Into the Light by Jane Wallace

The cache held the personnel files of every member of the Gharst Galactic Guard, thousands of them. And she was in there, the bitch who killed his family, he was sure of it. In all his time with the Inter-Planetary Police and Space Command, he’d never been able to identify her, the intelligence too scant or, when the war started, off limits. Now was his chance. ‘Adelvilde,’ he said to the system’s prompt for a search criteria. After a tantalising wait, three results flashed up.

He read the first profile hesitantly: Korpal Halle Adelvilde. Was that her? It was so long ago and she had been wearing a helmet. He wondered how he could tell for sure. The facial ID made no impression on him. He checked the date of birth, it was 3041. She would have been twelve years old at the time, much too young.

He moved on to the second option, Rittmeister Aesar Adelvilde. She was the right age and background. His throat went very dry as he scrutinised her image. Was it the same woman? He couldn’t really tell. He checked her vital statistics, then he knew. She was 168 cm in height, short for a Gharst. The killer he remembered had been a giant.

There was a knock on the door. He ignored it, shifting on to the last choice. Kenraali Gwyndar Adelvilde, forty-five years old, citizen of Rheged and member of the herengelden, the Gharst military elite. Sevin sat upright as he read her educational background. She had trained at the Akademie Militar de Sternstad, which he knew was shorthand for former pirate. The academy had been a penitentiary several decades ago when the Gharst authorities pretended to be taking action against the marauders. He flicked on to the picture and knew it was her instantly. There she was: the mouth like a scratch with a small round scar over the top lip, the valknot tattoo of the herengelden on the left temple, eyes devoid of kindness or empathy.

A strange elation washed over him which quickly ebbed away. Now he knew her full name, she had finally become real, no longer the intangible phantom he could blame for his misery or his failures. The time for brooding and grieving was over. Incarnate, she required him to take action, to win or lose the quest to vanquish her once and for all. He suspected he was headed down a very long road to a destination he didn’t know.

There was another rap on the door, more persistent. He closed down the files and shouted at the visitor to come in. Lauden and Marik entered, Lauden looking awkward, Marik rubber-necking the senior officers’ quarters. There wasn’t much to see as Sevin had few personal effects. No prints of family or even celebrities decorated the walls. The single bunk was made neatly and the compact desk at its foot was bare except for the media player’s viewer and controls. Opposite the bed, the cupboards and drawers were firmly closed, as was the entrance to the steamer.

‘Sorry for the disruption, sir, but we thought we’d come by and see how you were,’ said Lauden.

‘As you can see, I’m fine,’ Sevin said.

‘We’ve got orders to move on. Back to patrol duty,’ said Marik. His skin shone as if it had been vigorously scrubbed. Both he and Lauden appeared rested.

‘I know that. So, if there’s nothing else?’

Lauden and Marik exchanged looks.

‘We did come to ask you something,’ said Marik.

‘What is it?’

‘We wanna know how we got cut off from HQ,’ said Lauden. ‘How come we were left out in the cold down at Valentine.’

‘We don’t believe it was the fault of that junior, Spinit, like Reverre said,’ Marik added.

’Cos if we’d had the secure channel, we’d have got the gab on the masterboard being moved, ’stead of slugging it out with a bunch of tinnies for no reason,’ said Lauden.

They had his attention now. ‘That’s a good question,’ said Sevin. ‘Seeing as you’re here, you can help me find the answer.’ He got up from his seat and offered it to Lauden. ‘I reckon Reverre’s behind this somewhere. Hack into his node, see if we can find anything.’

‘What? I can’t do that!’

‘Oh come on, Jes. I know you can snoop around Brodie’s private mail if you want to – how else does the house always win when you make a book on the fleet’s next port of call?’

Lauden looked embarrassed. ‘Alright.’ He settled by the viewer, swiftly overriding the security procedures to access Reverre’s comms node and flip through its archives.

‘All looks pretty normal. Whaddaya looking for?’

‘Something suspicious,’ said Sevin.

‘Hmm, well, everything looks pretty normal. Although ….’ Lauden squinted at the viewer.

‘What is?’ said Sevin.

‘This here. Well, blow me.’

‘What is it?’ said Marik.

‘He’s only got another interface backed on to his official one.’

‘Huh?’

‘It’s like he’s got two letterboxes for one. Ah-ha, neat, real neat! The fake interface has got a whole different clock on it.’

‘What’s the point of that?’ asked Marik.

‘So you can change the time detail of when comms come in and go out?’ said Sevin.

‘Yeah,’ agreed Lauden. ‘Or send comms that can’t be traced. Hey, and there’s a load of stuff here encrypted. I can’t read it.’

‘What about the masterboard? Can you see anything to do with that?’ asked Sevin

Lauden trawled a datacluster. ‘Yeah, here we are. Gods above, this is the comm saying it was moved to the Kraton!’

‘What’s the time and date on it, the real one?’

’Er, he got it on the 12th, that was the day before we attacked? He got it at 08:22.’

‘That’s over eighteen hours before the mission started. The lying scrit!’ said Marik.

’The comm I got when I came back onboard was sent at 03:32 on the 13th,’ Sevin said. ‘Which of course I didn’t get because someone had given us the wrong code for the secure channel and we were out of reach. I’ll bet that was Reverre too. Lauden, look that up.’

Five minutes later, the three men were studying the circular from the head of signals received by the executive command, which included Reverre as well as Brodie, Regis and Weffer. It contained the correct code and Reverre had apparently forwarded it to Special Ops. But there was another comm stored in the shadow interface. It was identical, apart from the code. This was the message Sevin had received and passed on to Marik unwittingly.

‘There must be some substitution facility at the point of transmission. Clever, very clever,’ said Sevin.

‘Relies on you not to double-check it though,’ said Marik.

‘It’s the official comm, why would I?’

The three men looked at each other, shaking their heads at the enormity of their discovery.

‘I don’t get it,’ said Lauden at last. ‘Why send us in when he knew the masterboard was gone?’

Sevin gave a hollow laugh. ‘He knew they’d be waiting for us.’

‘But how?’

‘Oh, come on Lauden, get with it. He told them we were coming!’ said Marik.

‘Right,’ said Sevin. ‘The question is – why?’

2. INFINITY

One month later

α

Like a bite of venom, pure pain barbed through Major Tem Sevin’s right shoulder as he raised a hand to the red lever on the wall beside him. He swore loudly, then cursed the inefficacy of the graft which the medicos had applied. He tried again, holding the fresh injury tightly as he dragged down the handle. The hatch at his feet yawned into the cannula beneath, a retractable gangway that ran out of the ship’s bowels into the top of the Gharst freighter which was currently grappled to Vehement’s undersides.

Inside the cannula was a vertical travelator. He clambered on to its rungs and clung on as it stuttered downwards, his back scraping the inflated exterior wall. He got short of breath, claustrophobia and the low-oxygen environment taking its toll. Below his feet, in the red radiance of the light cables, he could make out the head of a technician coming up on the other side. Looking up, she gave him a friendly smile which Sevin, never one to encourage intimacy, did not return as they passed each other nose-to-nose.

Jumping off outside the enemy ship’s forward hatch, he penetrated the airlock and surveyed the upper deck of the Odin. They had captured the ship an hour ago and he was still on edge. It had been an easy target in theory. These interplanetary carriers had their routes pre-programmed and could be flown by a single pilot. After they had jammed the ship’s systems, the lone Gharst captain had been easy to overcome. However, they hadn’t anticipated he would have a unit of securimorphs with him. Sevin had taken an unexpected lashing from a stray Nightwatch blaster before he and the Special Operations team put the morphs out of action.

Sevin set off to the hold, walking quickly to warm himself in the near-zero temperature. He noted the new laser scars on the well-worn bulwarks. Cargo carriers weren’t built for comfort but the Odin had been neglected too. Tiles were missing from the linex flooring which was filthy with grease and dirt. Light fittings were smashed and the lettering on the emergency exit signs had faded out.

The whole ship smelt faintly of kippers, an aroma which intensified as Sevin dropped down into the hull. Odin was carrying a consignment of pickled goya, the oily fish which was the mainstay of the Gharst diet, to the planet of Tian in the Altan system. Coalition hackers had reprogrammed the flight recorder to give the impression she was still in motion. So far as Tian Space Traffic Control knew, Odin was still on track to arrive at her final destination at Tian City, after a slight delay caused by navigating around the flotsam of a decrepit comms satellite. The real reason for the interruption was that Sevin and his agents were packing some additional cargo into the hold, freight which the Gharst occupying forces on Tian had most definitely not ordered.

Reaching the cargo bay, Sevin wended through the stacks of tightly-packed crates, all stamped with the manufacturer’s logo of a blue crown, towards a central aisle. Here a figure in black overalls, with a ribbon of blond ponytail down the back, was wielding a hand-drill.

‘Major Sevin!’ Zendra said, lifting the protective visor from her face.

‘Finished yet?’

‘Putting together the last pod now, sir.’

Sevin leant on the nearest box. It was made of toughened fibreboard and seemed solid enough. It would need to be: inside each crate was a life support pod in which a Special Ops agent would be doubled up for at least ten hours, possibly longer. To endure the confinement, stasis drugs would put the agent into a short-lived hibernation while an intravenous aqua drip and waste evaporation unit would service the body as it slept. Combined with the munitions kit each agent would be carrying, it would make a substantial weight.

‘Are these strong enough?’ he asked.

‘I think so,’ Zendra replied, boring a hole into the rib of a packing case. ‘Do you weigh more than a tonne of goya?’

‘I was thinking about Lauden.’

‘We can always mince him down and can him, then he’ll fit.’

Sevin smiled at the thought. ‘Nine crates in all. You’ve got the address?’

‘Special delivery, straight to the Koffgardt factory.’

Sevin bent down to examine the inside of the nearest pod, feeling the soft mask of the respirator. The space seemed too small to fit a child, let alone a fully tooled-up agent. They would be squashed in nose to ankles, not unlike the tubs of fish they substituted.

‘There’s room for the trikes too?’ he asked. The collapsible land bikes would be their getaway vehicles. Easy to assemble, the three wheels were self-inflating and held together with gossamer-weight cable fibre. Each trike could transport three people. The driver stood on a perch driven into the chassis of the trike and held the handlebars at elbow level. Two passengers could sit over a rear wheel apiece on cradles slung between an upright post fitted to the axle and the A-frame that formed the back of the trike. Suspended from the chassis between the rear wheels was a compact engine run on hydrogen fuel cells. These could power the trike on a top speed of 90 kph over a hundred kilometres or more before a refuel was required.

’It’ll go in somehow. Everyone’s going to have a wheel, some part of the frame or engine, and four half-kilo zentrites for the belt-pack.’ She indicated a bin on the floor full of pock-marked discs known in Space Command slang as ‘cookies’. ‘We’ll be out of it anyway, I don’t think we’ll notice what they put in with us. Apart from Lauden, of course. He gets to take the Scorpion.’

She paused to look at the book-sized box that sat on a dedicated trolley next to the cookie bin. The Scorpion was encased in beige polypro and could easily be mistaken for a portable media player, except for its ‘sting’ or initiator – a bright orange pull-tag.

She turned to Sevin. ‘I wouldn’t want to be too close to that. Lauden says it could take out the whole planet.’

‘Not quite. It would blow a twenty k hole in it though.’

Zendra laid the drill down on the workbench. ‘You know, there’s civilians down there, sir, innocent Tian people working in the factories who have nothing to do with the war. We’ll take them out as well if we do this.’

’They’re Gharst sympathisers,’ said Sevin. ‘They signed a pact with the Gharst when the war started. For ten years they’ve got rich on the back of making valostraals and whatever else the Gharst use to murder Coalition troops.’

‘It’s not as black and white as that. Not everyone agrees with it, I’m sure.’

’You’ve got squeamish now, Corporal. When did that happen?’ he asked, detecting a brittle tone he had not heard her use before.

‘When Space Command started to owe me money. Two weeks late and still no sign. Our lives are on the line for them, you’d think the least they could do is pay us.’

‘That will be resolved, soon,’ he lied, fully acquainted with the Coalition’s financial problems. He knew they could be waiting more than a few weeks before the munits came in. ‘Right now you should concentrate on this mission. It’s a big one for us, Zendra, really big. It’s our chance to make history. If we can neutralise that factory, we’ll be able to name our rank, I promise you.’

She looked as if she believed him, then her expression hardened. ‘Yeah, like all the promotions you’ve ever got. They treat you the worst of all. You should be a colonel by now, not Reverre, you’re way more talented than him. But you’ve not got the contacts and you’re not posh enough. What kind of way is that to run an army?’

‘That’s just the way it is.’

‘Yeah, let’s lie down with our legs in the air and not try to change it. Anyway, it will be too late soon.’

‘Too late?’

‘The Gharst are going to win this war.’

‘Not while I’m still standing.’

‘You’ll be the last one then. Qiron’s turning towards surrender. I heard he’s brokering a deal with the Gharst right now.’

‘Propaganda. We can’t give ourselves up to the gribs. They’d exterminate us before they’d negotiate with us.’

‘In the old days, but not now. They’re realistic, they have to be – even the Gharst can’t run the Known Worlds by themselves. I think there’s a case for talks.’

‘Listen to yourself – what are you saying?’

‘There’s a real possibility they would let us run our own worlds. They give us autonomy and, in return, we pay a tax or some kind of contribution. It could work, it really could.’

Sevin gaped at her. ‘Have you forgotten who we are dealing with?’

‘The Coalition’s played out. The Gharst are stronger than us and they will win. If we’re defeated, we’ll have nothing. If we surrender, we might have a better chance to regenerate our lives and our planets.’ She searched his stony expression. ‘All I’m saying is that maybe it’s better to work out some kind of compromise now before we run dry. Take yourself, for example. You would be more valuable to the Gharst as an officer than a prisoner. If you gave yourself in now, you could negotiate a way better future.’

‘Turn collaborator? I don’t know who you’ve been talking to but I can tell you they are completely misinformed. Are you really that naïve?’

She shaped an answer but changed her mind, giving him a funny little smile. ‘No, I’m not naïve. I just think we should consider options other than war.’

‘I don’t. The Gharst are ruthless killers who want nothing more than to force their tyranny on the rest of the universe. Think what they did to Viken when they took it over – and that was their own people! Then think what they could do to the Coalition planets. Do you want to live as a slave to the Gharst, chipped and monitored everywhere you go, with no vote, no rights and no freedom of speech?’

‘It wouldn’t be like that.’

He shook his head. ‘The cost is immaterial, they must be stopped.’

‘I know your history and I can see it from your point of view,’ she said, taking up the drill again. ‘But not everyone’s motivated by revenge. Some of us just want to get paid.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Sevin’s digi beeped to call him to the final briefing and he marched off gratefully, leaving Zendra to hammer out her frustrations on the crates as he ascended the cannula back into Vehement. He barely noticed the thin air in the conduit, upset by the talk of surrender. He had never contemplated that option and was uneasy that the idea might have caught on in the lower ranks. Who was spreading it around? Someone who wanted to create division and disloyalty. With no justification other than his own enmity for the man, Sevin assigned Reverre as the culprit. Lauden was yet to decipher those secret files they had found tacked on to the back of Reverre’s comms node. Now they had even more reason to crack the encryption. Sevin decided he would remind Lauden of his duties before the meeting started.

β