Traitor (Rebel Stars Book 2) (2 page)

The dash beeped again ninety seconds later. Incoming call. Well ahead of schedule.

"Unidentified vessel," a female voice said over the comm. "Stop and identify."

"Rada Pence of the
Tine
." She flipped on the ship's ID stream, then braked hard.

Webber glanced at the ceiling. "Still not used to that."

"Used to what?"

"Exactly. To
nothing
. It should feel like we're getting smashed into our seats by a falling piano. But it's so calm I could get up and make you a BLT."

"Would you?" she said. "I'm starving."

"Identity confirmed," the voice said. "Turn around,
Tine
."

Rada leaned over the comm. "I'm sorry, did you say turn around?"

"Did I stutter?"

"There must be some confusion. We were just here a few weeks ago."

"Turn around. Relocate to a distance of no less than three hundred thousand miles. Or be fired upon."

"Are you serious? Why can't we land?"

"You have ten seconds to change course or be destroyed," the woman said. "Have a nice day."

MacAdams frowned at the console. "If this is a joke, it's the kind that involves arming their missiles."

Rada's gaze flicked over the screens. From an orbital pad set well out from the Locker, a half dozen drones launched into the dark. A piece of her wanted to take a run at them—she still hadn't tested the
Tine
's upgrades in combat, and was certain she could shred the defenders—but the drones were a drop in the bucket of the Locker's capabilities.

Besides, she wasn't exactly interested in adding the Locker to Toman's list of enemies.

She swerved hard enough to declare her intention to depart, but not so hard as to expose the
Tine
's full maneuverability. The Locker sent a signal acknowledging the move. Rada swore steadily.

"One question," Webber said as they swung about and began putting space between themselves and the station. "What in the actual hell?"

"If I knew that, we wouldn't have flown out here in the first place," Rada said. "Anything about this on the net?"

MacAdams glowered at his device. On Rada's, she noted the Locker had closed off its network to outsiders, too. She picked up a signal from Ariel, one of Uranus' moons.

Webber got up from his chair and walked to the screen showing a receding view of the blank sphere of the Locker, a miniature moon encased in an atmosphere-trapping shell. "Don't tell me we're heading home. We just got here."

Rada pulled up her device's video. "We'll check the net for news. I'm sending a message straight to Toman. He can pull some strings to get us permission to land."

She composed a message, included the relevant clip from the ship's log, and Needled it to Earth, where Toman was currently litigating against the merger between FinnTech and Valiant. She didn't know what he hoped to accomplish there—both companies were spacefaring, unbound to the laws of any one nation—but they'd been doing business with aliens.
Swimmers
. The species who, centuries ago, had nearly destroyed humanity. None of the rules applied anymore.

Though Earth and Uranus were, at that moment, both on the same side of the sun, her Needle would take more than two hours to reach Toman. His response, assuming he had time for one, would take equally long to get back to her.

They killed the lag time scouring the net. This was shockingly bereft of information. All that was known for sure was that, 24 hours ago, the Locker had closed down, first to non-residents, then to everyone. Speculation was rampant, but its very rampancy made it impossible to believe any one theory.

Toman's Needle arrived close to five hours later; he'd replied almost immediately. Rada put the message up on the main screen. Her uber-wealthy employer was in his early thirties and he gestured often while speaking, moving with the fluidity of a martial artist, which Rada was fairly certain he wasn't. His message had been recorded in a well-furnished but professionally bland hotel room.

"Your news is very odd," he began. When recording messages, a lot of people took on a blank, stiff appearance, but Toman looked as natural as if he were in the ship with them. "Good news for me, though: that means I get to bring you here to Earth."

"
What?
" Rada said. "Something big is going on right here in front of us, and you want us to turn tail for
Earth
?"

On the recording, Toman paused, as if anticipating her response, then smiled. "You might find yourself asking: Why recall you to Earth when something highly interesting is happening at the Locker? Two reasons. First, I'm about to need your help. Second, might I remind you the ship you're seated in is mine. It happens to contain our only functional Motion Arrestor. If something
that
interesting is happening at the Locker, it would be prudent to remove yourselves—and my MA—from the vicinity posthaste."

He moved across the hotel room to the uninterrupted window that formed the outer wall. A hazy blue sea filled the view. "The Locker closing its doors is way too juicy to be kept secret. I'd tell you to drop a drone, but I don't want to risk pissing them off. I'll sic LOTR on it instead. In the meantime, I need you here. Toman out!"

The video ceased. Rada stared at the blank screen, feeling Webber's eyes on her.

"Well?" he said.

"Well what?" She was already pulling up a course. "We're on our way to Earth."

"Don't tell me you're happy about this."

"You're still new here. Word to the wise: when Toman whistles, you come running."

* * *

Five days later, they docked in Earth orbit. The shuttle down to the airport gave Rada a commanding view of Better Sands, capital city of Las Reinas, the nation occupying everything west of the Rocky Mountains between the North Pole and the isthmus to South America.

Las Reinas was one of Earth's five or six major players. From above, its capital looked fit to match that status. White towers thrust from the shores of a gleaming bay. Boats of all sizes spangled the deep blue waters. Many of its skyscrapers were built from sympathy glass, and as the sun set, the buildings turned the same shades of orange and pink as the pastel coastal sky; other towers tinted themselves with contrasting blues and greens. A light haze hung in the air, making everything soft, dreamlike.

At the terminal, they were awaited by a man even bigger than MacAdams. His goatee was as trim as his suit. He led them to a sleek, oval-shaped car and held the doors. The car drove itself.

It deposited them at the doors of the seaside hotel Toman was staying in. Their suite was outrageous. On each wall that didn't bear a screen, a transparent layer of plastic enclosed shimmering waterfalls. The ceilings were full screens that could probably be switched on to show the sky (or, Rada suspected, a mirror). Even the bathroom had a dispenser in it, just in case you decided you needed a drink in the shower. Despite the amenities, all Rada cared about was talking to Toman, who was presently engaged in a closed-doors meeting in the capital building.

It was a full day before she saw him. When he came to their suite, he was heavy-lidded and unusually rumpled.

"I'm so glad we hurried to get here," Rada said. "Otherwise, we never would have had the chance to sit here like stumps for the last 24 hours."

Toman eyed her. "I'd be more sympathetic to your whining if there'd been any chance of getting anything done at the Locker."

"So you've figured out what's going on there?"

"Shift in management. They've clamped the place down tight while they sort things out."

Webber strolled out of the kitchenette, sandwich in hand. "Think it's coincidence this is going on right when we were on our way to enlist them?"

Toman gritted his teeth. "Better pray it is. The alternative means we're in much deeper trouble than we think."

"So who's out and who's in?" Rada said. "What prompted this?"

"The Locker hasn't just shut down its port, it's shut down all outbound communications. LOTR's working through the messages sent in the weeks prior to this, but it's like reconstructing what a dinosaur looks like when you've only got a few fragments of bone."

"So we're in a holding pattern."

He showed a palm. "Which I know you hate as much as I do. Thus why you're here."

"Right. And what is the exact nature of our new job?"

"Still figuring that out."

"You're kidding. Not only did you drag us away from the real action, but you don't even know why you brought us here?"

Toman closed his hand into a fist. He stepped toward her, eyes locked on hers. "I could have messaged you this information. Instead, I came to see you in person, to converse in real-time. And you're complaining?"

"You're not actually
telling
me anything."

"What good does it do to load you up with incomplete, unverified intel? How about you back off and trust me to fill you in once it actually makes sense to do so?"

Their faces were separated by no more than a foot, but Rada didn't shift back. "Are you coming at me because I'm wrong? Or because you're pissed about how the negotiations are going?"

He glared. His eyes softened first, then his entire expression cracked. He sighed, strolling toward the window and its postcard beauty.

"You're right. I am finding Earth's governments less than useful. I'm presenting them with a completed model, right? FinnTech got the Motion Arrestor technology from the Swimmers; Valiant helped them cover that up; Valiant and FinnTech are now merging. When you look at it as a whole, they're forming a power bloc that's proving to be dangerously lacking in scruples.

"But these politicians are too greedy for the MAs to look at the whole. They'll only look at one part at a time. And when they do
that
, the conclusion is, 'Well, this is a gray area. Besides, even if we wanted to do something about this merger, we don't really have the authority.'"

MacAdams honked with laughter. "Since when did politicians start admitting there are some areas outside their authority?"

Toman nodded sharply. "You'd think someone would at least try. Earth governments have been trying to get a grasp on the business of space for
years
. One of the major reasons they haven't been able to is because there was no compelling public interest to justify their involvement. Now, FinnTech's doing business with the Swimmers—who, just in case you've forgotten,
nearly drove us extinct
—and the response is a collective shrug?"

"Maybe the problem is you," Webber said.

"I think you've spent too much time among the outlaws, Mr. Webber. You can't tell someone they're blowing it and then not explain why."

"I don't mean you're screwing it up. I mean it's a lot easier to brush you off because you're their biggest competitor. Everything you say is tainted by visions of gold coins vanishing from your hoard."

"I'm not so sure about that. Government and business have a rich heritage of reaching down the front of each other's pants with a smile. If they don't want to get with me, maybe it's because they're already feeling up FinnTech."

"I'm starting to wish you
had
messaged," Rada said.

Toman winked. "Sit tight. I'm waiting for the last piece to fall into place. Then you're off on your next adventure."

While Webber and MacAdams competed to run up the largest room service tab ordering non-dispensed whole foods and drinks in bottles, Rada dug into the rapidly expanding universe of discussion and theories around the Locker. Over the course of the last week, this had exploded into a new industry. On the net, pontificates cranked out convoluted pet theories based on the most minute details, amassed legions of followers to their cause, then unleashed those legions on their competing theorists.

The drama around it was completely detached from reality and repulsively trivial—a Great Red Spot of superheated emotion, with nothing at its center—but it was also appallingly addictive. Rada got lost in it for the two days prior to Toman's next visit.

"I have news," he declared. "You're heading on an all-expenses-paid trip to Absolution."

Rada scrunched her brow. "I wasn't aware I was a sinner."

"You're so provincial, Rada. I'm not talking about a state of a grace. Absolution is a city. You can think of it as a sort of game preserve for the chronically delusional."

"That doesn't help explain it in the slightest."

Toman continued to hold the hotel room door open. "You have a flight to catch. You can read up on the details en route. For now, here's the gist: I'm looking for an ex-FinnTech employee. And I want you to find him."

"What's so special about him?"

"He worked in Finn's alien affairs division. About a year ago, he died—but I think he pulled a Webber. Faked it. LOTR's conjured up a hint of him in Absolution. Find him, and he might be able to clue us in to the full depths of FinnTech's dealings with the Swimmers."

Toman wasn't kidding about the flight. He had a private jet waiting for them at the airport. Like the car, it steered itself, but it was staffed with two assistants who pledged to provide them with any and all comforts.

MacAdams strapped in and opened his device. "Anyone else find it funny that he's sending three non-Earthers on this little venture? Doesn't a guy like that have a crack team of well-trained, Earth-born spies?"

"I've been right where this ex-employee is," Webber said. "Toman probably thinks I'll be able to sniff him out." He peered across the tarmac. "Besides, an Earther has no advantage in Absolution."

"Uh oh, Rada. I got the feeling we're about to have some knowledge dropped on us."

As the plane rolled forward, Webber removed his attention from the runway to give MacAdams the eye. "In Absolution, either you live there, or you never see the inside of it. There are no tourists. They don't even have the net. I wouldn't be surprised if Toman has nobody with any contacts there. In that case, might as well bring in people familiar with the wider situation—and capable of getting things done."