Marauder (20 page)

‘What?’

He turned and looked at her. ‘It’s heading for the Montos de Frenezo. He seems an interesting fellow, your Sifra.’

‘About what you’re thinking,’ she said, ‘I don’t know the answer.’

‘What was I going to ask?’

‘Whether he had anything to do with what happened to the Demarchy. If I knew, I swear to God I’d tell you. But right now I have to go.’

She hunted around until she found her top, and pulled it on. She looked down at him, still sprawled amidst tangled sheets. ‘There’s just one more thing I need from you,
Sabby.’

He chuckled. ‘After last night, I’m ready to say yes to just about anything.’

If Sarbakshian regretted making that offer before hearing just what it was she wanted, he did a good job of hiding it.

An hour later, Megan boarded his personal jump-car and started checking its systems. It wasn’t machine-head compatible, but required only a minimum of manual intervention. All she needed
to do, Sarbakshian told her, was tell it where she wanted to go. Manual control was entirely optional. Megan would have preferred something a little more interactive – something she could
genuinely
control
– but, for all that, it was a surprisingly roomy beast.

It was also, she knew, his pride and joy: its lines sinuous and curving and sleek, almost verging on the organic. But beneath that sporty exterior lurked the guts of a powerful machine designed
to keep its occupant from being shot out of the sky.

‘Okay, Sabby,’ she murmured, as she found her way into the tiny cargo area at the rear of his jump-car, ‘let’s see what you’ve got tucked away in here, shall
we?’

She soon found the bulkhead he’d told her to look for, feeling around its side until she found the hidden switch. A concealed door then clicked open, revealing a veritable arsenal of
weaponry. She saw long-range neural disruptors, pocket-sized hunter-seeker drones with k9-enabled neural networks that could identify individual human targets according to their scent, a rack of
zero-kickback high-powered rifles, and a small cache of throwaway energy weapons suitable for a dozen uses – after which they could be used as grenades.

Not bad
, she thought,
not bad at all
.

When you say you’re going away for a long time,
he had said to her in the moments before her departure,
you make it sound as if you don’t mean to come back at
all?

She had pressed a finger to his lips, but his frown hadn’t quite disappeared. She knew what he was thinking: that, wherever she was going, she wasn’t expecting to come back alive.
Otherwise, why hand him so much potential for wealth?

She activated the vehicle’s primary systems and took a moment to check up on Sifra’s recent movements. His dropship had indeed landed deep in the heart of the Montos de Frenezo, half
a world away from Aguirre.

The next time we meet, Anil
, she said to herself,
it’s going to be on my terms.

2751 (twelve years before)

Megan stepped down from the astrogation chair twenty minutes after Tarrant had demanded the presence of herself and Bash in the ship’s lounge, meanwhile wondering why the
Wanderer’s signal had cut off so unexpectedly.

She felt a growing sense of unease as she made her way down through several decks to reach the lounge. When she met Bash halfway, they continued together in silence. She felt a sharp pang of
regret as she remembered her first meeting with Tarrant and Sifra in the same lounge, several months before.

They arrived to find Tarrant sitting on a couch facing the entrance, a large aluminium case resting by his side. He stood up and pointed what looked like some kind of gun directly at Bash.

Megan heard a soft hiss of air, like a suddenly indrawn breath.

‘What the hell . . . ?’ exclaimed Bash.

She turned to see him examining a tiny, sliver-like dart protruding from his chest. He reached down to pluck it out, then tipped forward, with his knees folding under him.

The door closed behind them. She turned, startled by the sound, to see Sifra advancing towards her, wearing his nerve-induction gloves. He had obviously been waiting just out of sight behind the
door itself.

Sifra grabbed hold of her before she had a chance to react. It was as if molten lava flooded across her skin. Her legs gave way and she hit the floor, a liquid warmth spreading round her
groin.

She saw Bash lying unconscious nearby, and felt a depth of terror she hadn’t experienced in many years.

Sifra deactivated his gloves, then, with Tarrant’s help, dragged her over and dumped her on another couch.

‘Get the inhibitor,’ said Tarrant.

She willed herself just to reach out and take hold of his throat, to wrap her lean, strong fingers around the neck of her former lover and squeeze, and yet her muscles refused to obey her. She
watched helplessly as Sifra opened the silver case Tarrant had brought with him. He withdrew a device of some kind, pressing its muzzle against the base of her skull. There followed a sharp stab of
pain that brought tears to her eyes.

Sifra stepped away from her, allowing Tarrant room to tug both her wrists behind her back and secure them with a plastic tie. All the while, she struggled feebly, but to no avail.

The two men stepped away and grabbed hold of Bash, dragging him up onto the couch that Tarrant had been sitting on when they entered.

‘You aren’t one half the man people think you are,’ she managed to gasp at Tarrant. ‘Not one hundredth. And I hope I die and go to hell, just so I can be on the reception
committee when you finally get there.’

‘Nobody’s dying,’ said Tarrant. ‘In fact, the inhibitor I just injected you with is going to help keep you alive.’

She twisted her head from side to side as if she could shake the damn thing loose. ‘What the fuck is an “inhibitor”?’

‘Something that should keep you safe from the Wanderer.’

‘Keep me
safe
?’

Tarrant gave the cord securing Bash’s wrists an experimental tug, then nodded as if satisfied, before coming to stand before her with hands on hips. ‘There are some other things we
didn’t tell you. When the
Kelvin
was here, the crew tried communicating with the Wanderer by conventional means.’ He shook his head. ‘It didn’t work. Sifra tried
again, on our own approach, but he got the same results. But what you don’t know, Megan, is that the Wanderer was somehow able to communicate with the
Kelvin
’s crew through
their two machine-head pilots, but in a way we still don’t really understand. Unfortunately, the two pilots didn’t come too well out of the experience.’

Megan felt a terrible sense of dread. ‘What are you talking about?’

Tarrant squatted before her, so his face was level with her own. ‘Right after the
Kelvin
got within hailing distance of the Wanderer,’ he said, ‘they found one of
their pilots lying unconscious in his quarters. He never regained full consciousness and, less than a day later, the other pilot suffered what initially appeared to be a seizure. Unlike the other
guy, he
did
regain consciousness, and it rapidly became clear the Wanderer had found a way to speak to the
Kelvin
’s crew through them.’

She realized that in a strange way she had been expecting something like this. Even after Tarrant’s dreadful act of betrayal less than a week before, there had been some part of her that
still believed his actions were caused by a misguided belief that the ends justified the means. Now she understood he was in fact a monster more terrible than she could have ever imagined.

‘In some way,’ Tarrant continued, ‘the Wanderer was able to communicate with the pilots directly, via their implants, but something about that experience blew half their
synapses. The first pilot died after a couple of days, without ever waking up; the other suffered such bad epileptic attacks that they had to sedate him.’ He shrugged. ‘And that was the
moment it chose to attack.’

‘So how did they get away, with their pilots compromised?’

‘They managed to revive the surviving pilot long enough for him to jump them to safety. He wound up dead of a brain embolism just days after they arrived back at
Kjæregrønnested. And that,’ Tarrant concluded, ‘is why we shot you with an inhibitor. It should keep the Wanderer from taking control of your higher-level machine-head
functions, the way it did with the
Kelvin
’s pilots. We’re going to need you well enough to get us back home, once we’re done here, after all.’

‘You didn’t shoot one into Bash. Why not?’

Tarrant returned her look without saying anything.

‘No,’ she said, struggling to pull her wrists free. ‘
No
.’

‘Now, listen,’ he said, standing up once more, ‘there’s too much at stake not to have to make some sacrifices. We need to talk to the Wanderer; we need to get it to share
data with us, like it did with the Meridians, if we’re to have any hope of salvaging the Alliance. And since you’re the better pilot, that means Bash has to be our sacrificial
goat.’

He walked back over to the open aluminium case, and pulled out a tangle of black rubbery-looking cords all connected at one end. They looked to Megan like poisonous snakes joined at the
tail.

‘Use me,’ she whispered, ‘not him. Let
me
talk to the Wanderer.’

He shook his head. ‘If things don’t work out as well as we’re hoping they will, we might find ourselves in need of those exceptional piloting skills of yours.’

‘Please, Gregor,’ she begged, ‘don’t do this!’

He ignored her, kneeling beside Bash and carefully arranging the snake-like cords across his skull, with the join positioned at the back. Sifra stood behind Bash, holding Bash’s head
steady while Tarrant worked. Each cord ended in a broad, flattened pad that adhered to the skin of Bash’s head.

‘Now let’s wake him up,’ said Tarrant, stepping back.

Sifra nodded, lowering the back of Bash’s head onto the couch. Then he walked over to Megan and dragged her into an upright seated position on her own couch, before stepping around behind
her and placing both of his gloved hands on her shoulders.

Megan tensed, her breathing constricted, as she watched Tarrant remove a pressure-hypo from the silver case and touch it to one side of Bash’s neck.

The unconscious man jerked in response, then drew in a deep, shuddering breath, his eyes flickering open. He blinked and looked around him, his gaze turning baleful when it finally settled on
Tarrant.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ Bash demanded. ‘First you shoot me, then you—’

‘Bash, I want you to listen to me very carefully,’ interrupted Tarrant.

‘Fuck that,’ said Bash, twisting from side to side as he attempted to pull his hands free of the plastic ties. He started pushing himself up on to his feet, his mouth becoming a
grimace of anger.

Megan sent to him.

She saw Bash glance towards her. Then Sifra activated his gloves, and Megan screamed. The pain wasn’t as bad as before, but it was still bad enough. She twisted wildly, but he had a tight
hold on her. She tipped forward, vomiting between her knees onto the floor of the lounge.

The pain kept coming.

‘What the hell are you
doing
?’ she could hear Bash shouting. ‘Don’t you understand you’re going to fry her implants?’

‘I’m using a low setting,’ said Sifra, from behind her. ‘Too low to cause any permanent damage to her implants. But I can make up for that by maintaining the pain for
hours, Bash, or even days. However long it takes to get you to cooperate.’

‘Please,’ said Bash, his voice cracking. ‘Let her go. Just stop this.’

‘As soon as you stop resisting us,’ said Tarrant, ‘he will.’

‘Shit. Fine.’ Bash sat back down, his face pale and sweating. ‘Stop the fuck now.
Now
.’

Suddenly, the pain was gone. Megan collapsed back onto her side, her breath wheezing and her teeth chattering.

‘What the hell is this thing you’ve got on my head?’ said Bash.

‘Should we go ahead now?’ said Tarrant, glancing at Sifra.

Sifra nodded. ‘All ready.’

Tarrant made a gesture, and a virtual control panel shimmered into existence next to him. He reached out and began tapping at it.

‘Has this got something to do with the Wanderer?’ asked Bash. ‘Because if you’re . . .’

Bash fell suddenly silent, as if he was trying hard to listen to something.

‘What is it?’ asked Tarrant. ‘Do you hear something?’

Bash looked up at him uncertainly. ‘I don’t know, but maybe. Why don’t you tell me what you—?’

‘Open it up as far as you can,’ Sifra interrupted him. ‘Link him into the main tach-net array and let’s see what happens.’

Megan hated herself, in that moment, for not shouting at Bash to get to his feet, to make a run for it, to do anything he could to stop this happening. But she knew what would happen if she did,
and nothing frightened her more than the thought of those gloves touching her again.

She watched, helpless and filled with self-loathing, as Bash’s expression slowly changed to one of amazement. He grinned, then laughed, shaking his head from side to side.

‘Tell me what you see,’ said Tarrant.

‘I . . . don’t know how to describe it,’ said Bash. ‘It’s as if I can hear a million voices all talking at once, but I can’t make a single one of them out. I
can’t make any kind of sense out of any of it. I . . .’

Bash jumped so suddenly that Tarrant stumbled back from him. Bash’s eyes bulged in their sockets, his jaw clenching in a deathly grimace. Then he slumped against the couch and began to
shake with a dreadful, high-pitched keening emerging from the depths of his throat. Megan watched in horror, her heart aching to see him in such terrible distress.

‘Watch he doesn’t swallow his tongue,’ said Sifra, his tone calm and unaffected.

‘He’s wide open,’ said Tarrant, glancing at the virtual panel. ‘His vitals are spiking all across the board.’

‘Then ramp him down, for God’s sake,’ snapped Sifra. ‘Let’s not blow every circuit in his brain before we’ve even had a chance to talk to the damn
thing.’