The Spider and the Fly Read online

  Chapter Two

  Wake up!

  Markus Coveri’s eyes shot open, and between the cold slab of metal pressing against his skin, the iridescent pink lights blinking in front of his face, and the unrelenting pain stabbing into his temples, his first thought was that someone had spiked his drink and left him unconscious on the nightclub floor. But then the memories gradually returned: the battle in the club, the chase through the station, the searing agony of a pulse blast hitting him in the back…

  And through it all, the familiar face of a woman he never thought he’d see again.

  Markus winced and brought his hand up to his throbbing forehead. Of all the thousands of inhabited systems in the galaxy—of all the hundreds of potential Spiders the Convectorate had at their disposal—he couldn’t believe they’d sent her to a remote space station like Briton Chalo. It was almost inconceivable. He knew precisely how the Spiders operated, and he understood the limitations of their vaunted psychic webs. Despite the claims of the propaganda vids circulating the Holosphere, the Intelligence Ministry didn’t possess nearly enough agents to cover every system in Convectorate space, let alone fringe worlds and starports. Generally speaking, using his powers on an isolated station a hundred light-years from the nearest trade route should have been relatively safe. Evidently not.

  He rolled over on his side and experimentally stretched out his arms and legs. Everything appeared to be in working order, thankfully, and he took a few seconds to study his immediate surroundings. Even in the dim lighting he recognized the alabaster-colored walls and box-shaped cargo bay of a heavily modified L-74 Ziradies passenger liner, a common, unassuming vessel that wouldn’t draw special attention in any port in the galaxy. It was one of several similar models used by the Spiders, and right now he was sealed into the far corner of the bay by a translucent pink energy barrier. Distantly, he wondered how many innocent people Jen had stuffed in here over the years…people whose only crime had been being born immune to the Pandrophage, the bio-engineered disease crippling the rest of humanity.

  Sighing to himself, Markus shook away the thought. Right now he needed to focus on finding a way out of here. He wasn’t going to be busting through the barrier anytime soon, but perhaps there was still a chance he could get through to Jen before she handed him off to the Widow. Four years ago on Typhus he’d been on the verge of convincing her to defect with him, and he’d learned so much more about the Convectorate and the Tarreen who ruled it since then. Enough, hopefully, to finally convince her to cross that line.

  He slowly brought himself to his feet and let out another deep breath to calm his nerves. On impulse, he reached out across the ship with his mind, wondering if he could sense her nearby—

  The pain was so sudden, so intense, that Markus thought he’d been shot in the back a second time. His knees buckled and he collapsed face-first onto the cold deck plates, screaming despite himself.

  “Neural implant,” a calm, carefully modulated voice said from the shadows nearby. “For your own sake, I suggest you refrain from accessing your psychic abilities.”

  Markus craned his neck and squinted into the darkness. He didn’t recognize the exact alien intonation at first, but once he caught a glimpse of the trim, almost snake-like silhouette standing in the corner, he belatedly understood how he’d been ambushed.

  “Thanks for the warning,” he croaked. “Since when did the Widow start allowing her agents to work with Kali?”

  “Jen was hoping I would be able to take you by surprise,” the alien said, his reptilian scales rippling a cool gray as he stepped into the light. “Fortunately, she was correct.”

  “You could say that.” Markus shook his head and sized up the other man. The Kali were a short, slender people that looked roughly like a cross between a human and a lizard crowned with a serpentine head. As a race they were known for their keen minds and cold rationality, and they made some of the finest engineers and technicians in Convectorate space.

  They also had two distinguishing characteristics that were, as far as Markus knew, unique among sentient beings in the galaxy. The first was their chameleon-like scales that allowed them to blend into virtually any background—like the back alley walls of Briton Chalo, for example. The second was their innate resistance to telepathic manipulation. The former had always made them exceptional hunters, while the latter had gotten their home world bombed into rubble a century or so earlier. The Sarafan, the caste of human psychics who had ruled the Dominion, hadn’t been particularly fond of a species that was impervious to their most powerful weapon.

  “Your vitals have stabilized,” the Kali said as he studied a readout terminal on the adjacent wall. “It is likely that you will remain mildly disoriented for a few more hours, but the effects of the medication should wear off soon.”

  Markus grunted. “Does that include the headache?”

  The alien’s yellow eyes locked onto him in that disconcerting, unblinking way of theirs. Markus hadn’t interacted with a great many Kali over the years, but they always managed to look like they were perfectly in control of everything around them. And in this case, it wasn’t far from the truth.

  “I may be able to give you something for the pain,” he said after a moment. “I’ll need to check—”

  “Don’t bother.”

  Markus turned as the cargo bay door slid open and Jen stepped inside. She’d ditched the civilian garb in favor of one of the simple white jumpsuits she’d always preferred, and just like when he’d first spotted her charging across the nightclub, he had to fight back the flood of old memories threatening to pull him under.

  It was hard to believe it had been almost four years since he’d finally mustered the courage to walk away. It was even harder to believe that she never had.

  Jen stopped in front of his cell and eyed him as if he were something she’d just scraped off her boot. “He can handle the pain just fine.”

  He snorted. “You never were big on sympathy.”

  “Not for traitors, no.”

  Markus glanced over to the Kali then back to her. “I guess I should have just pulled the trigger the moment you wheeled around that corner. I never expected you to have a partner.”

  “One of your many mistakes,” Jen replied icily. “You’re fortunate I didn’t order Thexyl to kill you.”

  “You wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to drag me back in front of your mistress. I’m sure the Widow is salivating at the prospect of trying to break me.”

  “She will, right before she executes you for treason.”

  He sighed. “It’s really too bad.”

  “You deserve worse.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Markus said, sitting up and leaning back against the cell’s only wall. “I mean it’s too bad you still haven’t developed a personality. I thought we’d made real progress before.”

  The cargo bay lighting wasn’t particularly bright, and she’d positioned herself in such a way that her features were mostly veiled in shadow, but he could still see her face well enough to notice her cheek twitch. He half-expected her to trigger his implant and shock him again, but she didn’t. Instead she just continued to stare at him, her cold blue eyes glittering with barely contained revulsion.

  “You can return to the bridge,” Jen told her partner. “We should be in position to jump soon.”

  “Of course,” Thexyl replied. If he was at all irritated or concerned at being summarily dismissed, his voice didn’t show it. Not that Markus was surprised—if the man had been working with Jen for any duration, he would have developed some thick scales by now.

  Once the Kali was gone, she took another step forward and crossed her arms. “It’s time for you to start talking.”

  “You won’t get anything out of me, and the Mire will have already gone to ground before the Widow can finish her interrogation.”

  “Like the rats they are.”

  “They’re people, Jen,” he insisted. “Real, honest people who
could still use your help. It’s not too late to—”

  Having already felt the sting of the implant once, Markus had naturally assumed the inevitable second attack would be a bit easier for him to deal with. It wasn’t. He was writhing on the floor again before he even knew what had happened, and by the time the pain subsided his vision was so blurry the only thing he could see was the tip of her boot just beyond the energy field.

  “You can stow the recruiting pitch,” she said. “I wasn’t planning on asking you about those sniveling dregs, anyway.”

  It took him a few seconds to process her words, and there was no mistaking the smug amusement on her lips when he rolled over to look back up at her. “Then what do you want?”

  Jen crouched down a half-meter from his face. “I want to know about the Damadus.”

  He coughed. “What?”

  “The Damadus, the lost Dominion ship supposedly drifting somewhere out on the fringes of the galaxy,” she said. “You were thinking about it back on Briton Chalo. I want to know why.”

  Markus blinked, and it took all of his self-control not to smile. So she had managed to slip into his mind just before he’d lost consciousness. He’d felt her probing around during their brief battle, undoubtedly hoping that he would waver and leak a secret or two. Apparently she’d been right. He probably should have been annoyed or even terrified at the prospect of her rummaging around his memories, but right now it gave him a unique opportunity.

  Assuming he could keep her out this time, of course. He could feel her not-so-subtly prodding against his mind even now, but fortunately the neural implant wasn’t sensitive enough to prevent him from erecting his mental barriers. He needed to make sure she didn’t recognize what he was up to, and he definitely needed to make sure she didn’t realize he’d already gotten off a message to the Mire before he’d gone under…

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

  Jen cocked an eyebrow. “Do you want to spend the entire trip writhing around in agony?”

  He allowed his expression to sag as if he were really debating whether or not to tell her. Something like this was too important to give up without a fight. Of all the Mire secrets he knew—the base locations, the funding sources, the operatives inside the Convectorate ranks—this was one the Tarreen would do anything to get their claws on. Over the last century the Hierarchy, the Convectorate’s governing body, had systemically eradicated every last trace of Dominion technology from starships all the way down to crystal capacitors, and they’d purged nearly every mention of the Sarafan and their rule from the history banks. They’d used the Spiders to track down and capture human children born immune to the Pandrophage, and they’d all but forced the rest of the species to eke out a living on the fringes of the galaxy.

  But the Damadus could change everything. With a true, lasting cure for the Pandrophage, the human race could start over. They could train their own psychics to battle against Convectorate oppression, and eventually they might even cast down the seemingly invincible Hierarchy altogether.

  Yes, the Tarreen would definitely want this information. But more importantly, so would Jen. Four years ago he’d nearly been able to convince her to go with him, to leave the Convectorate behind and start a new life as a freedom fighter. Ultimately she’d stayed behind, but if any shred of that woman lingered on in the person in front of him, then this might have been the only way to reach her. He just needed to buy some time…

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said, glancing away, “and I’d rather not get shocked any more than I have to.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “Thousands of idiots have gone questing for that ship over the years, and not one of them has ever come back with so much as a piece of the hull plating.”

  “But you did, didn’t you?” she pressed. “That or one of your terrorist friends did.”

  He turned and locked eyes with her again. “And what would you do if I said I had? Call your mistress and tell her to send a fleet to destroy it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because terrorists can’t be trusted with that kind of technology.”

  Markus snorted. “Jen, we’re talking about a cure for a horrific disease, not a super weapon. We could give our species a chance to prosper again. Why would you possibly want to ruin that?”

  “Because it’s not that simple and you know it,” she said. “The galaxy doesn’t need a bunch of untrained telepaths running around.”

  “So instead we should all bow before the Hierarchy and beg for scraps at their table?” he asked. “How can you possibly think that’s an improvement?”

  Jen shook her head. “You can drop the act anytime. It won’t work on me. Not anymore.”

  “What act?”

  “The ‘noble revolutionary’ bullshit. You gave that up the moment the Mire destroyed Ceruan Station and murdered thousands of innocent civilians.”

  He frowned. He might not have been able to feel her thoughts, but he could tell she was legitimately angry. Did she really believe he’d slaughtered all those people? Did she really think he was capable of something like that?

  “Is that what you were told happened?” Markus asked softly.

  “I know that’s what happened,” Jen bit out. “I was sent there after the attack. I saw the wreckage. I saw the bodies.”

  “You saw the wreckage of a military outpost and a weapons depot,” he corrected. “There were no civilians anywhere near that place.”

  “I saw the casualty lists. I saw the records.”

  “You saw exactly what the Convectorate wanted you to see. You know how freely the Hierarchy is willing to alter records to suit their purposes.”

  She snorted. “And what about the massacre in the mines on Praxius? Or the tram station bombings on Alagar? Your friends have slaughtered thousands of innocent people since you joined them—don’t bother trying to deny it.”

  Slowly, Markus shook his head. The Mire wasn’t responsible for any of those atrocities, of course, but it didn’t surprise him in the slightest that the Hierarchy had tried to blame them for it. What did surprise him was that she was willing to believe it. During their last few months together, they’d uncovered a half a dozen separate Convectorate cover-ups framing various rebel groups for one incident after another. She knew first-hand the power and scope of their lies, so why was she willing to believe any of this? And why did it bother him so much that she did?

  “I expected their propaganda machine to work on plenty of people,” he whispered. “But not you, Jen. How can you possibly believe any of that nonsense after the things we saw together?”

  She kept her eyes locked with his for a long moment before popping up from her crouch and leaning back into the shadows. “I’m not interested in debating politics with you. Either tell me about the Damadus or you’re going under until we get back to the Nidus.”

  He turned away and sighed. As much as he wanted to sit here and prove to her that he wasn’t a monster, to prove to her that neither he nor the Mire had committed any of those atrocities, for now he was just going to have to live with it. The only thing that mattered was finding the Damadus, and to do that he was going to have to convince her that she needed to take him to meet the only living man who knew the ship’s coordinates.

  “I don’t know where it is,” Markus said softly after a moment, “but there’s a man on Kalifax who does.”

  Jen folded her arms defiantly across her chest. “So it’s just another useless rumor, then.”

  “Hardly. I’m sure you know that Pasek and his gang have been selling us weapons and psi-tech over these last few years, but what you might not realize is how much. Just a few weeks ago he sold us a hundred crystal capacitors—all fully charged.”

  The silhouette of her jaw dropped open, but to her credit she recovered quickly and snapped it back shut. He couldn’t blame her for being surprised—his reaction had been more or less the same whe
n Pasek had made the delivery. Crystal capacitors were one of the hallmarks of old Dominion psi-tech. They were essentially psychic batteries, and they could be used to power everything from weapons to tools to ship engines. Finding one of them was rare enough, but a hundred…

  “Well, it turns out he’d been salvaging most of them off the Damadus,” Markus went on. “He’d been debating whether or not to sell us the whole ship, but before he made up his mind one of his lieutenants got the bright idea to go rogue and attempt to sell it on his own. Apparently he told half the galactic underworld about it and was planning to have an auction.”

  “And I’m guessing someone decided to just take it from him instead,” Jen reasoned.

  “Naturally,” Markus confirmed. “Unfortunately, though, we’re not talking about a bunch of random thugs here. Somehow the Dowd heard about it.”

  She hissed between her teeth, and he nodded in silent agreement. The Dowd were one of the few species that had never joined the Convectorate, willingly or otherwise. They were content to carve out their own little empire on the fringes of explored space and ignore the rest of galactic society—outside from the occasional jaunt over the border to obliterate or enslave human settlements, anyway. Ostensibly, the Hierarchy condemned any outright violation of their sovereign territory, but in practice they cared so little for humans that they rarely made a fuss about the occasional genocide. Even on densely-populated worlds humans often lived in isolation, and as a result the Dowd attacks rarely affected any of the other sentient races. The Holosphere at-large usually forgot about any such massacres the instant the reports scrolled off the headlines.

  “I imagine this lieutenant is dead, then,” Jen said after a moment.

  “Not yet, but he will be soon. He managed to slip a message to Pasek that he’s gone into hiding in one of their safe houses on Kalifax. I told him that I’d get his man out of there, and in exchange I wanted the coordinates. Of course then you blasted open the door and turned Pasek into a puddle of goo.” Markus shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, though. This lieutenant—Rodani, if I remember the name right—should still be there for the time being. But we have to hurry.”

  Jen turned away and paced off to the side in thought. A few years ago, he’d have reached out with his mind to see if he could get any sense of her emotions. It was what Spiders did, after all. But years on the run evading telepathic webs had taught him to control his old instincts, and with the neural implant poised to shock him again the moment he tried anything, he was thankful he’d learned some restraint.

  Besides, even without brushing her mind he already knew exactly what she was thinking. Even though the Hierarchy would most likely just want the same thing the Dowd did—the complete destruction of the Damadus—they’d never trust anyone else to do their job for them. They would want her to investigate, and once she was there in person Markus doubted she’d actually be able to destroy such a vital part of human history. Or so he hoped.

  “You’re lying,” Jen said after a moment, spinning back to face him. “You’re just stalling to try and give yourself a chance to escape.”

  Markus snorted. “You’re the one who brought this up, you realize.”

  “You knew you were beaten and so you laid a trap. The Damadus has been lost for a hundred years. There’s no way a bunch of fringe filth mystically found it now.”

  “Go ahead and ask the Widow. Maybe she’ll agree with you.”

  Jen clenched her jaw in frustration and turned away, and he allowed himself a quick smile. They both knew how her mistress would respond, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

  “You think you’re clever,” she whispered into the darkness. “You still believe I’ll ‘come around when I see this ship for myself, or maybe you really are just biding your time and hoping I’ll slip up and give you a chance to escape.”

  Jen hit the paid on her wrist, and another jolt of agony seared through Markus’s body. This time when he finally stopped flopping he was face-down on the deck.

  “Neither is going to happen,” she said coldly. “Sooner or later you’ll figure that out.”

  Her boots clicked across the floor, and the cargo bay door slid shut behind her. Markus laid still in the near darkness for several long minutes, smiling even as the blood trickled down his nose.