Gareth: The Nova Force: Book 3, page 8
Gareth had been a reckless teenager back when their dad first dreamed up futures where his boys became combat psychics on life-saving missions across the galaxy. Then he’d almost fucked it all up when he got into hacking. It was a miracle he’d had any future at all. Enlisting had been a means to an end then, but every now and then, on days when he used his powers for good, he couldn’t help but hope the old man was proud of him. Times like that, Gareth appreciated the Royal Marine he’d become and didn’t regret a moment of his training.
Today wasn’t one of those times. As he descended the ladder into the underground facility, a creeping sensation slid over his brain and throbbed across his skull like a raw, festering wound. Lately, his psychic powers picked up residual energy and emotions the moment he stepped into a room, sending fragments of memory rocketing into his brain.
Losing Kaiden years ago must have stunted his psychic growth. Getting his brother back had been a mental shot of adrenaline, kicking his gifts into overdrive even when they were apart. Gareth didn’t know whether to call it a curse or a blessing.
“You okay up there?” Evie called.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. You’re breathing hard as hell, and a guy like you is too fit to be winded from a few yards of ladder climbing.”
“I’m fine,” Gareth lied between his teeth as tension rippled over his skull. When they reached the bottom of the ladderwell, the worst hit him. A hundred last wishes and final thoughts, desperate pleas for help, and cries in dark rooms reverberated throughout the underground chamber.
And they hadn’t even breached the main laboratory yet. Holy shit.
The ghost of a hundred people washed over him with the force of a tsunami, and something told him there were a whole lot more. Whatever had happened in this facility had been big.
Overwhelmed by the residual energy, Gareth staggered backwards into Evie’s arms. His two hundred and twenty-five pounds didn’t even rock her off balance. She held him against her chest, fingers laced above his abs.
“I’m okay.”
“You are not okay.”
“Just need a moment.”
“Right. Here, take this.” She pulled a small capsule from her vest and held it in front of his face. “Nisrine warned me to carry a few.”
He recognized the same inhalant Ranulf had passed him shortly after their rescue from Ame Station, when he was still praying for a quiet death in the dark. He gave a nod and closed his eyes against the pain bursting behind them. Relief came on a minty wave, sweet and crisp vapors filling his nostrils and flooding through his head.
When the vice around his skull loosened, he opened his eyes and met her gaze. “I’m good now.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t expecting so much to hit me. This place is carrying a lot of residual energy. How’d you even find it?”
“They left the door wide open.”
The facility bore a slight resemblance to others he’d investigated as part of the Jemison’s ground assault squad. The identical layout made him wonder if the mad scientist cybernetic surgeon behind Kantarn had also founded this particular project, or if Scarot liked all her science projects neat, orderly, and absolutely interchangeable.
“Conduit should be one level below this one. I guess these particular butchers disabled power when they abandoned the facility.”
“You sound disappointed.”
Gareth forced a weak smile to his face. “Part of me hoped we’d find action down here and have an excuse to kick ass, but on the other hand…” He sighed. “I’m in no hurry for you to see anything like the nightmares we’ve discovered since rescuing my brother.”
Evie squeezed his hand. “It must be exhausting work.”
“Exhausting but rewarding. Xander’s done a lot of good work over the years, and I’m proud to be on their ground squad. We’ve located and shut down about five different chop shops.”
“But it’s depressing.”
“The things you find in those labs, Evie. They haunt you. I can’t unsee them. So trust me when I say I understand.”
With flashlights to guide the way, they descended a staircase into the bowels of the laboratory, passing empty cells along the way. It took Gareth all of five minutes to activate the conduit and restore power to the facility, though the long period of inactivity had deteriorated the energy core and it took ages to boot up, so long he wondered if it would power the entire building at all.
Distrusting it, they passed the elevator and returned to the upper level via the stairs. With power, Gareth suspected any number of security protocols and bots could have also activated.
They found none, unlike the facility on Kantarn with its laser turrets installed in the ceilings. Of course, the subterranean location may have been all the protection it needed.
“How many people manned this place?”
“Couldn’t have been many. I made it as far as this operating theater before I encountered anyone,” she said, indicating a spotless room with a stainless steel table and dozens of instruments arranged from a machine in the ceiling. “That was all I needed to see. Most of the staff were occupied in here, working on a man. And I heard the screams from the other patients. Victims.”
“Aye. They echo up the stairs. Every goddamned time. I used to wonder about the bloody acoustics.”
“I wish I’d turned back.”
Gareth shot her a hard look. He took her by the chin, rough fingers gentle against her skin despite their hard calluses. “No, you don’t. I know that isn’t true.”
“How?”
“Because no matter how many times it haunts me at night, I’m thankful for every mission I’ve taken. It means we’ve set someone free to return to their family and loved ones. Their friends. It means some victim becomes a survivor, and they’re able to go on living again. That’s why, no matter the nightmares, I’m grateful to be a part of it.”
“But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t rescue anyone. Nothing about what happened here was heroic, Gareth. I stumbled into a slaughterhouse and changed nothing. Because of me, they initiated a coverup that killed hundreds.”
“But now you’re here to tell the tale and get justice for them. Because of you, no more people were preyed upon at this facility, Evie. That’s something. It may not seem like much, but it’s something, lass.”
Ancient computers sat on shelves, outdated even by the standards set a decade ago, but the model had been a favorite of the UNE back then, cheap and easily produced trash that served its purpose at least. He’d been a teen when they went onto the market, and he had fond memories of taking his initial exams on an old Bellmar Touch Professional in a room of other applicants to the communications program. The Royal Navy believed in frugal spending when it came to technology, cheaper before Queen Catherine took a greater interest in governing where the military put its money.
Exploration took them down one hall and into the next, pausing to peer into dim, deserted offices with motion-activated lights. Despite his experience with uncovering hidden caches of information in scrubbed computers, he couldn’t find a thing.
“There’s nothing,” she finally said after they patrolled their third corridor and ended their exploration in yet another office. “They had a decade to wipe it clean, unlike the laboratory where you found Kaiden.”
“They can wipe data, but they can’t wipe the memories of what they’ve done to people here.”
“Well, unless things have changed, I don’t think the courts accept psychic evidence.”
“Evidence isn’t what I’m looking for, Fl—Evie. We need to be pointed in the right direction. Even a clue will be enough, aye?”
“Maybe.”
The layout of the facility had been imprinted on his mind, burned into his retinas from storming so many others like it. He led the way to the central room and stood with his arms at his sides, hands loose fists. Evie hung back a few steps behind him with her gun drawn.
Voices from the past blurred together, jumbling into a mental dissonance reverberating in his thoughts. He tried to make sense of them and divide the noise into individual entities.
I don’t belong here, snaked into his brain, a man’s voice spoken with authority and anger.
I swear, if you let me go, said a pleading woman, I won’t tell anyone. I won’t say a word to anybody about what’s happening.
Someone chuckled and the din of a few dozen victims merged again, rolling into a discordant hum.
Prepare the specimen for surgery.
Please don’t do this to me, I have a family. I have kids. I’m barely a psychic.
Gareth swallowed. These so-called researchers had no loyalty and had even turned on their own people. He wondered how many of their staff went from following orders to the surgical table.
Izik always finds us the best.
There are only so many specimens to take from the surface before the civilians begin to suspect something is amiss. We must seek outside sources for the experiment.
I know someone.
He delivered again.
LET ME OUT OF HERE!
The shriek tore through Gareth’s senses. He stumbled to the side and reached out to catch the edge of a desk for balance. Between it and Evie, he remained upright.
I know someone.
You won’t get away with this.
Disjointed voices continued, interspersed with plaintive cries and demands to be released from captivity. He picked out one statement beneath the desperate howls.
Izik will provide us with more.
Chapter Nine
Gareth crashed for two hours after the overwhelming sensory experience on Omega. When he stirred, his head didn’t hurt as bad as expected, and the mercs had just settled for supper in the mess hall.
He joined them, too starved to give a damn what was on the menu, but thankful that Ranulf greeted him with an ale stein taller than his boots.
“What’s this?”
“Lexarian tenemu. Child’s beer for the dinner table and young ones. Not as fancy or hard-hitting as the good shit,” the burly mercenary replied, “but it does the job. Picked up a barrel of the stuff recently off a smuggler who owed me.”
“And won a cask of heqet off Morna,” Jinx cut in, guffawing so hard his green hair flopped onto his brow. “Should have seen her face.”
Morna sulked. “Cheating fucker.”
Jinx and Morna weren’t twins, and they didn’t resemble one another in the least, but he didn’t need a familial resemblance to tell the two were brother and sister. While Morna was a short, plump hourglass-shape with mousy brown hair and gauged ears, Jinx was tall and gangly. She wore a lot of jewelry, but Jinx’s hands were bare, scarred, calloused, and stained with machine oil under the nails—the hallmark of a mechanic or someone who worked with their hands too frequently to deal with donning and removing a ring every day. Morna had big blue eyes set in a darker, oval face, whereas Jinx was the approximate shade of notepaper from never seeing the sun.
But they had the brother and sister vibe between them.
“No cheating involved, Morna. I can just read you like yesterday’s news. When you have a good hand, you start glancing from side to side like a wee tot with a big secret.”
“Asshole.”
Jinx laughed harder until tears glistened in his eyes. “I told you!”
Gareth raised the mug for a sip. The creamy ale tasted like fine lemon blossom honey with a thick layer of sweet froth on top. He licked it off his upper lip and made an involuntary sound of pleasure despite the sharp alcoholic bite.
“Good shit, isn’t it?”
“The fucking best. We need to be serving this on the Jemison.” He wondered whether or not he could put in a request with Stephanie. A civilian ran the ship’s cafe and kept strict watch over the liquor locker behind the bar. She tended to serve cheap stuff from the tap, beer that was flat and tasteless, empty calories. Royal Navy rules allowed them each two drinks a day during off duty hours as long as they weren’t within eight hours of a shift. He didn’t often claim his allotted ration, but he’d be there a couple times a week if they upped their game with this.
He shoveled down his dinner without asking what it was, having learned a long time ago during his early boot camp days it was sometimes better not to know.
“We were about to start a round of poker in the lounge, if you’re game.”
“Unless you’re taking credits, I don’t have much to wager.”
Morna greedily eyed his XenoGear.
He called her on it right away. “Eight thousand credits, lass. You can fuck off with that.”
“Damn.”
Ranulf laughed at them. “Credits are fine. I got a chip scanner handy, so don’t worry about that. You game?”
“I’m in.”
Evangeline pushed up from her seat. “You lot have fun. I’m off to bed.”
A chorus of goodnights came from the mercs at their dining table. Gareth considered following, but the woman looked dog tired. “Night, Evie,” is all he said instead, flashing her a subdued smile. He wouldn’t pressure her.
After Ranulf and Gareth each gulped down a second serving of what he presumed was meat and noodle casserole with grilled mushrooms, they relocated to the ship’s tiny lounge.
A spritely blonde woman awaited them at the round game table. She looked up from shuffling the cards and blew her long bangs out of her face. “About time you all got in here.”
“Sorry, Doc, not all of us stuff our faces in a rush,” Ranulf replied. “Brought some new blood to the game, too.”
“Oh. Nice. New blood is fresh money.”
“Gareth,” he introduced himself, offering a hand.
“Call me Lissa. I patch these meatheads up when they do something dumb.”
Everyone grabbed drinks from the adjacent table. Someone had mixed together a pitcher of Cosmic Splash to accompany deep-fried breaded goodies, though he was still stuffed from dinner and passed on those. While Ranulf handled the chips, Lissa dealt the first round. Gareth looked at his lousy starting hand and calculated his options.
“Just to make sure you’re honest over there, man,” Jinx said, tapping a finger against a sensor on his wrist, “we’re keeping an eye on you.”
“I don’t cheat during poker. Honest.”
Morna snickered. “That’s exactly what a cheat would say.”
He grunted and held on to his morals, while letting go of fifty credits when Lissa took the game.
“Thank you very much.”
Then she took the next game.
And another.
Gareth stared at his shrinking chip pile and wondered what the hell had happened, though Jinx and Ranulf made exaggerated shows of glancing at their sensors.
“Oh, come on. You know damned well I’m not fucking cheating. I just lost four hundred credits.” Seemingly in the blink of an eye.
By the time he won a game, he was already six hundred in the hole. A lot of luck and no skill had secured him the win, the others each holding crap that game. His next hand made him frown as much as its predecessor.
If there was a god of poker, he had just done Gareth up the ass with no lube.
Jinx cackled. “These stakes are pretty low, man. Sure you’re brave enough to play at our table?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t.”
“That frown on your face says otherwise.”
Disgruntled, he chugged his Cosmic Splash with one hand and shot Jinx the bird with the other. Morna, Lissa, and Ranulf only chuckled harder.
“Not often we get to see a Royal Marine looking so distressed,” Lissa teased.
“I’m not distressed. Blow me.”
“No thanks. You’re cute and all, but I like my face just how it is.” She winked. “Evie would rearrange it for me.”
When Ranulf dealt again, the beginnings of a decent hand emerged, fate giving him a much appreciated three of a kind. He kept the grin off his face because, with his luck, Lissa would pull out another straight flush and steal the game. He glanced across the table, but Ranulf wasn’t giving anything away. Morna drummed her nails on the underside of the table, one of the tells he’d picked up when she had a bad hand.
After the first draw, he still only had his original three. He met the next raise but didn’t increase it, hoping he had a chance. It looked good at first, Ranulf only showing a pair and Lissa three of a kind that were lower than Gareth’s matching tens. Morna folded.
“Full house! Take that!” Jinx showed his winning hand and scooped the pile towards himself.
“Well, we had to throw you one at least,” Lissa drawled. “Your moping is pathetic.”
“I don’t mope.”
“Nah, you just flash those puppy dog eyes and make us feel bad for you,” Morna said.
Lissa took the next round, then Morna after her. The money on the table passed hands more than once, everyone managing to get their hands on a small fortune at one point or another.
The pile of chips on the table grew taller. Shit. A few years had passed since he played anything resembling high-stakes poker.
Lissa bowed out first on the next round. She laid down her cards without a word and refilled her glass from the pitcher of Cosmic Splash. The fruity cocktail resembled a liquid nebula in black space. Jinx reached over and patted her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. Gareth sensed a story there, not that he would ask.
Morna shoved her entire pile to the middle of the table. “I’m all in.”
“Fuck it, I’m out,” her brother said. He tossed his cards face-down on the table and leaned back in his seat, arms crossed.
“Wuss.”
“I like having money and I’m not gonna let my sister take me for all I have.”
“Like I said. Wuss.” Morna chuckled and looked to her left. “Ranulf?”
“I’ll see your bet.”
“You don’t have near enough.”
The big man grunted. “I’ll wager the heqet with this.”
