Rebel Stars 1: Outlaw (24 page)

"The UFO, too," Rada said. "We underestimated how fast it could burn. That's why…"

"You're alive," he finished.

He turned the vid back on. Jain was smiling now, lost in the wonder of what she was describing. "Can you imagine what this means?
We can get outside the system
. All we have to do is build a big enough engine. And find someone foolish enough to ride it."

She shook her head, grinning, then composed herself. "It sounds like a hell of a gift, right? Until you think of the questions it raises. Why do the Swimmers—the people who nearly destroyed us—want us to be able to escape our Solar System? If they want us to have it, why do they want their involvement kept secret? Why pretend that FinnTech discovered it? Is this the first time the Swimmers have contacted us, or is this how FT 'invented' artificial gravity, too?

"The secrecy alone would be reason for gravest concern. Our acquisition of this technology demands it be studied and explored in public. Even if it turns out to be a wholly innocent gesture of reconciliation, a blessing, then there is no reason for it to be controlled by FinnTech. It should be available to everyone."

She narrowed her eyes. "That you are watching this, however, strongly implies it is
not
an innocent gift. As does the fact that, when we Needled Valiant to inform them of what we'd seen, they locked us down and immediately dispatched a sanitation crew to purge us of our records. I had to hide my copies in a pebble outside the station. Convinced yet? No? Well, how about the fact Valiant is in merger talks with FinnTech?"

"
Merger?
" Rada said. "No wonder she came to us rather than Iggi Daniels."

"So there you have it," Jain concluded. "One of humanity's largest corporations is striking clandestine deals with our ancient nemesis for technology that will change everything. I don't know what should be done about it. That's why I came to the Hive. Whatever you decide, attached to this message is all the proof you'll need. I trust you to make the right decision.

"In exchange, I ask just one thing: show the rest of this message to Peregrine." She waited a beat, then looked directly into the camera. "Pip, I know you've always resented my interest in my work. I don't blame you. I wasn't there as much as I should have been, especially after Dinah grew ill. But I want you to know…" Her eyes went bright. She sniffed and righted her voice. "I want you to know that the only reason I could pursue this was because I knew that you would always take care of your sister. I'm so proud of you, Pip. I can only hope I've made you proud of me."

She smiled. The recording stopped, Jain's face frozen on the screen, gazing up at Webber. Webber stared through it, cheek twitching. He set the device on a log and walked into the woods.

Rada watched him go, then scribbled more notes onto her device. She wanted more than anything to Needle Toman the news, but she couldn't risk having the evidence intercepted. Not after the lengths Jain had gone to keep it out of FinnTech's hands. No, they were going to have to deliver it to the Hive in person.

Webber walked back five minutes later. His eyes were red, his face puffy. He picked up the device from the log. "Think we ought to see what all the fuss was about?"

He switched over to the attached files. The first was a view of blank space, fixed stars untwinkling on a black field. One by one, they winked off in a line, reappearing moments later. Something was moving across them.

The view cut to a face. Webber shouted and threw aside his device, scrambling back. Rada and the others retreated a step, too. Webber laughed shakily and picked up the pad from the bed of dead leaves.

The face was smooth and egg-shaped. Fist-sized eyes bulged angrily. A thin neck connected the alien's head to a long, tapered body held horizontally above the ground. A score of tentacles, claws, and spindly legs projected from its body.

A nightmare. A Swimmer. The creatures who, a thousand years ago, had smashed humanity's future. Driven them to the brink of extinction. And then disappeared, never to be seen again.

"Holy shit," Webber breathed.

Rada was struck speechless. She had spent years with the Hive, fastidiously hunting down stories, relics, and evidence of aliens in general and Swimmers in specific. Toman had devoted his
life
to it. Now here she was, watching one in action.

The alien gestured, tentacle tips wiggling. A flat, nongendered voice said, "Hello, you who have traveled to meet us. Is this because you have brought us a decision?"

When the view cut again, it was to a human face. One that Rada recognized: the handsome, happy face of Thor Finn, interplanetary magnate of FinnTech.

"The decision was never in doubt," he said. "Only the details. They're always the devil, aren't they?"

The alien face was expressionless. "There is no devil. Only the Way."

There was more—much, much more—but all it did was back the claims Jain had already made. Watching all of it would have taken hours. Promising they could see the rest during the flight, Rada shut it down and led them down the mountain. The silence of the slopes made her feel as if intelligent life had never existed: rocks, trees, insects, nothing more.

~

With Earth a fading blue dot behind them, Rada stood from her chair and turned to face the others. "I appreciate your help so far, so I'm going to be straight with you. You'll be staying at the Hive until this is over."

"Let me guess," MacAdams said. "You have no idea how long that will be."

"I intend to expose FinnTech as soon as I can. I can assure you that you'll be compensated for your time."

"That's all I need to hear."

Lara raised her hand. "Sounds like you want to set us down like a hammer at the end of a job. What if we want to keep fighting?"

"How do you intend to do that?" Rada said.

"You're going to kill him, right? The ghost in the UFO? Seems to me we may be the only people who've seen him in action and survived."

"I'm not sure how useful that's going to be. I bet this comes down to trickery and firepower."

Lara tightened her jaw. "We're not a bunch of ground-huggers. I'm a pilot and these two are marines."

Rada glanced to the two men. "Does she speak for you?"

"If the price is right," MacAdams said.

"They murdered my mother," Webber said. "I'm in this to the end."

That night, with the others asleep in the cramped bunks, Rada found herself in the tiny galley. She hadn't meant to go there, but now that she was, she couldn't seem to stop staring at the dispenser. She thought she ought to toast Simm. He deserved it. After what she'd been through, she did too. Anyway, without it, she wasn't going to be able to sleep. One drink—slug it back, then go to bed. It wouldn't mean anything. She would wake up tomorrow and be fine.

She got a plastic cup from the holder in the cabinet and set it under the dispenser. Her hand trembled.

Steps shuffled in behind her. She whirled. Though her hands were empty, she put them behind her back. Webber stood across from her, blinking at the hard light.

"Can't sleep?" she said.

"Nodded off for a few," he said. "Then I saw that thing's face. Its eyes. Don't think I'll be sleeping again for a while."

"Me neither. We've all seen the movies. I've seen plenty of drawings. The Hive archives even have three original photographs from the invasion. But nothing can prepare you for seeing them in the here and now."

"It's kind of like sex in that regard." He laughed and leaned against the counter. "Except shocking and horrible and it makes your skin want to crawl off your body."

"So it's like your first time." She grinned, then let it fade. "How are you doing?"

"Fine. Better than fine, honestly. I never expected to hear from my mom again. I didn't
want
to." He looked her in the eye. "Thank you for finding me, Rada."

"Wasn't easy." She put the glass back in the cupboard. "But good things rarely are."

A few hours out from the Hive, she Needled ahead to inform Toman that he would want to clear his schedule. She included her innocuous-looking emergency phrase in her signature. He replied to inform her he would be awaiting her arrival.

At port, she stepped out of the umbilical to the terminal and bumped right into him. She introduced him to the others, who looked starstruck. Even MacAdams didn't have many words. Toman was gracious with them, welcoming them to the Hive and assuring them all their needs would be tended to, but Rada knew him well enough to see the impatience in his gestures. As soon as he could, he shunted the others off on his assistants, hustled Rada to his cart, and peeled out.

In his office—a cluttered place of screens, devices, and bug-hunting paraphernalia throughout the ages—he shut the door, flipped on his security, and turned on her.

"Talk," he said. "Talk talk
talk
."

"We found Jain's message," she said. "She saw something she wasn't supposed to. FinnTech is sitting on brand new anti-momentum tech. Accelerate, turn, stop on a dime, you won't feel a thing."

His jaw dropped in affront. "Thor Finn solved the Jelly Problem?"

"The what?"

"The Jelly Problem. As in, if you try to fly like fun insists, you will be crushed into jelly."

"Don't get too jealous. He had help." Rada bit her lip. "It was given to him by the Swimmers."

Toman developed a Jelly Problem of his own: his face went slack, his hands dangling limply. "Rada, if this is a joke, stop it right now. Otherwise, I'm flushing you out an airlock. Warning: I am not kidding."

"I know," she said, "I'm not, either. We have the transmissions right here."

He took her device, began to open the files, then made himself stop. "Let's take this to Hyrule. Security's better there. Besides, I have the feeling we're headed there anyway."

He drove so fast the cart all but flew. At Hyrule, he ordered the LOTR to lock the building down and gather at the table. Sensing the gravity of the moment, they flew into action.

As Toman fed the device to the room's main screen, his employees fell silent, listening reverently as Jain Kayle spun her story. None of them uttered a word. Not until the first video transmission played and the alien's face popped on the screen. They shouted, leapt from their chairs, exchanged high fives. Liam and Nora burst into tears that were equal parts joyful and scared. When Rada glanced at Toman, she saw that he was weeping, too.

Between watching the extras and hashing out an initial strategy with the Lords of the True Realm, it was hours before Toman rose, rubbed his eyes, and beckoned Rada to follow. He took her to a side chamber made up like an ancient Christian temple: pews, candles, stained glass, statues of saints.

He hopped on the dais and began to pace. "Appropriate venue, considering you just delivered me the Holy Grail. For that same reason, I'd like to offer you three wishes. There's only one problem."

"All I want is to kill the UFO."

"Just so," he nodded. "Rada, I'm so sorry about Simm. I have never found that words make much difference to my feelings. Especially grief. But I hope you know what he's given us."

"I know," she said. "The potential to change everything. But that's your job now, isn't it?"

"And what's yours? To avenge his death? Rada, I think you have a more positive role to play."

"That being?"

He glanced away. "I don't know yet. It's a feeling."

"Then it's beside the point."

"If feelings won't work, here's the rational reasons against. First, going after the UFO could endanger the larger mission of bringing down FinnTech. Second, when we bring them down, the UFO pilot will crash and burn with them."

"Do you honestly believe that? Back with the
Rebel
, IRP killed hundreds of people. What happened to them? Some bad PR?"

"Along with a civil war that replaced the entire government. And a complete collapse of new immigration.
And
system-wide sanctions that have left them crippled."

"We don't have court-worthy evidence that our ghost has killed anyone. Even if we did, who's going to arrest him? The Space Police? We don't even know who he
is
."

He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Then how about this: I don't want to lose you."

"Then let me use the
Tine
. It's either that or I go rent the first bucket of rust I can strap a gun to."

"I could bar you from leaving."

"You don't want to do that," she said softly. "Or you'll lose me worse than death."

Toman sighed and sat at the edge of the dais. "This is the problem with surrounding yourself with talented people. Soon enough, they start thinking they ought to have a will of their own."

"Help me not interfere with your plans for FinnTech."

"That won't be hard. Whoever this guy is, he's a mop. When somebody breaks something, they send him in to clean it up—Jain, the
Specter
. You want to bag your ghost? All you have to do is make a mess."

"We've got more than enough eggs in Jain's files. If we drop one, he'll come running." She rubbed her hands together, realized what she was doing, and stopped. "We've got another problem, though. Simm barely held his own against the UFO after it had already spent itself in a fight with a
Titan
. No way can I take it solo. But if we show up with a fleet, he'll vanish. And he's too fast to chase down."

"Yes, that would be a problem, wouldn't it? Except for one small thing." He nudged her knee with his elbow. "Haven't you ever wondered why I called it the
Tine
?"

By any objective standard, the Hive was incredible. All the amenities of an up-to-the-minute modern station combined with a tiny little planet you could circumnavigate in an hour's walk yet spend days exploring.

But it was hard to be happy after they'd taken his device away.

Webber spent time tromping around the grass. Poking around the ponds. People claimed spending time in nature was good for the soul, but since leaving Earth, he had come to believe that mostly all it was good for was getting you dirty, sweaty, and covered in bug bites. Escaping from it with tunnels and habitats was not a new development. People had been building homes to segregate themselves from nature for thousands of years.