. From you Jorion."

"She's seven. I thought you said you were going to tell the truth."

"I am telling the truth. Big bad FIO agent couldn't keep tabs on a seven year old. What's it take to fucking get through to you Roth? Even if we had True Slaves - we don't - I wouldn't be friends with them."

"Friends, maybe, no, but - operator? We'd say handler." Roth paused, then said distantly "It can look like friendship. If you don't know what's really going on."

"Or if it's actually spirits-damned friendship?!" Amieta leaned forward, gripping both sides of the brushed steel table.

"You don't think we have enough surveillance for me to know what's happened to Ciarente? If you were honestly her friend ... I doubt she'd be in such a mess. What, is she fighting the Transcrannial Microcontroller? I hear that can happen."

"If I had her chipped, I would keep her from getting into all the shit she has gotten into."

"If you really had her interests at heart. Or whatever you have in place of one."

Sarakai started slightly, seeing thin black lines creeping up her commander's face, Oh shit. Warpaint coming out. Control, Marine, control.

"Ancestors, are you really that much of a spirits-damned thick headed fool?!" the XO nearly shouted.

"But you don't, do you?" Roth went on, his assessing gaze making Sarakai suspect he knew as well as she did what those spreading lines meant.

"Of course I do, but apparently unlike you, I think she needs to make her own decisions here and there, along with her own fuck ups."

Roth continued as if the XO hadn't spoken, "It's about yourself, your corporation, your damn Nation. Ciarente is just some kind of pawn in that. Trade her to your ally, Celes Tenebrae, perhaps."

"Celes will not get her!" Amieta's fist slammed down with enough force to dent the surface, and she pointed at him with one matte, metal finger, "And she is no fucking ally of mine."

Sarakai kept her face a blank mask, Keep it together Commander. Please. He's trying to bait you.

"DED records indicate otherwise," Roth said with a slight shrug. "Is that how you're working Ciarente? Tag-team effort?"

Sarakai could see the XO's jaw muscles bunch as she clenched her teeth and the black of nano-tattoos flooded across her face. Sarakai spoke for the first time, a warning in her tone, "Commander..."

Amieta didn't seem to hear her, and her right hand gripped the table so hard that the edge crumpled in her fist as she hissed, "No fucking blooder is ever going to get Cia. No fucking psychopath father, no fucking Sansha."

"The Blooders and the Sansha have her, Commander." Roth glanced at the crumpled table edge and smiled in satisfaction. "If you're really her friend, as you keep saying, you really have let her down, haven't you?"

Sarakai saw the shift in the way her CO was standing, and had to stop herself. She couldn't interfere with a superior officer, and it probably wouldn't help anyway at that point. Bastard is smart or lucky, to hit her where it hurts.

Amieta ripped the table up from where it was bolted to the floor on the right, shoving it over to the left and out of her way with a crash, her prosthetic arms and shoulders whining slightly in protest. She cleared the space between herself and her prisoner in a single movement, grabbing him by the front of his shirt, pulling him out of the chair and slamming him against the back wall. Roth gasped with the impact, then managed a smile, "Maybe you really are her friend. Ami. Did you know you were being used as bait by Silver Night and Tenebrae to win her trust? Did you not know? Or did you choose to do nothing?

As if he has a death wish, Sarakai thought, and felt her blood run cold as she realized that was the truth. Better dead than chipped. Even I can't argue with that one. If he really was in danger of being chipped.

"I did everything I could!" Amieta slammed Roth against the wall again, then holding him with one hand, grip tightening, she held out her other hand, "Sarakai, keys!"

Sarakai hesitated, "But..."

Spirits, I know what you're doing. Ami, it's going to hurt you more than you could ever hurt him.

Sarakai reluctantly dropped the keys in Amieta's hand. The XO's irises had gone completely black . Spun up implants and adrenaline.

"Everything you could?" Roth said. "Or everything you were willing to risk doing?"

Amieta snarled and headbutted Roth, then jerked him sideways. As he sprawled across the deck plating, she tossed the keys at him. "Go ahead. You can even keep the cuffs."

Roth pushed himself to a sitting position and eyed Amieta, making no move to get the keys.

"I'm waiting sunshine. You'll make a good True Slave you know. All those Federation secrets." Amieta's contempt turned to a snarl again, "Do it!"

It galvanized him to action, and he turned his back to Amieta, reaching for the keys with his hands cuffed behind his back. He fumbled with the keys behind his back and finally managed to uncuff himself. He turned and stood facing Amieta, keys in one hand, cuffs hanging from the other.

"I'm seeing I made a mistake Jory," the XO said levelly.

"You should have let my family alone," Roth retorted.

"You shouldn't have tried to kill any of them."

"Ami," Roth said with a pitying smile, "Ciarente was as good as dead the day she met you. She was a trusting girl. But relying on you was a fatal mistake."

"I should have found you and put you down sooner." Amieta's voice was even, but permeated with menace, "Only mistake was saving you, not just killing you when you showed your colors. Sarakai, if Mr Roth gets past me, you are to let him go."

Sarakai saw the flicker of surprise on the man's face, Give them a little hope, so you have something to take from them. He must know.

Amieta spoke again, face set behind the mask of black lines "Like a B holoflick."

Roth eyed Amieta warily, "In B-grade holovids Watch officers don't hand people over to the Blooders on a platter."

Amieta gave a growl: a low, animal sound, as she tore the table from its remaining bracket on the floor and threw it at Roth. Even as he ducked and deflected the table with one arm, she was closing with him. He slashed at her face with the keys. Her hand shot up and closed around his wrist.

He dropped one bracelet of the cuffs in his right hand and swung them at Amieta's face as she held onto his left wrist. The combat boosted woman jerked him to one side, throwing a punch at his torso and throwing off his aim with the cuffs. Roth grunted as Amieta's fist connected. He headbutted her in return, then aimed a kick at her knee while she was off balance. She shuffled in, deflecting the crippling blow. A jab to his solar plexus staggered him and he moved with it, trying to break her death grip on his wrist by dropping his weight.

She held on, and chopped at his neck and he swung with the brutal strike, even managing to choke out another insult, "A friend would - fight Cia's real - enemies."

Amieta backhanded him: the force of rewired, enhanced muscle and high end custom cybernetics behind it. The sound was like a side of beef being hit with a metal pipe. Roth lost his feet, hanging from nothing but her grip, his eyes losing focus for a moment. Amieta dropped him on the floor and kicked him as he lay on the ground, and he rolled away to protect himself.

Wild eyed, Amieta turned and yanked the chair from the brackets securing it to the floor and spun to slam it against Roth, who yelped as it broke the arm he brought up to protect his head. Then, incredibly, he spoke again, "I guess - you only - fight when there's no - risk to - yourself."

Amieta kicked him with a sound of pure fury.

"Wouldn't - expect - more from - a blooder pet."

With a scream of rage she smashed the chair down on him again, breaking it against his shoulder and head. As he slumped, apparently unconscious or dead, she tossed away the pieces of the chair and stalked back to Sarakai, "Get him into shape for questioning if you can. Either way, make sure he has something to remember himself by."

Sarakai studied her commander cautiously. The XO was breathing hard, but blue gave edges to her pupils again. The tattoos were fading, she was back in control, though perhaps a little late. Hopefully we will be able to revive him long enough for questioning.

"Gutting out - at the - clinch - Ami?" The voice came from the bloody figure on the floor behind them.

The Commander went rigid, then stalked from the room.

Sarakai breathed a sigh of relief, Ami is in control again. She has the sense to -

The door slammed open again.

Oh, shit.

Amieta had her pistol in her hand, and without a word or hesitation she shot Roth in the back. Twice.

Amieta glanced around the room, then at the body with a look of disgust.

"Someone clean up this fucking mess."

Amieta holstered her sidearm and swept from the room. Sarakai eyed the corpse one last time before following, I hope whatever your secrets were, they were worth it.



*********************************


Jorion Roth walked through the unremarkable doors that concealed the local branch office of the FIO. On the other side of a slightly shabby foyer, another set of doors led to the real front entrance: a narrow hall, spy-eyes covering every angle.

From behind the blast-proof glass, the agent on desk duty gave him a wide-eyed look.

Jorion ran his hand over his bald head and gave her a rueful grin. "Cloned," he said. "Not a fashion statement."

"Oh, Agent Roth, I know," she said.


"Really? Do you know what happened?" Jorion shrugged. "The last three weeks are a blank. And my record-keeping seems to have been a little sloppy."



"No, I don't know, but ..." She bit her lip, and pointed to a large parcel on the other side of the security doors. "That came for you. I had it scanned. It's ..."


Jorion pressed his hand to the reader and his re-structured re-printed DNA was close enough to the original for the security doors to slide back.

He approached the parcel with caution. "You had it scanned? No explosives, or ..."

She shook her head.

Jorion flipped up the catch, and swung the lid open. A cloud of white smoke made him step back, before he realised it was just the vapour from a cooling agent. He stepped forward again, cautiously, and looked inside.

His own eyes stared back up at him, fixed and open, slightly dulled. His hair and eyebrows were - Its hair and eyebrows, Jorion made himself think - were rimed with ice crystals. And he couldn't be sure beneath the bruises, the broken nose and concave cheekbone, but Jorion thought there was a smile on the face of the severed head.


The head that once housed my thoughts, my memories. Myself.


The edge of a thick vellum card poked out from the cooling crystals packed around the head, and Jorion gently pulled it out.

One line, in elegant script:

A memento of your trip to Goinard.


He looked at it for a moment. Goinard. Why did I go to Goinard?



Surely I wasn't stupid enough to mess with Ethan Verone?



What else would take me to Goinard?


"Get this down to forensics," he said at last.

"Um, yes. Agent Roth? Are you all right?"

"All right? Why wouldn't I be?"

She stared at him. "Someone just sent you your own severed head!"

Jorion smiled at her. "Not the first time," he said. "Probably won't be the last."

Hunting the Hunter Part 5

For once, there'd been no-one Amieta knew in the Gate.

Not sure if that's a relief or if I should be worried what Cia's gotten up to since I saw her a few days ago. Amieta thought as she walked through the maze of hallways from the Last Gate to the Interbus terminal nearly on autopilot. Her mind turned to the upcoming operation. The last bits of intel had come through, and Amieta knew that at that moment Sarakai's team was probably in place.

Guess you can still get nerves even when you aren't one of the ones holding a gun.

She walked out onto the main terminal concourse, and turned toward the ramp for her shuttle

____________________________________________

Studying the vending machine in the Interbus terminal with every appearance of a man unable to chose between the equally unpalatable alternatives of a dry cheese sandwich or a can of Quafe Ultra, Jorion Roth watched the room behind him in the polished metal of the machine's frame.

There.

Instantly recognizable to him after the hours he'd spent studying her picture, even if the long sleeves of her uniform jacket covered those distinctive undisguised prosthetic arms, Commander Amieta Invelen strolled across the terminal.

Jorion punched the button for the sandwich, picked it out of the slot as it dropped and turned, head down as if he were struggling with the vacuum-sealed wrapping. He fell into step behind Invelen, making sure to keep thirty feet of distance and a good number of other passengers between them.

He already had his ticket to Ennur IX - M7 - Impro Research Center. He had a few others as well, to Torrinos and Rens to cover all the bases, but within a minute it was clear that Invelen was heading for the boarding gate to the Ennur shuttle.

Eating his sandwich, the half-peeled off wrapper mostly obscuring his face, Jorion filed on after her. She took a seat near the front of the shuttle. Jorion took one three rows behind her, far enough away to be out of reach of those arms, close enough to be sure he wouldn't miss. Invelen picked a holozine from the rack set in the back of the seat in front of her and flicked through it. Jorion did the same, seeing none of the glossy advertising or the breathless copy, watching the window beside him out of the corner of his eye, studying the view it showed him - stars moving past superimposed on a tiny inverted reflection of the cabin.

Tiny-upside down Invelen read her 'zine. I wonder what Sansha make of these things? Jorion wondered. Do they have their own versions, filled with advertorials about the new improved True Slave relay?

He would have liked to ask Invelen that. I would have liked to ask her a lot of things. But that was not going to happen. The shuttle flashed through the Ennur Gate, aligned, and kicked into warp. Jorion dropped his 'zine and got to his feet, to all outward appearances a man in a hurry to disembark as soon as the shuttle docked.

Clear shot, he thought, fingers gripping the butt of his gun.

"Don't fucking twitch."

Cool metal touched the back of his neck.

Even as he tensed, every passenger on the shuttle drew a weapon, aiming them directly at him. Every passenger except one.

Commander Amieta Invelen dropped her 'zine and stood up. "Thank you, Sarakai. Your team is to be commended."

Jorion swallowed, looking around at the 'passengers'. The Sansha passengers.

Invelen turned, a predatory smile spreading across her face.

"Mr Roth," she said. "I'm so glad we're going to have the chance to talk. I have a few suggestions about parenting I'd really like you to hear."