Chapter 26

Lee’s fingers stabbed at the keys on the holo-board to disconnect from the server. “Computer,” he snapped. “Download the data packets from connection rtc/0.” His hands grabbed the flight stick and throttle. Shoving the controls, he moved the cam-bot through the office as fast as possible.

“What’s happening?” Reeves asked, a note of concern creeping into her usual calm.

“A sentry process discovered VoidKiller and is sending out countermeasures. I need to get the cam-bot out of the office as far from the server as possible, so it can’t…” His voice trailed off.

A gleam caught his eye in the bot’s field of view. He rolled past the door by a coat rack with the modern florid design of Imperials. It was what was hanging there that stopped him in his tracks. There, on the lowest hook of the rack, was the familiar pendant necklace his mother had worn. It all tied together in his mind. His memory connected the pock-marked troll his mother used to date to the older, still pock-marked and ponytailed Alden Duryss. The frame was frozen on the necklace. A sudden heat of anger engulfed him. It seemed to clarify his thoughts and guide his actions. He triggered an image capture of the necklace as fast as he could manage. Then he slammed the throttle forward as far as it would go to speed the bot toward the tall window.

Before the little cam-bot ball made it, a surge of electricity danced in the frame, overcoming the bot’s signal. The feed dropped completely and went black.

“What happened?” Reeves asked. “Where’s the feed?”

“We lost it, and they’ve probably traced our connection to…”

Surges began to arc around his display terminal. Lee snapped his hands back from the controls and shouted at them, “Don’t touch anything! It’s a shock spike.” The electrical ribbons danced across the control surfaces in the cabin and spread to the entire ship. Displays flashed as they failed from the surges, then reinitialized. Every button and holo-display flashed like a psychotic dance party.

The surges subsided, and Xohn, still frozen in place, asked, “Is that it?”

“Yeah, but authorities are likely going to investigate. Anyone hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Reeves said, seeming to brush it off.

“I’m okay, too,” Xohn sighed.

A sudden panic struck him to his core and emptied him out.

Zee!

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” he said aloud as he scrambled to his feet, moving as fast as he could. Time seemed to race, making him feel like he was moving in slow motion. He didn’t bother with the ladder and dropped straight to the lower deck. When he hit the floor, he ran full speed through the corridor to the starboard wing compartment. He found Zee completely still and crumpled over the structural plate she’d been working on.

He grabbed her lifeless body in his arms and gently laid her down on the floor. His mind raced. He had almost no medical knowledge. He felt the side of her neck but couldn’t find a pulse, and he could see she wasn’t breathing. Her face had a cold, dead look; the color drained. “Help me! Somebody! Help!” He shouted at the top of his lungs, standing over her, pacing frantically. “No, Zee!” He knelt beside her and put a hand to her face. “No!” He said with a soft whimper, tears creeping into his eyes, blurring his vision.

Reeves entered the room. Looking up and recognizing the person responsible, Lee shot an angry look at her. “Do something!”

Reeves ran back into the corridor as Xohn pushed through the door simultaneously. He gasped at the sight of Zee on the floor. In only a moment, Reeves returned with the onboard emergency medkit.

“Start chest compressions,” she ordered, rummaging through the pack.

Lee looked around. Feeling dumb and useless, he shouted, “I don’t know how!”

Reeves put down the pack, still keeping her cool. “Like this,” she placed her hands on top of each other and simulated the motion. “You have to push her chest hard, over and over, like a heartbeat.”

Lee nodded, beginning compressions while Reeves rummaged through the medkit. She pulled a compact defibrillator and an automatic respirator from the kit then moved beside Zee. Lee watched Reeves open Zee’s mouth and look around. Seeming satisfied by what she saw, she placed the respirator over her face and began to unzip her jumpsuit to get at her bare chest. Reeves placed the pads onto her chest and pressed the button to charge the capacitors. “Get back!” A distinct whining sound seemed to rev up. “Clear!” Reeves shouted and pressed a button.

Zee’s body made a horrific lurching motion at her chest but remained motionless after.

Reeves checked for a pulse but shook her head. “Again! Clear!” Reeves shouted, pressing the button and sending a jolt through Zee’s body. Her body convulsed again but settled back to rest. Reeves felt for a pulse. Lee watched her fingers, then looked her in the eye, waiting for any indication. She stared, concentrating for a few moments before her eyes softened. She nodded. Zee’s eyes slowly began to open, but her pupils were low.

“There we are, we have you, Zee,” Reeves said. She rolled Zee onto her side and pulled the respirator off. Fluid began to drain from Zee’s drooping mouth.

Lee felt simultaneous relief and lingering concern. He tried and failed to choke down his emotions to ask, “Will… will she be okay?”

“She’s stable, but we need to get her to a medical facility,” Reeves held a grave expression.

Zee began to cough, prompting Lee to hold her and make her more comfortable. Her eyes flared open amidst the coughs, and she tried to sit up.

Lee spoke softly to her. “Just relax. You’re okay, Zee. We’ve got you now. We’re gonna get you help.” Lee looked back up at Reeves and half-whispered to keep from disturbing Zee. “Where? Where are we supposed to go? It’s too hot here. That sentry program knows this ship now. We need to get out of here, or we never will.”

“We still need that data,” Reeves sat back against the hull reinforcement. Her eyes darted about the compartment as she appeared to work the problem. “You’ll have to take the data and Zee to Li Yong-Rui. I was going to rendezvous with him on the SCS Arbitrage at the Blue Crater Mines. It’s an installation in Tangaroa.” She had an urgent look, “Analyze the data en route and deliver it to Li Yong-Rui.”

“And how in Charon’s frozen cracks am I supposed to get on his schedule?”

“I had a meeting set up already. I’ll send word that you’re going as my proxy.” She shook her head. “I would have liked to have seen proof myself before sending you off. On the other hand, this keeps me at the frontlines. I’ll send for the reporter to join you.”

Lee nodded.

Reeves stood. “Xohn, help us move her to a rack.”

Xohn nodded, still standing in the doorway. Lee gently got up, and the three of them carefully handled Zee through the corridors into quarters with a sleeping rack.

“You’ll be okay here, Zee,” Lee encouraged while strapping her in. Zee only moaned a bit and closed her eyes. “Xohn, can you stay with her?”

“Of course,” he said, bowing his head.

“Lee, the fleet won’t be ready for a few more hours,” Reeves stood outside the room. “You’re going to have to break about a dozen laws and rack up some significant fines to break out of here.”

“We’ll manage. You just make sure they know we’re coming, and we’ll need emergency medical teams on standby.”

“Send me your public comm keys so we can set up an encrypted channel,” Reeves pulled out her datapad and held it in front of her.

“I left mine on the flight deck,” Lee pushed past her on the way up.

Up on the flight deck, they exchanged keys. Lee kept a hard look on his face. He resented her for forcing his hand enough that it caused him to question her motivations.

“You still don’t trust me, do you, Mr. Sollinger?”

He looked her in her eyes and said, “I rarely trust anyone. You’re not that special.”

“That may be Mr. Sollinger, but the only way we can save anything or anyone today is trusting each other.”

He pursed his lips but nodded. “In that case, good luck and good hunting, Colonel.”

Reeves gave a short bow of her head and left the flight deck.

Lee moved around to settle in his flight chair and fired up the systems on the Nightcrawler. It had been long enough with enough changes; Lee decided it was worth running a pre-flight sequence. About halfway through the checks, Xohn joined him.

“I thought you were staying with Zee,” Lee said, confused.

“Trisha is with her now. I told her what happened. I’m sorry, Lee.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I just hope Sirius Corp will help.” He turned on the internal comm system. “Alright, folks, we’re ready to depart. It might get bumpy…”

Outside the canopy, a small fleet of sentry drones entered the bay. The upper information HUD lit up with a message:

> Warning 1,100 CR bounty gained: Illegal Network Access.

“Correction, it’s going to get bumpy. Strap in.”

“Are they here for us?”

“Did you see the bounty? Yeah, they’re here for us,” Lee gritted his teeth, working his terminal. He dispatched an override virus to dock control. With all the other hack attempts going wrong, he half expected it not to work. Several seconds went by with nothing happening. After about a minute, Lee began to lose hope until they heard a loud but distant clanking. Lights began to flash around their pad. “We’re free!” Lee shouted with surprise.

He rebalanced power to systems and engines, then hit the ventral thrusters to rise off the pad.

His upper HUD display lit up again:

> Warning 400 CR fine gained: Unauthorized Launch.

Ignoring the fine, he eased the throttle forward until they were clear of the pad, then shoved it to full. The sentries moved across the hangar bay, closing the gap in no time. They surrounded the Nightcrawler in a claw-like formation and opened fire.

Lee was pleased with the performance of the upgraded shields considering an onslaught from more than a dozen sentries at once. Still, they were falling and were down to about 90%. He snapped at Xohn beside him, “Strap in below and get on comms!”

The shields fell faster, down to 61%. Lee swore under his breath.

Xohn’s voice came through his cabin, “Lee, I’m on comms. And it looks like it’s time to use some of the upgrades!”

“What’d you have in mind?” Lee didn’t touch anything, but suddenly, the shields jumped back up to 88%. “Hey, what was that?”

“Shields booster! But something is not right; we should not be building heat this way.”

A warning signal preceded the COVAS announcement, “Warning: taking heat damage.”

“We have more problems!” Lee snapped. He saw three ship signals approaching. “We gotta get out of here now, and we need to get our heat under control. Hey! Wait, where’d my heatsinks go?” The heatsinks that used to be installed were gone.

“That I can take care of,” Xohn said.

The heat fell, and a new engine pip appeared on his display. Then Lee remembered, the ThermARC! “Nice work, Xohn,” he said with a slight grin. He toggled silent running, hit the engine boost, then pulled back on the flight stick, sending them into a 90º climb from the ground. The Nightcrawler leaped through the line of sentries, quickly clearing the enormous complex of landing pads. The incoming fire was reduced to a few lucky hits as the sentries lost their firing lock.

The climb continued, and within mere seconds, they were out of range of the other ships heading their way. Silent running kept them off the system authorities’ sensors, giving them a mostly clean getaway.

With all the maneuvers, Lee worried it might have hurt Zee’s delicate condition. Hang in there, Zee, he thought. With the engines at full throttle, the Nightcrawler left the teal skies of Emen for the jeweled darkness beyond.

“Xohn, plot a course for us to Tangaroa,” Lee requested. “I need to focus on this data.” He made the request, and it dawned on him; it was the first time in ages he’d had a real co-pilot.

“On it, Lee,” Xohn acknowledged.

Lee paced in the medical ward room on the Blue Crater Mines installation, staring at his datapad. Movement stirred in the bed, and he stopped to look over the datapad. Zee adjusted her position in her RestLok bed but remained asleep. The gentle beeping and blinking of medical monitors in the soft lighting was a peaceful environment for him to work. Not to mention, he needed the comfort of being near Zee.

Her prognosis was good, with no ill effects from her near-death experience. She only needed careful observation and rest for the next couple of days.

He returned to the datapad, reviewing the data he’d analyzed in preparation for his meeting with Li Yong-Rui. Using his finger, he moved an item on the datapad to a new position, hoping to make the story clearer.

He’d never met a head of state before. For most of his life, he never had a second thought about people of the stature of someone like Li Yong-Rui. He found most government leaders too out of touch with the reality of most of their people’s lives. They didn’t care about him, so he couldn’t care less about them.

Now, he was attempting to convince the man with the highest net worth in the galaxy to spend money, workforce, and equipment. It was all for a worthy cause to stop the invasion and put Sylus Draden on trial. But it was up to him to prove it.

A lot is riding on this, he thought to himself. Who am I kidding? Everything depends on this.

If it didn’t work, life in the Hyades for him and billions of others would fundamentally change without their say. How in the bloody galaxy he ended up here was beyond him. Him, of all people—a nobody, abandoned to the streets, raised by a humble miner, who grew up to become a law-dodging smuggler. He was the one who had to convince an almost mythical success story of a man that he made a mistake. He doomed billions of lives by appointing “Alden Duryss” to the Hyades.

A notification appeared on his datapad—his shuttle had arrived. He closed his notes, pocketed the datapad in his suit, and walked to Zee’s bedside.

“Zee,” he said in a soft low voice. “I’ve gotta go. I don’t know what will happen or where it will take us, but I promise… no matter where I end up, I’ll find you again.” He put a hand on her shoulder. She moved slightly in response, but the medications kept her in a deep sleep. He didn’t expect her to wake, but he didn’t feel right not saying goodbye.

A young Sirius Navy soldier entered the room, “Hello, Mr. Sollinger. I’m here to escort you to the Arbitrage.”

He nodded to the soldier and took a last look at Zee, her red curls floating up about her peaceful face. Like the stars of the Milky Way across her face, her freckles made him sigh with contentment. It was short-lived, ended by the pain of leaving her. Leaning over her, he paused to take in her beauty as if storing it up for a lifetime, then moved toward her ear and whispered, “I still owe you.” He left her with a light kiss on her forehead and followed the young soldier.

The small transport shuttle left the Blue Crater Mines installation. After an initial course change, a hulking Farragut-class battle cruiser filled the forward view. Lee stood beside the soldier who piloted them, keeping his hands behind his back. Another maneuver for the final approach swung the canopy about, showing the scale of the Sirius Navy fleet. Lee saw two other Farragut battle cruisers parked in the distance—a cloud of ships of every variety surrounded each. There were small fighters like Vipers, mighty Anacondas, and Corvettes. The lack of uniformity revealed the Sirius Navy’s preference for making acquisitions based on necessity and, of course, the right deal.

The shuttle docked, and the soldier led him through the ship to a transit lift. Lee could feel the nerves kicking in. Why was he so nervous when he could usually remain calm under pressure? Lee tried to lighten his mood with some chit-chat. He looked at the soldier, “That was some smooth shuttle flying. How long have you been at it?”

“I’m not a pilot, sir. That was an automated transport. I only pushed the right buttons.”

Lee half-coughed, not expecting the answer. “Wow, they don’t give you basic flight training in the Sirius Navy?”

The young soldier responded with a severe tone, “I was trained to tear your aorta from your neck and choke you with it. I’m a soldier, not a pilot.”

“Okay, got it,” Lee said and stood in awkward silence for the rest of the trip. The lift arrived, and the doors opened, defusing some tension. His escort grunted and gestured for him to exit, then led him through another maze of corridors. They ended up in a room where two other Sirius Navy soldiers stood guard.

His escort told the soldiers, “This is Lee Sollinger, sent by Colonel Reeves to speak with the Chairman.”

The guards opened the doors and let them pass. They entered a lobby area. The rear partition wall was adorned with the Sirius Corporation emblem lit from behind. His escort put his hand up, “Wait here. One of the Chairman’s attendants will join you in a moment.”

After more than a few minutes, a young woman met him and took him back to an empty conference room. It was large enough for thirty or forty people to meet. A gorgeous polished oak table with soft under-lighting stretched across the room. The attendant left, and the glass doors etched with Sirius emblems closed in near-perfect silence.

Both ends of the room had soft glowing Sirius Corporation emblems floating in front of the walls. Along the other walls were a series of paintings. Lee ambled around the table, looking at the works as he went. The first couple of pictures depicted buildings of planetary outposts. The towers had a similar architecture, with Sirius logos aglow near the top. There was another with an Orbis station floating before a flaming red-violet nebula. At the center of the room, soft ceiling lights lit a large landscape rendition of a Farragut-class ship. It was the apparent focal piece of the room. Lee took a closer look and read the nameplate below the left corner of the art:

SCS Arbitrage, SN9-R79

A sound behind him made him spin around, and he watched as what he thought was another wall split open and became a doorway. An energetic figure entered wearing a finely tailored suit with an almost cloak-like jacket that stretched to the floor. He looked in his mid-fifties, yet Lee knew he was much older than that. The luminescent light-blue strips embedded in the collar of his cloak gave his face a soft glow. His thin, sharp eyes, wedge-shaped eyebrows, and angular features gave him a resolute demeanor. It was a bearing that lived up to his reputation as “the businessman of all business.”

Li Yong-Rui stepped up to the long conference table at counter-height between them and leaned over it. His fingers worked a datapad he held while keeping his forearms on the table.

“Mr. Sollinger,” he said while continuing to look at the ultra-thin transparent datapad glowing back at him. “Colonel Reeves sent you to brief me about the situation in the Hyades.” His voice was official and commanding, with no hint of pretentiousness.

“Yes, sir,” Lee stepped toward the table, his magboot steps echoing in the mostly empty chamber.

“Oh, no need to call me ‘sir.’ I’m not terribly fond of titles. What news do you bring me from the Hyades Expanse?” He flashed a practiced smile before returning to look at his datapad.

“Thank you, uh… Mr. Yong-Rui,” he said, uncomfortable without using some form of respect.

Another smile returned, and he met Lee’s eyes. “Just ‘Yong-Rui’ is fine. ‘Li’ is my family name.”

“Yes, well… I’m Lee as… well,” he shook his head with a sigh. He felt like he was botching the first impression.

Yong-Rui responded with a genuine chuckle, “Indeed, my friend. May I call you ‘friend’?”

Lee nodded.

“And what did Colonel Reeves find so pressing that she required a private meeting that she couldn’t attend herself?” He continued holding his datapad to his face but looked over it at Lee.

“Ahh, well, we have some information… disturbing information about Consular Duryss.”

“Very well, but first, perhaps you can introduce yourself. I was given very little information about who you are and your relationship to Colonel Reeves,” he said while tapping his datapad.

“I’m Lee Sollinger. I’m part of the Resistance from Thetauri.”

“The Resistance? Thetauri…” he said, looking up from his datapad with a distant expression. “HIP 20935. Duryss has briefed me about Resistance attacks against Sirius Gov interests. Tell me, my friend,” he said almost threateningly. “Why should I not call security?”

“We convinced Colonel Reeves of Duryss’s betrayal to Sirius Gov and the people of the Hyades. She would bring it to you personally, but Duryss ordered her to ready a fleet. Then there was the injury on my ship… She sent me with the evidence.”

“The maintenance woman they are treating,” Yong-Rui said off-hand and drifted back to his datapad. He began tapping on the datapad while speaking, “What of this fleet? Is it relevant to the betrayal you allege?”

“Yes,” Lee said with a nod.

“Then, by all means, share evidence for your claims against one of my most promising governors. Extraordinary claims must have extraordinary evidence, wouldn’t you agree?”

Lee pulled his datapad from his suit, held it still before him, and released it. It floated above the table in zero-G with a slow corner spin where a finger caught it. “All the evidence we have is on that. It’s a collection of information we… obtained from Sietae Corporation and a private server in Alden Duryss’s office.”

Yong-Rui raised an eyebrow and stopped looking at his datapad.

Lee continued, “Duryss is not Duryss.”

Yong-Rui cocked his head. “Explain.”

“We have evidence that Alden Duryss is, in fact, Sylus Draden.”

“That…” Yong-Rui said with a dramatic pause. “That is a remarkable accusation.”

“Actually, GalNet and your employment records corroborate it fairly well,” he said, snatching his datapad. He tapped the surface to pull up the records showing both side-by-side and held it out to Yong-Rui.

“Coincidental timing?”

“On its own, it looks like that, but here,” he grabbed the datapad back to pull up a series of new records. “These are donations made to the Find Sylus Draden Campaign.” He held the datapad back out for Yong-Rui to inspect. “As you can see, these come from Sietae Corp, from the Hyades Government, signed ‘with regards’ from Consular Alden Duryss.”

Yong-Rui’s face was implacable. He appeared to simply digest the information.

“That’s tens of billions donated over three years to his father,” Lee stressed. “Add to it the rise of Imperial enterprises in the region, followed by an influx of Imperial citizens.”

“I understand,” he said. “And you want me to detain Consular Duryss to put him on trial?”

“I think it will take a bit more than that.” He noted a datapad dock in the conference table. “May I?”

“Proceed.”

Lee placed his datapad into the dock on the tabletop, and a holographic interface appeared to pop off the surface. He used gestures to navigate the interface and pull up a map of the Hyades region. He pointed to a star system, highlighting it, then put his hands together, pointing toward it, and swung them apart. The star was pulled toward them, zooming into it, showing the planetary orbits.

“Alit—the home system of Senator Madius Draden. Two days ago, we got word of a fleet making its way across to the Hyades.”

A concerned look crossed Yong-Rui’s face, “I’ve heard nothing of this.”

“It’s a small fleet on its own, but…” He zoomed the map out to show star systems surrounding Alit. “Evidence recovered from Duryss’s private server shows several fleets in all these systems.” He highlighted almost a dozen star systems and paused to let Yong-Rui consider it.

“And you know where they are headed?”

“The server documents show they plan to meet…” He gestured the map to slide to another region and selected another star system, highlighting it in red. Then he drew course lines from all the other systems converging to the red highlighted star. “Here.”

“Chelum,” Yong-Rui’s thin eyes narrowed further in focused thought. He leaned on the conference table, still holding his datapad with his fingers, “It’s an invasion force,” he said with almost a hint of wonder. “Duryss has been misleading the entire Sirius Gov Consulate.” His expression turned more concerned. “And myself,” he admitted.

“I’m afraid there’s more.”

Yong-Rui stood back from leaning on the tabletop and crossed his arms to observe.

“A drastic population shift has occurred. The rapid influx of Imperials driven by their corporations taking over has given them a majority in the region. They’re beginning to drive independents out of Hyades and, along with it, your control.”

He zoomed out from Chelum to show a handful of neighboring systems, then drew a diagonal line from a star system above Chelum. “To counter this, the Resistance began random attacks on Imperial couriers and convoys in Chelum to slow their industry growth.”

Then, Lee gestured from the datapad to pull up GalNet reports. “And as you probably already know, almost four months ago, an outbreak of a disease known as aculosis began to devastate the system. But, you may not have known, it avoids the growing Imperial population. In fact, data from the health agency in Chelum suggests the only Imperials contracting it all are of mixed descent. Mr. Li, this all points to not just an invasion but a complete annexation of the Hyades, starting with the most populated system in the region.”

Yong-Rui stood stoic in quiet contemplation and locked his narrow eyes on the map. Then he picked up his datapad and spoke into it sternly, “Get me Admiral Hayashi, and convene an emergency war council.”