Rebel Stars 1: Outlaw (27 page)

MacAdams made a spitting noise. "Only human."

"Sure he's not a vampire?" Webber leaned in for a closer look. "Maybe one of those stakes hit his heart."

Behind his mask, the man's eyes popped open. Webber screamed and scrabbled back, lifting his pistol.

"Webber!" Rada said over the comm. "You okay?"

Webber steadied his aim. "He's alive."

The man lifted a hand, shards of plastic falling from his suit's sleeve. "Get out. You don't get to be here."

"I'd like to watch you suffer," Webber said. "But I'll like this even more."

He pulled the trigger. The gun's bang was a whisper—there was just a bit of smoke to carry the sound—but to his surprise, he hardly felt its buck, either. A distant part of him wondered how the bullets had even fired at all, but this ran a distant second to watching the man's face go slack.

"He's gone, Rada." He holstered his weapon. "It's over.

~

Yon felt the bullet enter him—an indescribable kick, followed by numbness—but he didn't mind the discomfort half so much as the disgusting feel of having the two men watching him die. It felt like worms slipping between his skin and the fat beneath. He tried to scream at them to go away, but something had stolen his breath.

Their faces loomed above him like two dim moons. The moment became forever. The light in the command room faded, but as it waned, the two moons waxed. They were no longer the faces of humans—they were the eyes of a Swimmer.

The alien descended on him. He tried again to scream, but the creature was deaf. Its tentacles enfolded him in a moist and sickening embrace.

~

"There it is." Over the comm, Webber's voice was hushed, reverent. "Are you seeing this?"

She stared up at the screen, conscious that her mouth was actually hanging open. "Sorry, I'm in awe over here. This is like rubbing a lamp and watching the genie come out."

"Except we didn't rub the lamp. We shot it. And now we're going to kidnap the genie."

On the screen, a silver cylinder projected from the floor of the UFO's guts. Minute stars orbited it in complex patterns, distorting the shadows of the room. She suspected the tiny lights were decorative rather than integral to the design, and she feared it had been built by alien claws rather than human hands, but she didn't care. It was beautiful.

"Enough gawking," Rada said. "Load it up and let's get out of here before FinnTech's backup arrives."

While Webber and MacAdams uninstalled it from the UFO, Rada began composing messages. Most were to Toman and the Hive, but she had one for Simm's parents, too. The two men returned in the box bearing the object. They came to the bridge all grins.

"We have got to get that thing plugged into the
Tine
," Webber said. "We'll be the meanest ship in the system."

"Toman will want it," Rada said. "But I bet I can talk him into giving us the first copy."

"He'd better." MacAdams found a seat and settled in with a sigh. "Won't be long before this is the new normal."

She nodded, lost in the idea of the coming future. An era defined not by the weakness of flesh and metal, nor of the might of whatever unseen forces lurked beyond the fringes of humanity, but by the wills of those willing to push into the unknown.

"So what's next?" Webber said.

She grinned at the stars. "Who knows?"

"Surely Toman has a plan. Isn't he some whiz kid supergenius?"

"Oh, what's next for the Hive?" She turned and gave him an impish smile. "Simple. We tell the world."

The world, as usual, didn't give a big fat shit.

Oh, there was plenty of hooting and hollering. Some claimed the Motion Arrestors, as they began to be known—much to the consternation of the LOTR, who claimed that wasn't what the devices did at all—were a transparent Swimmer plot to finally destroy humanity once and for all. FinnTech argued there was nothing in the MAs that would suggest such a thing. When various research groups insisted FinnTech release the schemas for independent verification, FinnTech balked, claiming that, given the horrendously lax state of patent protection, a delay was necessary to ensure their proprietary rights were secured.

This opened the door to the sub-argument that they didn't deserve patent rights in the first place. FinnTech argued that it shouldn't matter
how
they'd acquired the technology, only that they had; others insisted that the circumstances of their acquisition were well beyond the scope of existing laws and thus the laws could not apply.

Most of these opinions were forwarded by scholars, pundits, judges, low-level representatives, and so on. The players, the people who mattered, they weren't even paying attention. Not when the new technology meant better, fleeter ships. Not when fleeter ships meant more profit. FinnTech was already scrambling to fill orders. Toman's people had nearly reverse-engineered the MA the
Tine
had brought back and were leaning toward selling their own line of the product.

Like Rada had said, the genie was out of the bottle. Anyone trying to stuff it back in would wind up watching helplessly as they fell behind the culture's newest leap.

Webber was about as far as he could get from the front lines of this politico-economical warfare and received most of his news from Rada. He intended to rejoin her soon enough, but for the moment, he had other business.

It was a long ride from the port. After cruising through an array of neighborhoods, the cab found St. Martin's Street, a quiet neighborhood of single homes. The vehicle whirred to a stop outside a pale blue house. Webber hated himself for caring that its lawn was well-tended, but if the lawn was being seen to, then presumably Dinah was too. He couldn't help smiling: the house was modest, but it was hers.

He was met at the door by Marcel, the live-in assistant.

"Mr. Webber?" The man gazed down, apologetic. "Today, she's not feeling so well."

"Oh." Webber glanced behind him, but he'd let the autocar go. "Maybe tomorrow."

"She told me to see you inside." Marcel stepped back. "I told her you wouldn't mind coming back, but she insisted."

"Stubborn. Blame our mom."

The inside smelled like antiseptic and clean linen. She was in bed, propped up by pillows. She was pale and there was little flesh between her skin and her cheekbones, but the light in her eyes was as lively as the tiny stars that had orbited the machine.

"Pip!" She laughed, spilling tears. "Even when you called and I saw you on video, I figured it had to be a prank."

"On myself, maybe." He sat on the bed and embraced her. She felt light and hot but there was some sinew to her. "How've you been?"

"You don't get to change the subject like that. Why did you do it, Pip? Why did you go away?"

"You were about to lose the house. I tried to get a loan, but nobody would touch me. Not unless I sold them my life."

She reached for his hand. "Why? Why give up so much for me? You lost everything, didn't you?"

"Everything wasn't so much," he laughed. "My life hadn't turned out how I wanted, Dinah. Not at all. I can try to blame Mom, and I'm sure you'll blame yourself, but it was nobody's fault but mine. Keeping you on your feet, and at the same time I get to become someone new…it felt like the only chance I'd ever have."

"It sounds insane!"

"The only thing I regretted was I wouldn't be able to see you again."

"Well, did it work?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

She rolled her eyes. "Your new life. Is it fun? Are you getting to do everything you imagined?"

He laughed again. "Way more. And it's only getting started."

"Two scoops of wonderful." Her grin shrank. "Faking your death, though—that's fraud. Will you be in trouble for coming here?"

"I've made some new friends. One of them is very generous. He's cleared up everything." He grinned at her. "And there's more. How would you like to take a vacation?"

"Oh yeah? Hawaii? The Sea of Tranquility? The Hotel d'Titan?"

"Idaho. The cabin. Like when we were kids."

"I've missed that so much." This time, her smile was the resigned smile of the chronically ill watching life from within the window. "But you know I can't leave here."

"I don't think you understand," Webber said. "My new friend is Toman Benez. I just got done earning him a second fortune. He's paying for the entire thing."

Dinah stared at him, eyes clocking between his, searching for signs of a joke. She burst into laughter, then tears, then more laughter. "When can we leave?"

~

She was so wrapped up in the fallout from the fight and the taking of the MA that it was days before the grief hit her. When it did, she stayed in her apartment in the Hive's ring for three days. She left the lights off. Didn't shower. Spent hours staring at the tap of her machine. She held out by imagining Simm seeing her pour and consume the glass. In her mind, he wouldn't leave, but he wouldn't speak to her, either. Not until she was better.

But willpower was a resource. Finite. She knew she could only hold out so long. For that reason, and because she was as restless as the comets, she rousted herself. Collected his ashes. And walked to Hyrule Castle.

The automaton lowered the drawbridge and told her to enter as she pleased. Instead, she asked the bot to see if Liam was in. Minutes later, the data hound wandered outside, blinking at the morning light. After their initial greeting and small talk, the conversation dwindled to nothing.

"Did you hear about Simm?" she blurted.

His gaze darted across the courtyard. "We sent a card. Didn't you get it?"

"I did. Thank you." She untucked the box from under her arm. "I have an odd request. His ashes—can he stay here?" She blinked at Liam. "It won't be forever. Soon, I'll take him to the stars. But he wanted to be a part of your team so badly."

"That's…" Liam shook his head, gazing up at the bubble enclosing the rock. "I was going to say weird. But my whole life's weird. Besides, it's pretty cool, too. Where should he stay? The Tower of Earth? Moon? Mars? Or Meteor?"

She gazed up at the four high corners of the castle. "He never cared for Earth; too traditional, too crowded. The Moon is fine, but he thought further than that. Meteors would interest him, but they'd frighten him, too—too unpredictable, and they always crash in the end."

"Please tell me Mars will suffice. We're kind of busy to start work on a fifth tower."

She laughed a little. "Mars is perfect. It's out there, but it's stable. And there's room to be whoever you please. I think he would have been happy there."

"Then the Tower of Mars shall be his." Liam held out his hands for the box of ashes. She gave it to him and he gazed down at its brushed metal surface. "The realm has lost one of its finest knights. Yet not in vain: he delivered our grail."

She wanted to scoff, but if Simm could have heard it, he'd be smiling so hard he'd have to look away. She broke down again. When she finished, however, she felt renewed, as light as hydrogen. She was glad there was a dome overhead in case she started to float away.

~

After a month on Earth, Webber returned to the port. On the flight up, he had a good long look at Founder's Bay and the remains of the mothership that continued to corrode off the coast. Once, it had felt impossibly old, like the last surviving brick of a house that had long ago crumbled into sand. Now, however, the ship looked like the fossil of a prehistoric shark, once believed extinct, discovered to be hiding in deeper waters than humanity could navigate.

One of Toman's ships awaited him in orbit. It picked up a few other passengers in the Belt, but for most of the ride, he had it to himself. He made the Hive in short order. A cart carried him across the ring to the rock and then to the castle.

Rada awaited him outside. "How was Dinah?"

"Good," Webber said. "We went to the mountain. We hiked around, explored. After two weeks, she ran. Only for a few steps. But I haven't seen her run in years."

"That's incredible. And no trouble with the law?"

He shook his head. "Toman's a wizard."

"Sufficiently large quantities of money are indistinguishable from magic, aren't they?"

"And how've you been?"

"Getting there." She turned to stare up at the castle's dark, gleaming tower. "Sooner or later, I'll be able to convince my head that it's over."

"Is it?" Webber said. "We killed the assassin. But he was just a cog in the machine. The people who sent him are still out there."

"You mean FinnTech. One of the largest arms manufacturers in the system—check that; after their merger with Valiant clears,
the
largest. Every government on Earth is too busy lining up to buy Finn's newest gizmos to pretend to investigate his company."

"Toman's no slouch in the arms department. Besides, I know how to get a far more valuable ally than Valiant."

"Please tell me you haven't stolen a page from their book and struck a secret deal with the aliens."

"Nope." A slow grin spread across his face. "The Locker."

"You want to come after Finn with an army of pirates?"

"Privateers," Webber corrected. "Together, their armada will rival anything FinnTech can muster."

She laughed, the noise echoing across the courtyard. "Assuming you can get them under one roof. Call them what you want, but at the end of the day, they're pirates. They won't be easy to unite, Admiral."

"Admiral Webber," he said, testing the words. "I like the sound of that."

"You can dream when you sleep. Right now, it's time to work."

He glanced up. The artificial light hid the stars, but he knew they were waiting beyond the thin shield of the dome. Once upon a time, they'd felt forbidding, a wilderness you could get lost in if you took the wrong step.

Now, though, they looked more like a map—one that would lead him to his destiny among them.

FROM THE AUTHOR

OUTLAW is the first book in a series--one that I can't wait to explore further. To make sure the books keep coming, please leave a review. Want to make sure you hear when future books are out?
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