Rebel Alliances (Targon Tales Book 3) Read online

  “We will do everything to ensure your clan’s safety. I recommend that, for the time being, you move them to the base.”

  Tychon shook his head. “Thank you, but they won’t agree to that. Not this close to the harvest. But I might bring Cyann and her nurse here, if that is acceptable.”

  “Of course it is. I’ll arrange quarters for them.”

  “How could this have happened?” Tychon said, knowing all too well how easy it would be for someone to land in another part of the planet and make their way to Anders’ home undetected. The Union’s treaty with Delphi allowed them only to manage traffic destined for the Air Command base. Most visitors, even commercial flights, used the base in deference to Delphi’s wishes and to take advantage of an excellent maintenance facility and well-maintained runways. But anyone with a vertical descent plane choosing to land elsewhere was considered a guest on Delphi and not questioned by Air Command. Clearly the day had come, a day everyone had dreaded, when this was no longer possible.

  “We are running the logs. Four planes landed off-base over the last eight days, but those thugs could have been here longer. Our agents are investigating. No one has left the planet since yesterday.”

  “I have to see him.”

  Jervada nodded. “Maybe you can talk him into coming onto the base as well. I know how much he loves his home but things are changing here.”

  “I’ll try.” Tychon went to the door of Anders’ room. The two Centauri guards stared a challenge back at him but the colonel waved them aside. Rarely in uniform, Tychon was not often recognized by off-worlders on this base. As Vanguard members, both he and Nova were stationed on Targon, directly under Colonel Everett’s command.

  He winced when he saw Anders in the monitoring alcove, parts of his body thickly bandaged, others exposed to devices designed to diagnose or to expedite healing. Both of his eyes were blackened, his lip was cut and a mesh bandage covered most of his short blond hair. One arm, clearly broken, was braced at his side. A medic moved an overhead diagnostic out of the way when Tychon pulled up a chair and sat close to his friend.

  Anders, an army brat like Nova, had been born here on Delphi and, except for his education at various academies, had lived here all his life. He had turned into an able ambassador, accomplishing much in reconciling Delphi’s traditional sensibilities with the explosive growth of the Commonwealth Union. As a source of water, valuable food products and, most importantly, highly intelligent minds, Delphi represented a priceless ally for the Union despite its isolationist leanings.

  Anders’ interest in xenobiology had served him well and he looked forward to dedicating more of his time to studying the many races and species that inhabited the Trans-Targon sector. Because of his long history here as well as an appealing personality that even the aloof Delphians found hard to resist, he was one of the few outsiders allowed a private home in the beautiful Chaliss’ya valley.

  At age seventy-five if calculated against Human years, Tychon had known Anders for most of Anders’ life. He had grown from some small and insignificant creature constantly underfoot into a trusted friend who had changed Tychon’s condescending, typically Delphian views of Humans. Because of him, Tychon had learned to appreciate and value Humans for their quirks and follies as well as the emotional depths that guided them with more intuition than intellect. He suspected that Anders had opened the way for Nova in his life and he was deeply grateful.

  Tychon smiled when he recalled Anders’ first meeting with Nova. She had claimed a place in his heart at first sight and they had been friends ever since that day.

  “So you think this is funny?” a rasping voice intruded upon his thoughts. “And why are you holding my hand?”

  Tychon blinked, startled. Anders was looking at him through eyes that he was barely able to open, but they were focused and alert. “Gods, Derry,” he said, his voice low. “I told you to quit getting into bar brawls.”

  Anders’ lips twitched in a smile. No Delphian polluted their minds with spirits of any kind and a drink was hard to find on this planet. “Stop shouting, Your Blueness. My head’s not doing so good right now.”

  “Talk to me, Brother,” Tychon said. “What happened? Who were they?”

  “Kinda lacking introductions.” Anders rested for a few moments and Tychon waited patiently until he spoke again, his voice slurred by painkillers. “I can hear Phera now. Big Delphi bossman is going to blame us for dragging our rebel problems here. Council’s going to shout about getting rid of the base. Again. This’ll take weeks to blow over.”

  “Someone just made you over like a solstice pudding and you worry about work?”

  “Well, you know me,” Anders tried a grin and nearly succeeded. “Always trying to keep the xenos happy.”

  “You’re the xeno around here, my friend,” Tychon said, feeling the old joke stick like equally old bread in his throat. He felt both furious and guilty that his friend had been put in this position. Both he and Nova had enemies by the hundreds and any of them would gladly inflict this sort of damage on them. But how many of them would pursue their friends in this way? “Try to remember. What did they want? Was it a revenge attack? A warning maybe?”

  Anders stared at the ceiling for a while. “No, I don’t think so.” He frowned. “It’s a blur. Shouting. And pain.”

  Tychon turned to the medic hovering by a monitoring station. “Can you unblur him? If it’s safe?”

  “Being blurred is preferable to being in pain,” the medic said, clearly unhappy that his patient was awake at all. “The Captain should be resting.”

  “Unblur me, nurse!” Anders said. “I need my head on straight right now.”

  With a look of condemnation for the senior officer in the room, the medic moved to Anders’ bedside and adjusted the amount of medication he was receiving. A few minutes passed in silence until Anders winced.

  “I see what you mean,” he gasped. “Is that what a ruptured spleen feels like?”

  “Yes, and if I see your blood pressure go up any further, you’re going back under.”

  Anders rolled his eyes. “See how base personnel talks to me? I get no respect.”

  “Is anything coming back? What can you remember?” Tychon prodded.

  “Three of them. Two Centauri and a really ugly Feydan. Might have been Human. Can’t ever tell those apart unless they’re naked.” Anders swallowed hard and coughed. “Not that I see naked Feydans very often. There was a pretty one at the academy. What was her name?”

  “Velara. You moaned after her for weeks after she dumped you.”

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks for the reminder.”

  “Anders...”

  “Yes, yes. Give me a moment.” His hand gripped Tychon’s tightly as he fought the pain and thought back to the previous night. “Kimmie had left and I was getting ready to sleep. I think I went outside to look at the stars for a while. It’s so bright here with all those moons that you just don’t see them so clearly very often. Such pretty stars...” He frowned. “They came around the back of the house and then we were inside and they started shouting. Pretty sure they were Shri-Lan rebels. Said something about Torley. Don’t remember what.”

  “Shri-Lan,” Tychon said thoughtfully. “Could have been to get back at us for the raid on Phi. But this is going to a whole lot of trouble over that. There is no profit in this.”

  Anders voice was a mere whisper when he continued. “It was about Nova.”

  “Nova! What do they want with Nova?”

  “I tried to hold out. But things got... fuzzy after a while.” Anders grimaced, his brow furrowed as he tried to recall his ordeal. “They’re looking for her. Shouting: Where is Whiteside? When did she leave? They knew she’s off-planet and that you aren’t with her. And they knew that I’d know where she was. Someone’s been watching.”

  Tychon motioned to the medic to leave the room. The man began to object, perhaps ready to recite some hospital policy, but then something in the Delphian’s expression seemed t
o convince him to obey the order.

  “The ANI project?” Tychon said once the medic had left. “You think they’re after the interface?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Did you tell them where she is?”

  “We’ll have to assume that. So much of yesterday is just gone. I guess that’s why they came after me instead of you, Delphi. Us Humans haven’t figured out how to act stoic when someone beats the snot out of us.”

  “I’m so sorry, Anders,” Tychon said. “What can I—”

  Anders gripped his arm with surprising strength. “You have no time to beat yourself up, Ty. I’ll shake this off soon enough. But those rebels were after Nova. You have to warn her.”

  “I’ll send her a message and then go to Dannakor myself. As soon as I know Cyann and the others are safe. Jervada offered to keep them here on the base, just in case there is more trouble coming.”

  “You know as well as I do that no base in this entire Union is safe. Why is there still a guard outside my door? The only safe place on Delphi is the enclave.”

  Tychon grimaced. “I am not sending my child to the Shantirs. I don’t want her mixed up with that lot. Ever.” But he knew that Anders was not wrong. The likelihood of rebels or their sympathizers infiltrating any Air Command base was very real, no matter how tight their security processes. Again and again, rebel factions like the Shri-Lan had smuggled their people into a base or simply drew existing personnel to their causes. Even here, even on Delphi, that possibility existed, perhaps more so than in other places.

  “You’re being obstinate,” Anders said. “Cyann will have to study with them sooner or later. You won’t deny her that opportunity. They have offered their services and clearly accept her as one of you. Gods, Ty, there are people in every corner of Trans-Targon who’d give up any number of legs and arms if that would get their child a mentorship in the enclave.”

  “You know how I feel about Shantirs. I’m not asking them for anything.”

  “Well, get over it, Your Blueness.” Anders grinned. He knew his friend well enough to know that he was winning the battle. “I’m going to stay there for a little while, myself. I appreciate the good doctors here but I’ve grown up with your healers nursing me back to health and it’s still the best way to recover. So don’t worry so. Her uncle Anders will be there, as will Pryca. We won’t let her out of our sight. Look at it as a peace offering. A first step.”

  “I don’t want to make peace.”

  “Now you’re just being stubborn.”

  Tychon sighed. “Yes, I am. You are meddlesome, as always. And clearly in league with Nova. In this I’m up against both of you.”

  “Yep. Now let me sleep. We’ll be fine in the enclave. You can then chase after Nova without having to worry about the baby. Or me.”

  Tychon went to the door to beckon to the medic waiting resentfully in the corridor. The man rushed past him to return Anders into a state where his pain was manageable and he began to drowse again.

  “Take the Scout,” Ander said, naming his research team’s ship. “We won’t need it until the trip to Shaddallam next month.”

  Tychon hesitated. “Anders...”

  “Go! Find Nova. I’ll be done here in no time. And I have more pretty nurses than I can grope one-handed in my drug-addled stupor.” He shifted his eyes to the medic hovering nearby. “Well, not you. The girl kind, I meant.”

  Chapter Three

  ‘Interesting’ was not the first thing that had come to Nova’s mind when she landed on Dannakor, an inhospitable planet in the currently peaceful Mrak sub-sector. Empty of life forms beyond some very hardy lichens and with an atmosphere largely composed of methane and oxygen, the planet offered little appeal to settlers.

  But with methane as a power source and gravity suitable for a domed habitat, Azon Corp had staked a claim to the planet’s rich resources of rare elements used in the production of laser technology and fine electronics. Dozens of mines dug deep into its crust in search of the premium ore for local use and export.

  Less known was the fact that Dannakor’s scattered installations also included Azon Corp’s main laboratory for research in neural sciences, pharmacology and physics that were often conducted in secret and frequently, as now, under contract by the Union’s military.

  Most recently, the research facility had added what was probably the shortest jumpsite in space. A nearby keyhole had been carefully mapped to create a stable jumpsite that reached no farther than Dannakor’s nearest moon, allowing Azon Corp to lead research into real- and sub-space travel and communication.

  Attempts had been made to create a relatively pleasant environment for Azon Corp’s workforce here. The domed central hub of the neuroscience clinic allowed the milky daylight to pour over a large recreational area flanked on two sides by banks of airlocks. Secured wings for labs and residential areas reached out from the hub both above and below ground.

  “So can I go home now?” Nova said four days after the surgeons had declared the installation of her new implant a success. Threading the microscopic sensors into her brain was no more complicated than implanting any of those carried by thousands of other pilots and machine operators. But this interface did not just link the operator to their machines. The ANI also used communication systems to send brainwave information to a remote recipient’s processor. But unlike the tedious one-way packet traffic, the link, once established remained intact to allow for instant exchanges. Approximating the way Delphians used their mental khamal, once the link was established, distance no longer mattered.

  What remained to be studied was the possibility that it could also be done via a keyhole, a microscopic, unexplored breach in space which, unlike the gateways they used to travel routinely through sub-space, lacked a stable terminus. Currently, a Level Three spanner was needed to open such a breach and anchor it temporarily to a distant exit into normal space; a talent found mostly among Delphians.

  No Delphian had volunteered to risk their highly evolved minds to test the new interface, even though spanning an uncharted keyhole was an exhausting and sometimes even painful process. But their reluctance to join the experiment did not exceed their curiosity or their need to study this new technology. Nova’s question was, in part, directed at the blue-haired elder standing silently nearby, observing the last of the tests. Tuain was one of the Shantirs, an ancient enclave of Delphians that served as healers, sages, and spiritual guides for their people. Their mental mastery over certain matter and energy was a source of distrust and even fear among other species and so they usually kept to themselves on Delphi. She had been surprised to see one of them here.

  He was not the only observer in the room. Two of Air Command’s finest grunts stood by the doors where the only thing that kept them from slouching against the wall in utter boredom was the rank on Nova’s insignia. These two had shadowed her since she had received the new implant and her only moments of reprieve came when she attended to personal matters. She had spent a great deal of time in the shower lately.

  “No, you can’t go home yet,” Doctor Unwin replied. “Let’s run one more for now.”

  Nova sighed dramatically and slumped back in her chair. They had been doing the same thing for days. Endlessly. Sent messages to another test subject moving through the short and stable gateway at various speeds and under various conditions. Waited while the experts debated and adjusted and noted and synchronized. Sent more messages. And waited around some more.

  “Are you tired? Headache? Dizzy? Anything unusual?”

  “Can’t you tell? You have enough sensors stuck to me everywhere. They itch.” Nova glanced at the silent Shantir. He did not have to shift his blank expression very much to exude his disapproval of the insolent Human. “I’m sorry. Yes, I’m tired. Let’s get this done.”

  Unwin scrutinized her carefully. “You be sure to let me know if anything seems amiss. This isn’t like your old unit. It’s actually seated in your sphenoid bone to keep the taps in place. We�
��ve got those going through natural apertures behind your eyes. It only looks smaller than your old model because more of it is below your skin now. That’s a bit more convenient but it can be a drawback.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s not designed to break away during an impact like the old one. Once the bone has healed around the anchors, the housing will be part of your skull. The substrate carrying the graphene layer is more securely embedded now. In other words, someone can’t just steal it from you without surgery.”

  “Wonderful,” Nova said although she had been briefed on the module’s design.

  “Captain Luce,” Doctor Unwin spoke into his microphone. “Begin, please.”

  A few moments passed while the Centauri, on a cruiser somewhere beyond the moons, activated his interface. Nova shifted her mental focus to the self-contained processor in front of her. She ran a few exercises as she normally would aboard a plane, checking systems, scanning the simulated vicinity and, just for fun, warmed up a tray for dinner. The doctor ignored the stifled snicker from one of the nearby technicians.

  A display screen activated when Nova received a signal from Captain Luce. Or, more precisely, from the processor connected to him that relayed signals from the speech center of his brain. “Incoming,” she confirmed.

  Nova, she perceived the word in her mind. Boring out here. Send a dirty joke. After days of this, his initial awe and excitement over this mechanical telepathy was fading. None of it, of course, was new to Nova who often linked with Tychon without the need for complex processors to translate brain waves.

  She smiled and returned a mental image of a mostly naked Rhuwac she had seen in a report somewhere.

  Gross, Captain, came the reply. How about one of you?

  You wish.

  “Captain Whiteside?”

  Nova opened eyes that she hadn’t been aware of closing. “Here.”

  “We’re seeing the same spikes as before. Is the contact solid?”