Tyrant of Jarl (Rift Warrior Book 4), page 27
By the time I walked through the door, Ingrid’s psionic skullweb was already active. It glinted beneath her dark hair as she processed information at accelerated speeds.
“The rift is coming at any moment now,” she said.
“I know… I can feel it.”
Sure enough, a few moments later, the room brightened. A whirling region of light, like a captured storm, filled the room.
“Tanner?” Ingrid asked. “When you get back to Earth… you’re not going to screw me over, are you?”
I looked at her seriously. For all I knew, this spinning light connected to some other colony—or even an airless rock. XCU agents didn’t always get home safely.
On the other hand, Ingrid couldn’t be sure that I wasn’t planning to rat her out the moment I got home. It was a tricky situation for both of us.
What was required was trust—and neither of us had that resource in abundance.
“Jarl has suffered a lot,” I said. “In my short time here, I’ve met a lot of people who did things they might regret now—in order to survive. But I say we should all let that poison die. Let that man—Emmett—become forgotten. You should help them do that here, to guide the colony into a better direction.”
“And you? What will you do?”
“I’ll do my part by forgetting unfortunate details in my report.”
She stared at me, then, she smiled.
I nodded toward the rift. “Is it safe?”
“Of course. Hurry, they’ll bitch about the budgets if they have to keep it open much longer.”
Pretending I trusted her one hundred percent, I stepped out of Jarl, and into nothingness.
Chapter 32
The XCU transmission lab materialized around me, replacing the colony town of Northaven. The familiar circular portal hummed with power, its frame gleaming under the harsh laboratory lights. Technicians scrambled at control stations, shouting readings and adjustments as the rift connection destabilized behind me.
“Portal integrity failing!”
“Power surge in the primary conduits!”
“Shut it down! Emergency shutdown now!”
Voices blended into background noise as I focused on the figure standing near the main control panel. Station Chief Betty Mitchell stood frowning. Her salt-and-pepper bob-style haircut had too much hairspray, and it looked like a bicycle helmet. Her eyes widened as she recognized me.
“Tanner?” she said. “What was wrong with that rift? We almost lost you!”
“Surprise,” I said.
My legs felt unsteady—the after-effects of rift travel magnified by whatever bullshit spin Ingrid had flavored the trip with. I managed to step away from the machine without outright staggering.
Mitchell’s face cycled through emotions rapidly—irritation, confusion, calculation, and finally a mask of professional concern. “Medical team to the transmission lab immediately,” she said into her implant phone. “Agent Tanner needs a full physical.”
I waved her off. “I don’t need medical. I need answers.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re unsteady on your feet, Tanner. Protocol requires full medical evaluation after improvised transmission events.”
“Fuck protocol,” I replied, loud enough for all the technicians to hear. Several heads turned our way, then quickly back to their stations when Mitchell glared.
The rift portal powered down with a dying whine, the connection to Jarl severed completely. I was back on Earth, cut off from the colony and the people I’d left behind. That was always a weird feeling—like waking up from a coma full of dreams.
Dr. Renn hurried over, his lab coat wrinkled as if he’d been wearing it for days. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. “This is unprecedented! A return transmission with unknown errors built into the coordinates? The errors must have been initiated from the colony side.”
“Apparently,” Mitchell cut in. “Dr. Renn, prepare your analysis for the director. I need to debrief Agent Tanner immediately.”
Renn looked like he was about to protest, but Mitchell wielded that glare again and silenced him. He retreated to his control panel, muttering about energy calculations and transmission vectors.
“My office,” Mitchell ordered, already striding toward the exit. “Now.”
I followed at a deliberately casual pace, noting the security cameras tracking our movement. Everything in XCU was monitored, recorded, analyzed. I needed to be careful about what I said and where I said it.
Mitchell’s office was on the top level of the facility. The room was spartanly furnished with a metal desk, utilitarian chairs, and windowless walls lined with secure filing cabinets. A few administrative awards hung on one wall, gathering dust.
To my surprise, a pair of security goons showed up at the door before I could even sit down and take a load off.
“What’s this about?” I asked.
“You refused medical aid, is that correct, Tanner?”
I glanced at Mitchell. Had she gone crazy? “Yeah… but since when is that grounds for arrest?”
“It isn’t, but there have been formal complaints against you lodged by another source. We are simply following protocol.”
There was that shitty word again. Protocol. It was the kind of word that liked to fuck over a guy like me with regularity.
“Who lodged what complaints?”
“A colonist girl named Livy—ah, I can see you do know her.”
“What did she accuse me of?”
“That will be gone over in due time. Now, if you will submit to arrest—”
Naturally, I was considering decking these two. Sure, I was a bit sore, but they didn’t look too tough to me…
In the end, I firmly passed on the idea. That might even be exactly what Mitchell was hoping for. The next best thing to a confession was nice additional charge for resisting lawful arrest.
“May I make a suggestion first, Chief?” I asked her. “About something that might be to your advantage?”
The two men shouldered in and started trying to cuff me. I resisted vaguely, but mostly locked eyes with the station chief. She frowned back, but finally, she snarled and ordered them to retreat.
They’d handcuffed me by this time, and Mitchell left me standing there, but I kept staring at her in a meaningful way.
Finally, she heaved a sigh. “I’m going to regret this… Guards, leave the prisoner with me for now.”
They looked startled. “But… ma’am… this agent is combat trained. He might—”
“If he does, you can shoot him at dawn. Now, leave!”
Finally, reluctantly, they did as she demanded.
She closed the door behind them, engaging the privacy lock.
“All right. What are you talking about?”
“Let’s cut the bullshit, Mitchell,” I interrupted. “You never expected me to come back.”
Her expression flickered momentarily before settling into practiced neutrality. “That’s absurd. Your mission was to stabilize the colony, neutralize the security threat, and report back.”
“Just like Dom Serrano’s little venture out to Jarl?” I asked, watching her carefully.
The name hit its mark. Mitchell flinched almost imperceptibly. “Serrano’s death was due to a training accident with a sparring robot. It has nothing to do with your assignment.”
“That’s interesting,” I said, moving to examine the awards on her wall. “Because the Tyrant of Jarl told me differently. Even showed me holographical video of Dom’s final moments.”
Mitchell’s face paled slightly. “What are you talking about?”
I turned to face her fully. “I’m talking about their colony administrator. The one who seized control of the colony ship, imposed martial law, and executed dissenters for entertainment. He captured Dom, tortured him, and then sent his remains back through a rift as a message. Sent them home to you.”
“These are serious allegations,” Mitchell said, steady despite her pallor. “If you have evidence—”
“Oh, I have evidence,” I cut in. “But that’s not what’s bothering you, is it? What’s bothering you is what Dom might have told the Tyrant before he died. What I might know now.”
Mitchell moved behind her desk, putting the furniture between us like a shield. “You’re obviously suffering from post-transmission stress. It’s common after difficult missions. We should continue this debriefing after you’ve been evaluated by medical.”
“The Tyrant was Emmett Reeves,” I said, dropping the name deliberately.
Mitchell froze. “What did you say?”
“Emmett Reeves. From XCU originally.”
My shoulder was throbbing more intensely now, the pain cutting through the medication from Jarl. I ignored it, trained on Mitchell’s reaction.
“Reeves was assigned to assess Jarl’s viability early on,” she said carefully. “There was a communication failure. We lost contact.”
“You lost contact because he went off the rails,” I clarified. “My guess is you didn’t want the blame for the colony being taken over by one of your own agents.”
Mitchell’s hand moved slightly toward her desk drawer—where, I knew, she kept a small pulse pistol for “emergencies.”
“You probably shouldn’t do that,” I warned. “Not unless you want Security to review why you shot an unarmed agent during debriefing.”
Her hand stilled. “These accusations are not just false, they’re dangerous, Agent Tanner. Director Brandt will—”
“Director Brandt will what? Cover it up? Like he covered up Dom’s death? Like he covered up Reeves’ exile?” I moved closer to the desk. “How many agents have you sacrificed, Mitchell? How many colonies are screwed up and written off so no one blames your decision-making?”
Mitchell’s composure cracked, just slightly. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. The colonial system is complex. Difficult decisions have to be made. Resources are finite.”
“Save the rationalizations,” I said. “I’ve heard better from actual tyrants.”
She stood straighter, regaining control. “What do you want, Tanner? If this is some kind of blackmail attempt—”
“I want the truth,” I cut in. “About Dom. About Reeves. About what really happened on Jarl.”
“The truth?” Mitchell’s laugh was harsh. “You wouldn’t recognize the truth if it bit your balls, Tanner. Here’s some truth: You’re a blunt instrument. That’s why we use you. We point you at problems and let you smash them.”
It was a fair point, and one I’d considered myself.
“Did you send Dom Serrano out there to die?” I asked her suddenly.
A muscle twitched in Mitchell’s jaw. “Serrano was… lost accidentally.”
“You mean the assignment was meant to kill him off…?”
All of a sudden, Mitchell’s stormy face brightened. “Ah-ha! I get it now. You’re trying to distract from all the crimes this Livy-person has testified to in great detail. Oh, how you abused that girl, Tanner. You should be ashamed!”
It was my turn to pause with my mouth open. It sounded like Livy had really gone to town on my reputation.
Mitchell did a little pacing around her desk. When I tried to speak again, she put a flat hand up into my face. “Let me think for a moment.”
Finally, she paused and sighed. “I think I have the solution—no doubt the answer you’ve been waiting for.”
“What solution? I’m not guilty of anything. You sent Dom out there—”
She put that annoying hand into my face again. If my hands hadn’t been cuffed behind my back…
“Listen. It’s insane—but I’m willing to do it. I’ll drop all charges concerning your abuse of innocent women—if you drop all this nonsense about Dom Serrano.”
There it was. We stared at one another for a moment while I considered her offer.
It was, of course, total bullshit. I’d saved Livy’s ass, and she’d ditched me. Now, here on Earth, I was learning she’d waltzed in and poisoned everyone against me, so I couldn’t get her arrested. Hell, for all I knew, she was bucking for my job.
The problem was one of sympathies and reputations. Mitchell was a ball-buster of a woman, through and through. She was likely to take another woman’s side, and I did have a certain reputation with the ladies…
Worse, now that I’d brought up her own skeletons, she had every reason to go all out with Livy’s accusations. To launch every legal missile she had in my direction first…
Who was going to be believed? One sketchy XCU agent, or two vindictive women?
I already knew the answer. Sighing, I knew of only one way out.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll drop all this about Dom… if you drop everything about this Livy woman—who is a cold-fish liar, by the way.”
“Of course she is…”
We regarded each other with open hate for a time. Then, to my surprise, Mitchell reached behind my back and opened my handcuffs. They fell to the floor with a clack.
“Good to have you back, Tanner,” she said tightly, offering me a hand.
I felt like strangling her, but I shook hands with her instead.
Right about then, the two security goons came bursting back in. They must have heard the cuffs fall, and figured I’d unleashed an attack on the helpless director.
They were open-mouthed with astonishment when they found the two of us face-to-face and shaking hands.
But we didn’t even look at the security boys. We were too busy trying to stare each other down.
In the end, we parted ways with no clear victor.
Chapter 33
A few weeks after my return from Jarl, I stood outside Brandt’s office, waiting. The corridor was quiet so early in the morning, with most of XCU’s personnel not yet arrived for their shifts. The overhead lights hummed faintly, casting a sterile glow on everything. Why did management like mornings so much?
I’d avoided Mitchell since our confrontation, using my leave as an excuse. My shoulder was healing well, all hints of permanent damage from infections were warded off by XCU medical, which was a lot better than Jarl’s frontier medicine.
Without knocking, I pushed open Brandt’s door.
To my surprise, Brandt was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Mitchell sat there in his place. She looked up from her terminal, irritation flashing across her face. “Tanner? It’s about time you showed up.”
“Um… where’s Brandt?” I asked.
“Director Brandt is away at a conference, but he’s aware I’m briefing you about this particular problem.”
“So… this is about a new mission? I thought…”
“Your extended leave is cancelled.”
She activated her display, turning it so I could see. Images appeared of a lush, densely forested planet. Unlike Jarl’s frozen wastes, this world teemed with life—verdant canopies, winding rivers, sprawling settlement complexes integrated with the natural landscape.
“This is Trond,” Mitchell explained. “One of our more successful colonies. Established thirty years ago, population approximately twenty thousand. Self-sufficient agriculture, valuable pharmaceutical exports derived from native flora.”
“Sounds idyllic,” I commented. “Brandt talked to me about this place before. What’s the problem now?”
Mitchell’s expression turned grim. “It was idyllic. Until about six months ago when people started disappearing and reappearing in a state of confusion near the outer settlements.”
She tapped the display, bringing up security footage. The video showed a human-like figure emerging from what appeared to be a large, translucent sac or cocoon. As the figure stepped into clearer view, its features resolved into an exact duplicate of a man shown in an identification photo beside the video.
“What the hell am I looking at?” I asked, but I thought I already knew.
“The colonists call them the Selk,” Mitchell said. “An indigenous lifeform that apparently evolved a unique survival mechanism. They absorb and duplicate other organisms, creating perfect copies down to memories and behaviors.”
“Doppelgängers…? There was a time, back at the Complex, where I dealt with aliens like these. How do you know these supposed copies aren’t the original people?”
Mitchell tapped the display again, advancing to another segment of footage. The duplicate was now in what appeared to be a laboratory setting, communicating with other duplicates. Their mouths moved, but instead of words, they emitted a series of clicks and chittering sounds.
“The duplicates maintain what seems like a telepathic connection to what we believe is a central hive mind,” she explained. “They can perfectly mimic human behavior when needed, but when among their own kind, they revert to their native communication.”
I studied the footage with growing concern. “How widespread is the infiltration?”
“That’s the problem,” Mitchell replied grimly. “We don’t know. Colonial leadership reported twelve confirmed cases before communications became irregular. Our last update indicated potential infiltration of the council itself, with key decision-makers acting against colony interests.”
“And you want me to what? Go in and start shooting anyone that looks like a twin?”
Mitchell rolled her eyes. “Unlike your usually preferred methods, this requires subtlety. The duplicates are physically indistinguishable from humans. Killing the wrong person would trigger exactly the kind of underlying panic the Selk appear to be cultivating.”
“So… what’s the approach?”
“You’ll be sent as a diplomatic envoy,” she explained. “Officially there to mediate growing tensions within the colony. Unofficially, you’ll identify the extent of infiltration and locate the Selk hive.”
“And once I find it?”
A cold smile crossed Mitchell’s face. “Then you do what you do best. Eliminate the threat.”
I frowned at the display, studying the lush world and its hidden danger. “These duplicates—they have all the memories of the originals?”
