Marauder (34 page)

‘Come on,’ beckoned Lucy, pushing her chair back.

Gabrielle gave Megan one last, long look before following Lucy out of the refectory. Her eyes were rimmed with dark blotches due to fatigue, and Megan could see how much the events of the past
few days had taken out of the younger woman. If the sheer emotional impact hadn’t hit her yet, it soon would. Growing up knowing you would have to die so that a stranger could occupy your
body was one thing. Surviving long enough to discover you had a cloned twin old enough to be your mother constituted a whole new level of fucked-up.

‘I think it’s about time you got some sleep, Megan,’ suggested Stiles, standing up. Those members of her staff that had joined them rose also, as if they had been waiting for a
cue. ‘You can take your turn in the medbox tomorrow, as soon as we’re sure your niece is going to be okay. After that we can talk some more.’ She glanced at the plump young man.
‘Mike, could you find Megan somewhere to sleep?’

‘Sure thing,’ he replied.

Stiles took Megan’s hand and shook it. ’I must say,’ she said, studying the bandages visible beneath Megan’s shirt, ‘whoever patched you up did a very good
job.’

‘It’s been quite a couple of days,’ said Megan.

‘Oh, I’m sure it has,’ Stiles agreed, her gaze piercing.

Megan undressed carefully in the quarters Mike had found for her, then cautiously peeled the bandage away from her shoulder. Standing before a full-length mirror, she turned
this way and that, studying the vivid yellow and purple bruises covering her shoulder and a good part of her upper back.

Admit you’ve been lucky
, she told her reflection. But she still couldn’t quite bring herself to relax, even now, as she wasn’t sure yet whether Stiles was really a
friend. The story she had managed to concoct for the woman’s benefit, on the spur of the moment, sounded less and less convincing in retrospect the more she thought about it.

She next stepped into the tiny shower cubicle and used its limited supply of hot water to wash as much of the blood and sweat from her skin as possible. Then she dried herself and crawled into
the single narrow bed, passing into unconsciousness just moments after her cheek touched the pillow.

The next morning, Lucy came and fetched Megan for her turn in medbay. The baby, it turned out, was doing fine despite everything they had been through, and Gabrielle had been
moved into her own quarters, next to Megan’s.

Lucy left her alone in the medbay, promising someone would check up on her in the next couple of hours. She closed her eyes as the lid of the medbox folded down over her. Nanocyte-rich gel
flooded the tank, cooling and numbing her skin so that she hardly even felt the gentle prick of microscopic needles.

When she emerged from the tank half a day later, the bruises had faded considerably. The machine’s diagnostics informed her she had suffered relatively minor cell damage, no more than
might be expected of someone who spent much of her life in space. She washed off the gunk, then dressed in the fabricator-printed overalls Lucy had left out for her.

She found Stiles waiting for her in the corridor outside the medbay with a tray of coffee and food. ‘Right on time,’ said Stiles, leading Megan back to her quarters. ‘I’d
like to have a little chat, if I may.’

Stiles herself took the single available chair, while Megan made do with perching on her bed with a bowl of porridge. ‘You’re looking better than you did last night,’ observed
Stiles, flashing Megan a taut smile over the rim of her mug.

‘Thanks,’ said Megan, worried about what might be coming next.

Stiles blew gently on her coffee, clearly gathering her thoughts. ‘Let’s get straight to the point,’ she said, as she looked up. ‘I’d swear on my left tit that girl
you brought with you is the Speaker-Elect of the Demarchy. I wondered if maybe you’d kidnapped her, but it’s clear she’s not accompanying you under any kind of duress. And that
whole story about your friend, the mute, wandering alone through the ruins . . . ?’ she snorted. ‘I’ll give her this, she’s got imagination.’

Megan studied the other woman’s expression and realized there was going to be no fooling her. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I didn’t kidnap her.’

‘So –’ Stiles regarded her candidly – ‘are you going to tell me who you really are, and how the hell all three of you wound up out here?’

‘That depends,’ replied Megan. ‘Are you going to send Gabrielle back to the Demarchy?’

‘That’s her name?’ asked Stiles.

Megan nodded.

‘Well, see, that’s the thing,’ said Stiles. ‘Technically, sending her back is my legal duty. On the other hand, I don’t much like the Demarchy, or all that bullshit
about girls ascending to heaven after becoming one with that damn ship. I don’t know what they do with them for real, whether it’s kill them or hide them away or just lock them in some
deep hole somewhere – but I don’t approve, put it that way.’

‘So you’re saying you’ll help us?’

‘That depends on what it is you want help with, doesn’t it?’ Stiles remarked drily. ‘Whatever your story really is, I’m betting it’s a damn sight more
interesting than that little tale the pair of you concocted last night.’

‘What I said about her not being kidnapped is only half the truth,’ admitted Megan. ‘The reality is, she was kidnapped by the Freehold . . . and so was I, and so was
Bash.’

She noticed Stiles’s blank expression. ‘That’s his name,’ Megan explained, ‘the one who can’t speak.’

‘Just to be clear,’ asked Stiles, ‘your name really
is
Megan?’

‘It is, yes.’

‘Okay, go on then.’

‘To cut a long story short,’ Megan continued, ‘we managed to steal a dropship and make our escape, but the ship was already damaged when we took off from the Montos de Frenezo.
That’s when we had to take it down towards the lake.’

‘So why did they kidnap you?’

‘In Gabrielle’s case, it’s because she’s extremely valuable to them.’

‘They want to ransom her back to the Demarchy? Is that it?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Megan, then surprised herself by telling something like the truth. ‘They want her because she’s a key to information stored inside the Ship of the
Covenant’s memory banks, and there’s no other way to get hold of it.’

She watched Stiles absorb this.

‘And you?’ asked Stiles. ‘Where do you and your other friend fit into all this?’

Megan opened her mouth to explain, then she grinned and shook her head. ‘Well, you can ask all you want,’ she said, ‘but that’s something I’m keeping to myself.
Sorry.’

‘Then at least tell me how your friend Bash ended up brain-damaged? Is that connected to all of this in some way?’

‘It is. And his vegetative state is because of something done to him by the same people who kidnapped Gabrielle. He’s my oldest friend, Miss Stiles. I . . . couldn’t just leave
him with them.’

‘Call me Martha,’ said Stiles. ‘Must have been hellishly difficult, leading him all the way from the lake to that canopy tree. He can’t even walk a couple of paces
without someone guiding him, can he?’

‘No,’ Megan agreed. ‘No, he can’t.’

Stiles sighed and put her coffee on the floor between her feet, before sitting back.

‘I’m going to do something really stupid, and trust you,’ she declared. ‘The only alternative is throwing all three of you back outside, but I’m not going to do
that. Want to know why?’

‘Go on.’

‘I saw how well you cared for him – for Bash. I saw the way you handled him. Call it gut instinct, but something about you made me feel sure you were a good person, even if you were
being more than a little economical with the truth.’

Megan hardly knew what to say. ‘I . . . thank you, but I think you should be aware that the Freeholders are going to be looking for us, and for Gabrielle in particular.’

Stiles thought for a moment. ‘Thanks for the warning, but I don’t know how likely that really is, since the dropship’s a total write-off. For all they know, you three got
killed in the explosion.’

Megan nodded. ‘I won’t deny I was kind of hoping they might think that.’

‘I’ll admit we managed to find your trail,’ Stiles continued, ‘but only just, and the storm that’s coming in is going to obliterate it pretty swiftly. Now, why
don’t you tell me just what it is you have planned for Gabrielle, once you’re finally gone from here?’

‘I’m going to take her somewhere safe, and a long way away from Redstone,’ said Megan with heartfelt conviction. She leaned forward. ‘You know, we
could
leave
right now. If you gave us some transport, we could be out of your hair forever.’

Stiles shook her head. ‘Forget it. With the current no-fly restrictions, your only way out of here is overland, and we’re hundreds of kilometres from the nearest settlement –
not to mention that the storm’s going to hit any minute now. And besides, your friend Bash still needs to take his turn in the medbox.’

‘Then I want to ask you a favour, Martha . . . maybe a big one. I badly need to get to Aguirre so I can arrange safe passage off Redstone for all three of us. But I can’t do that if
I take the others with me.’

‘You heard what I said, didn’t you? It could take you weeks just to get to the nearest settlement.’

‘I can’t afford to waste any time,’ insisted Megan.

‘Can’t do it.’ Stiles shook her head and sighed. ‘We need every resource we’ve got, including all the trucks. Best bet for you is to wait here until the storm
season has passed and, if the no-fly restrictions are over by then, we can get you back that way.’

‘Maybe now’s not the best time to ask—’

‘No, Megan,’ said Stiles firmly. ‘We’ll help you, and that’s only right, but I’m not just going to hand over one of our trucks to you when you’re still
unwilling to tell me exactly who you are. And if it wasn’t for Gabrielle, and what I think might happen to her if she did return to the Demarchy, maybe things would have worked out
differently. But my decision is final, do you understand?’

‘Yes.’ Megan nodded. ‘I’m sorry if I seemed pushy.’

‘That’s fine,’ said Stiles, standing up now. ‘It’s just that, with half this damn planet going up in flames, I’m beginning to wonder if coming here was really
such a good career choice.’

‘It might be all over by next week.’

Stiles smiled. ‘Do you really believe that?’

Megan chuckled. ‘No, not at all.’

‘I should get the medbox prepped for Bash,’ declared Stiles, stepping towards the door. ‘Look, this is all for the best. Okay?’

Megan nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, with as much feigned sincerity as she could muster.

The storm came down a day later, blanketing out the sun and spreading a dim twilight all across the landscape. Megan could hear the howl and shriek of the wind through the
walls of her quarters.

The Tabernacle was barely functioning, if at all, though experience told her that the Accord had probably shut down most of the network to try and prevent the Freehold using it for military
communications. The Accord’s own military comms nets were unhackable, even to a machine-head like herself, so all she had any access to were news feeds about the latest relief efforts, most
of which were currently focused on Port Gabriel. The weather there had worsened considerably, hampering all recovery attempts.

The storm continued blowing all through the next day, and then the day after that. Some more news trickled in: half the planet was now in lockdown under new martial restrictions – despite
strong protests from the River Concord States, a rival Uchidan nation that had long shared a bitterly disputed border with the Demarchy. In her mind, the howl of the wind became an indrawn breath
of suspense, as if the whole of Redstone was waiting for the Accord to begin its counter-attack.

She dropped in on Bash late one night, when she knew the rest of the outpost was asleep. Megan had put him in the quarters opposite hers and Gabrielle’s, to make it easier for them both to
look after him. He needed to be fed, washed and regularly guided to the toilet.

She found him sitting on the edge of his bed, hands cupped in his lap, and wearing the fabricator-printed pyjamas she had dressed him in earlier. It was feeling slightly chilly, so she turned up
the room’s thermostat, then tugged some of his blankets up around his shoulders.

Next she returned to the door and locked it, since the last thing she wanted during the next couple of hours was to be disturbed.

She sat beside Bash, placing a hand against the side of his head, feeling the rough furrows and bumps just beneath his hair. ‘Okay, Bash,’ she said, her voice barely above a whisper,
‘you and I are going to see if we can talk to the Wanderer.’

She closed her eyes, cleared her thoughts and prepared to open a mind-to-mind link with him.

‘You’re going away, aren’t you?’ said Gabrielle, a few days later, after easing herself on to a stool next to Megan in the refectory and absentmindedly
rubbing at the back of her neck. Megan had made good on her promise to herself to see that Gaby’s inhibitor was removed from her neck and destroyed. Over just the last few days, the
girl’s belly had started to round out at a speed Megan found terrifying.

Megan stared at her, startled, before glancing around the room. There was no one else within earshot. ‘What the hell makes you think that?’ she hissed.

‘I can read people better than you think,’ replied Gabrielle. ‘You just look . . . furtive, the way you creep around, as if you’re trying to find a door you can escape
through.’

‘That doesn’t mean—’

‘I saw you,’ said Gabrielle, ‘sneaking out of the garage the other day. The one where they keep all the trucks.’

‘Okay, fine. I was going to tell you,’ said Megan.

‘Does Martha know about this?’ asked Gabrielle.

‘As long as you’re not going to tell her, no, she doesn’t,’ said Megan. ‘Would you?’

‘No. No, I’m not. But you know she’s going to be seriously pissed off if you steal one of her trucks.’

‘I can’t help that,’ said Megan. ‘I have to do what I have to do.’

‘But what about us – me and Bash?’

‘You’re safer here,’ said Megan. ‘Especially given your condition. And as for Bash . . .’