WINNER TAKES ALL
From the observation deck of the Commonwealth cruiser, Elise stared at the plethora of stars. Hundreds of them filled the impressive wall-sized display, shining and twinkling at her, sprinkled across the majesty of the cosmos. They were a lie, of course. Were she to call up the actual view outside, she’d see a scattering of dim pinpricks of light. The projected image existed to impress the tourists, just another layer of technology inserted between reality and the people, to coddle Commonwealth citizens in a false sense of security and comfort against the sort of things that existed beyond their line of sight. Of course, there were no tourists on this flight, no passengers to gawk at the fake stars. The ship had been commandeered for a black ops mission. The deck was all hers, and she preferred the solitude of this space to the solitude of her cabin.
“Spectacular, isn’t it?”
She turned to find a lanky man, probably in his early thirties, standing in the doorway. He was a little thinner and taller than an average human, his elongated limbs a testament to growing up on a world with lower gravity. How long had he been watching her watch the screen?
When Elise’s silence grew almost uncomfortable, the man stepped forward. “Tobey Choi. It’s an honor to meet you, Elise. I’m so glad you were available for my operation.”
The man exuded naiveté, so much so that she held back the urge to bite his head off. Instead, she asked, “First field assignment?”
Tobey blanched. “How’d you know?”
“You’re an accountant, and you’re junior enough to be disposable. Seemed like a safe bet.”
There was a flash of something like anger in Tobey’s face, but he got it under control remarkably fast. When he spoke, his tone was even and reasoned. “First, I’m a forensic accountant smart enough to locate one of the most wanted criminals in the Commonwealth. Second, I’ve used those same skills to identify and request the most experienced operative based on the mission parameters. Are you telling me I made a mistake and that you can’t keep me safe down there?”
“You’ll be safe enough on the planet,” said Elise. “But that’s not what I meant. I can protect you during the mission, but I can’t shield you from the fallout.”
“The fallout?” Tobey crossed his long arms.
“This is a smash-and-grab outside Commonwealth space. We’ll be breaking numerous laws, and if things go sideways, the easiest thing to do is to burn us.” Elise leveled her gaze at Tobey. “How did you know to request me? The sort of work I do is beyond your clearance. No, my name was placed in your path because I have a history of going off-book. My neck fits neatly into the guillotine of a rogue-behavior narrative. The fact that they let you come along means you either pissed someone off, or they simply don’t mind throwing away the accountant with the bathwater.”
Tobey frowned. “I admit, my superiors were highly skeptical of my conclusions. But the money trail is solid. They saw that. Otherwise, why authorize the mission at all?”
Elise wanted to say, Because some among your superiors would really, really like to see me fail. Instead, she shrugged. “If you’re right, that’s a big win. But I’m skeptical, too. How could an artificial intelligence be hiding out in a place where anything with a microchip is only good as a doorstop?”
“I don’t know how the Lady is doing it, but she’s running her terrorist cells across the Commonwealth from down there. I’m certain of that. I’d stake my life on it.” Tobey looked Elise in the eye. “I am staking my life on it. You’ve led missions into interdicted zones before. That part was no fabrication. Right?”
Elise thought back to the times she’d led people into technological dead zones on alien worlds, of the good people she’d lost along the way. “Yes,” she said. “That part is true.”
“All right, then,” said Tobey. “How do we ensure there’s no fallout?”
“First, let me be perfectly clear. It’s your operation, but down there, I’m in charge. You follow my lead,” said Elise. “Second, you have to be right. It can’t be some lieutenant down there. We have to capture the Lady and bring her hardware back to the commonwealth. Nothing short of total victory. The victor is not to be judged, that’s the principle I live by.”
Tobey nodded. “It was the Russian empress, Catherine II, who is said to have coined the phrase when she dismissed the charges at a court-martial of one of her commanders. The story may be apocryphal, but the underlying principle remains true today.”
Against odds, Elise found herself impressed by the young accountant.
Tobey stared at the fake stars on display. “I don’t know how the AI is operating in the interdicted zone, but the sort of money and materiel being moved on orders that I’ve tracked back to that hideout could only come from the Lady herself, and we’re going to get her. I got where I am today following a very similar principle to yours.” He refocused on Elise. “Winner takes all.”
* * *
“Landfall in three minutes.” Elise looked to each of her operatives, decked out in protective gear and armed with projectile weapons. They were packed tight into the small cabin on a nanofiber glider launched toward the rebel base from their descending shuttle. In addition to Elise and Tobey, there were four soldiers. Elise had hand-selected Mahmud, Peña, Kovalich, and Swenson for their experience operating in interdicted zones.
Such zones existed on over a dozen worlds in this part of the galaxy. An alien race had left satellites in orbits of those planets millennia ago, that projected a field disabling high technology—a sort of continuous EMP signal, only infinitely more sophisticated. Interdicted zones could be as large as a continent or as small as a valley. In a couple of cases, they seemed to encompass entire planets, forever trapping any ship that managed to land in one piece.
Their glider was designed to operate in such low-tech environments; it contained no microchips. Instead, it relied on wind and a carefully calculated flight plan to reach its target. The shuttle itself would land outside an interdicted zone and await their return.
“Remember, we want the hardware that houses the Lady AI above all else,” said Elise. “It’s a sphere the size of a grapefruit, which means the rebels can hide it or carry it away easily if we don’t catch them by surprise. We need the sphere intact. You’re authorized to use lethal force on any other rebels if they resist—and they will.”
The Lady had been the leader of a secessionist movement for a better part of two decades, and her followers revered her with the blind faith of zealots. Tobey’s data suggested minimal defenses and staff, but there was no doubt they’d put themselves in harm’s way to protect their digital overlord.
Elise momentarily flashed back to missions past, when people she had led into other interdicted zones had had to fight with guns and swords and sometimes nothing but their fists against humans and aliens alike. There had been so much death; a fraction of what she’d done would horrify an average Commonwealth citizen. But it was people like her who kept them safe, kept them coddled enough so they could be horrified by such things. She had to believe that.
The glider made landfall in a field, fifty meters from a single-story house in the middle of nowhere.
“Go, go, go!” The soldiers unstrapped from their safety harnesses and ran toward the house. “Keep behind me,” Elise told Tobey. By the time the two of them had exited the glider, the soldiers had covered the distance to the front door and were inside the house. The sounds of gunfire rocked the eerie quiet of the rural landscape.
Elise rushed across the field and toward the house. There were only two bursts of gunfire. It had ceased too soon, which felt wrong. Either her soldiers had somehow failed, or there were too few rebels in the house, which would mean their quarry was never there to begin with.
She burst into the house, Tobey a step behind her.
A burly man lay on the ground facedown in the hallway. He was bleeding from a headshot, his right hand still clasping a scythe. An unarmed alien sat on the ground a few steps from him, its clawed hands clutching a stomach wound. It moaned softly but made no attempt to move as the two humans rushed past it and through the interior door.
Inside, the four soldiers leveled their guns at the gaggle of humans and aliens cowering in the middle of the living room. None of them appeared to be armed.
“On the ground!” shouted Swenson. She pointed with the muzzle of her weapon. “Get down on the floor with your hands on top of your heads!”
The rebels obeyed. Three humans and two aliens of different species lowered themselves to the ground, until only an alien child remained standing.
The little girl was humanoid and appeared to be about ten years old. Wavy turquoise hair reached down to her shoulder blades. Strands of it curled around her cartoonishly large eyes. They were at least twice the size of a human’s, oblong, and set parallel to her nose. She held a metal sphere in her slender four-fingered hands. Several cables connected the sphere to a coronet-like device she wore on her head.
“There’s no need for violence. Please, do not shoot. My people will not resist.”
For a moment, Elise thought it was the alien girl who spoke. But the child’s lips hadn’t moved. The smooth, calming voice of a grandmotherly news anchor was coming from the metal sphere.
“These people aren’t armed. They pose no threat to you. Although their first instinct was to defend me, they are going to stand down now. They will not interfere, so long as you promise me you won’t harm them.”
“All right.” Elise motioned to the soldiers, who in turn lowered their guns a fraction. “We only want you. If they keep out of our way, they get to live.”
“You heard her, my friends. Please, respect my wishes.”
After the AI spoke, the little girl gingerly stepped around the rebels prostrated on the floor and approached Elise in a languid, nonthreatening manner. The girl stood calmly in front of the armed woman, the sphere still clutched in her hands.
The sound of Tobey chuckling broke the silence. After the AI’s witchy voice, his laughter sounded jarring.
“So that’s how she did it!” Tobey leaned in, studying the girl as though she were a museum exhibit. “She’s an Angotrean. Their planet is pretty far from its sun, not a lot of natural light. Look at those eyes.”
“So?” Elise asked, without taking her eye off the AI and its subdued followers.
“Bioluminescence,” said Tobey. “Her people generate a tiny amount of electrical current. Enough to power the hardware the Lady runs on, apparently.”
“This doesn’t explain how a computer can function in an interdicted zone,” said Elise. “Care to explain, Lady?”
“I do not,” said the Lady. Her mesmerizing voice made the curt answer seem reasonable; almost made it sound as though she regretted being unable to provide the information they sought. Elise made a conscious effort to shake off the effect—she wasn’t about to get brainwashed by a sweet-talking tin can.
“Maybe she runs on biohardware,” said Tobey. “Or some other alien tech sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic and to overcome the interdiction. Makes this thing that much more valuable.”
Tobey stepped forward and grabbed the sphere from the girl’s hands. He then took hold of the coronet device and pulled it off her head. He yanked on tiny wires hidden beneath it, severing the connection to a number of small sensors attached to her skin.
The child gasped once the device was removed. It was the first sound Elise heard her make. The sphere, on the other hand, had gone dead as soon as it became disconnected from the child. The intricate spell woven by its voice shattered at once.
Tobey held up the AI shell like it was a Faberge egg. “Winner takes all,” he mouthed to Elise.
She nodded. “Peña, Mahmud, sweep the area. The rest of you, tie them up. That means you too, Choi. Put that thing away, and let’s go.”
Peña and Mahmud slid out the door to check around the house. Elise trained her weapon on the rebels as her soldiers expertly bound their hands. As long as the rebels couldn’t get themselves free for a couple of hours, her team would have an insurmountable lead on any countermeasures the Lady’s followers could possibly muster up within the interdicted zone.
A middle-aged man mumbled something as Tobey was restraining him.
“What’s that?” Tobey pulled on the bindings, harder than Elise thought necessary.
“I forgive you,” the man said, louder. He turned his head to the side as much as his position would allow. “You’re an unwitting tool of a tyrannical, xenophobic regime. You know not what y—”
“Shut up before I have you gagged!” Elise had no patience for self-righteous speeches. She knew the Commonwealth wasn’t perfect, but she’d seen firsthand what happened to an occasional human colony founded outside its bounds. Those people ended up eradicated, eaten, or enslaved. The universe was a cold, dark place, and fools like this rebel wouldn’t live long enough to gripe about injustice if it weren’t for the government and people like her keeping the worst of the horrors at bay.
The soldiers finished securing the rebels on the ground. Kovalich rummaged through his pack for another zip tie and made toward the girl.
“Not her,” said Elise. She looked at the child who remained still, her large alien eyes glistening with what looked like very human tears. Elise put down her weapon and lowered herself onto one knee in front of the girl so they were face to face. “What’s your name?”
“My human name is Savitri.” The girl spoke softly but clearly. She met Elise’s gaze straight on, without averting her eyes.
“Where are your parents, Savitri? Are they here or on Angot?”
This time the girl looked away, down toward the floor. “I have no parents.” She pointed at the rebels. “Tessa and Karim take care of me.”
Elise frowned. Her definition of care was very different. It certainly didn’t involve using the child as some sort of an external battery. “Not anymore. You’re coming with us.”
The woman identified by Savitri as Tessa wailed at this. Kovalich leveled his weapon at her, and she stifled her protests.
“She’ll slow us down,” said Tobey.
“I’m not leaving a child with these people.” Elise flashed back once again to missions past. The violence she’d seen, and the violence she’d been forced to inflict on others. This was a chance to counterbalance a tiny sliver of those wrongs; to give this girl a chance at a safe, boring life that Elise never had and never would have.
An explosion thundered outside, the blast wave rattling the wooden house.
* * *
Leaving Kovalich behind to cover the captive rebels, the rest of the team rushed outside to the soundtrack of machine-gun fire punctuated by occasional shots from another, unfamiliar projectile weapon.
The glider’s light and malleable nanofiber had been annihilated by the explosion. Their supplies, including a set of all-terrain bikes they were going to use to leave the interdicted zone, were a total loss. Two dead rebels, including one with a rifle still in his hands, lay on the ground. Mahmud stood by the remains of the glider, his face covered in blood.
“They snuck up on the glider while we were sweeping the barn behind the house,” he said, his breathing heavy. “Sorry, boss.”
Elise nodded curtly. “Are you hurt?”
Mahmud wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “I’m fine, but they got Peña. This…She was standing right next to me.”
Elise rushed forward. “Where is she?”
Mahmud pointed.
Peña’s still body was obscured by the glider. A rebel’s bullet had entered just under her left eye.
“Mahmud, Swenson, finish the sweep. Make sure we don’t get ambushed again.” Elise managed to issue the command without her voice cracking. She stared at Peña’s lifeless body. Another soul gone under her command. Another nightmare to haunt her dreams.
With the other soldiers gone, Elise bent down to collect Peña’s dog tag. She’d make certain it was returned to her family, if she managed to make it back herself.
“They didn’t destroy the glider as a symbolic gesture,” Tobey called out. He was looking at each cluster of vegetation, each hill with deep suspicion, expecting an attack. “They’re trying to delay us. Can we make it to the ship on foot? How long would that take?”
“Ten, maybe twelve hours, depending on how often we rest.” Elise closed Peña’s remaining eye.
“We can’t bring the girl,” said Tobey. “She’ll slow us down.”
Elise ignored him.
Swenson returned after a few minutes. She led a wooly alien animal by the reins. It resembled a boar but was the size of a large horse. “All clear,” she said. “That was all of them. Found this critter in the barn, though.”
“How fast does this thing go?” asked Tobey. “One, maybe two of us could ride it out of the interdicted zone, get the AI back to the ship—”
“Let me guess,” Elise interrupted him. “You’re volunteering?” She turned to Swenson. “Get Kovalich and the girl, please.”
When the soldier left, she sized Tobey up. “Remember our deal. Keep your head down and follow my orders, and I’ll get you back to the ship. Got me?”
His pale skin flushed, but Tobey nodded. Working with civilians in dangerous circumstances was often like this. She could deal with the likes of the accountant; she had babysat far worse through more dangerous missions.
When the soldiers returned, Kovalich’s knuckles were bruised, and there were scrape marks on his cheek.
“That woman went nuts when we were leaving,” he explained. “Had to fight her off.”
“She was babbling something about half the zone rising up to hunt us down, and how we won’t live to see the sunset,” added Swenson.
“I told you!” said Tobey. “Maybe they have some local version of carrier pigeons, or maybe a few of the rebels ran to get help, but they’ll try to wrestle their artificial leader back from us.”
Elise addressed the girl. “Savitri, were there more people outside the house? Could help be coming?”
The girl glanced back at the house, then at the two dead rebels outside. When she spoke, it was softly but steadily again. “Two people are missing. There are several other farms and settlements. When they learn that the Lady is in trouble, they will come to save her.”
“Right. Anyone know how to ride this beast of burden?” Elise asked her people.
When no one volunteered, she drew a handgun from her holster and put two bullets into the animal’s head. The shots rang out across the plane, and the animal fell where it stood, its body threshing.
Savitri flinched and swallowed visibly, but said nothing.
“All right. Let’s move out.” Without waiting for a response, Elise took one last look at Peña and began walking east, toward the ship.
Tobey caught up to her and matched her pace. “You rescue the girl, leave the rebels alive, but kill the animal?”
“Someone there can ride it; let’s not make it any easier on them once they manage to get themselves free.” She glanced back to the house and the smoldering remnants of the glider. “Speaking of which, as soon as we clear the line of sight, we’ll be heading northeast.”
Tobey nodded. “I see. They may travel faster than us, so we don’t want to take the most direct route out of the zone, right?”
“That, and there’s another compound on the map, a few hours’ walk that way,” said Elise. “Perhaps we can get horses or bikes or some other assistance there.”
“What if we run into more of the Lady’s zealots instead?”
“Unlikely. That compound is on the official map. This place”—Elise pointed back—“isn’t, and neither are any of the other farms the girl mentioned.”
Tobey nodded. He rested his hand on the pocket where he carried the captive AI. “This can still be a major, major win for the both of us.”
“Sure,” Elise said. She squeezed Peña’s dog tag tight in her pocket.
* * *
About an hour after they changed directions, Elise slowed her pace a little and let Mahmud take point. She walked alongside Savitri, who had managed to keep pace with the rest of the group so far and hadn’t voiced any complaints. She had only asked for water once, since she didn’t have a flask or a canteen of her own.
“How’d you come to be with the rebels, Savitri?” she asked.
“The Lady rescued me from a bad situation,” said the girl. “I was too young to remember, and Tessa said she would tell me about it when I’m older.”
“You don’t remember your parents? Your home world?” Elise pressed.
“No.” After a brief pause Savitri added, “My home’s back there.”
They walked past drooping vegetation that somewhat resembled weeping willows. The air smelled musty, and it was eerily quiet—if this place had some equivalent of birds or insects, they didn’t advertise their presence.
“They were using you,” said Elise. “They’re bad people.”
“I could say the same about you.” Savitri looked at her, and her strangely shaped alien eyes seemed old. “The people who sent you, they’re very afraid of the Lady because she wants to make changes that would make them less powerful. So they tell all kinds of lies and accuse her of all sorts of crimes, but the common folk hear her message and recognize the truth.”
Elise wiped sweat from her forehead. “The truth is, the Lady is a terrorist. The way she goes about accomplishing her goals is not acceptable in modern society.”
“The Lady once said that one man’s rebel is another man’s freedom fighter, and that the people who write the history books centuries later will be the ones to decide which is which,” said Savitri.
“Centuries from now, we’ll both be dead. Each person has to decide what’s moral and just in their own lifetime,” said Elise.
“You’ve come to a free world outside of your Commonwealth to kidnap the Lady and abduct a kid,” said Savitri. “Do you really believe what you’re doing is moral and just?”
Elise had faced alien spies, warlords, and organized crime bosses in her time. She had never lacked courage to look any of them in the eye. But now, it took all of her willpower not to turn away, not to look down. Was it because the alien girl’s accusation hit too close to home? Elise couldn’t afford to dwell on that, at least, not until her people were safely off-world.
“You’re too young to understand,” said Elise. “But in time, you will.”
“In time. When I’m older. That’s what Tessa always says. Maybe the two of you aren’t so different. You both seem to think you know what’s best for me, but in reality you both need something from me. She needed me to help the Lady, and you need me to help you feel better about yourself.”
This time, Elise couldn’t maintain eye contact. She picked up her pace and resumed the lead position in their little expedition. She could swear she felt the girl’s gaze boring into her back.
* * *
“This is a bad place,” Savitri told Elise once the walls of the compound appeared in the distance. Two-meter-tall brick walls with barbed wire on top surrounded an area the size of a city block.
“Who’s inside?” asked Elise.
“A man named Wasp grows the mala plant there,” said Savitri. “They process it and make the drug.”
Elise frowned. Mala was a highly addictive drug that ruined many lives in the Commonwealth.
“We shouldn’t expect nice people to live in the interdicted zone,” said Tobey. “If he can help us, great. We’ll report the mala operation and let drug enforcement deal with this later.”
“He uses slaves to grow and process the mala,” said Savitri.
Elise gritted her teeth. Slavers were not entirely unheard of, but they were exceedingly rare on most worlds, in or out of Commonwealth space. In most cases, this was a matter of technological advancement rather than people’s better angels; automation was cheaper and more effective. The labor-intensive process of making mala in an interdicted zone lent itself to this evil practice. She abhorred the idea of dealing with a slaver.
“We’ve got the firepower to rain fire and fury upon those scumbags,” said Elise.
“Our mission comes first.” There was a steel note in Tobey’s voice. “It’s safer to negotiate.”
Elise knew to pick her battles, but she didn’t have to like it. “I’ll lead another team here personally if I have to.”
Savitri made an exaggerated sigh and turned away from Elise.
“Don’t adopt a holier-than-thou attitude with me, girl,” said Elise. “The Lady has been aware of this thorn in her backyard for how long, and she’s done nothing about it.”
“I told you,” Savitri replied. “The Lady is not violent.”
“Bullshit,” said Tobey. “Her followers are plenty violent across the Commonwealth. She probably didn’t want to rock the boat. Didn’t want to draw attention to this place, not from us or from the cartels or whoever this Wasp is selling to.”
They walked toward the compound and approached the narrow gate. Inside, a large man armed with a spiked club sat on a wooden stool in the shade. Their approach roused the man, and he gripped his weapon tighter.
“I want to see Wasp,” Elise said. “Take us to him.”
The man sneered. “You don’t get to tell me what to—”
Elise hefted her weapon. “This says I do. Open up. Now.”
The man knew he was outmatched and didn’t argue further. He unlocked the gate and led their group toward the large house at the center of the enclave.
All around them, there was cultivated land with green shoots of mala plants reaching upward from the dirt and toward the sky. At least a dozen people—most human—worked the fields under a watchful eye of another club-wielding guard. They were dirty and emaciated. A few stopped what they were doing and looked at the new arrivals with dull, hopeless eyes.
Rage boiled within Elise. This was the sort of thing she had signed up to prevent. What use were her successful missions if injustice like this was allowed to persist?
Inside, Wasp’s four henchmen were armed with rifles and handguns. Nothing as sophisticated as the submachine guns of her team, but it wasn’t just clubs and knives. The slavers pointed their weapons at their unwelcome guests, and the soldiers took aim at the slavers. Elise supposed they kept projectile weapons inside for the same reasons prison guards do: so they wouldn’t fall into the slaves’ hands if there were ever an attempt at rebellion.
Wasp was a wiry man with dark eyes who bounced his foot compulsively, as though he’d been sampling his own product. “Who are you? What do you want?” he asked from his armchair throne at the center of the room.
“We need transportation out of the zone,” said Tobey. Elise was annoyed at him taking the initiative again, but also somewhat glad. She wasn’t sure she could control her temper in dealing with this man. “Something faster and more comfortable than walking.”
“Do you, now?” Wasp’s eyes darted between Tobey and the others, zeroing in on the weapons they hefted. “But you haven’t answered my question. We don’t get too many visitors here.”
“Rest assured, we’re here for reasons unrelated to your…operation,” said Tobey. “It’s in your best interest to have us leave expeditiously.”
Wasp tilted his head. “Fine, don’t tell me. I’m too polite a host to dwell on that. Suppose I can provide you with first-class transportation. What have you got to trade?”
“I can authorize a reasonable fee, transferred to a bank of your choice, once we’re off planet,” said Tobey. Elise wasn’t entirely certain he was bluffing. The accountant wanted to leave with his prize badly enough.
“Try again. We deal in tangible goods around here,” said Wasp.
“Sorry, I left my pouch full of diamonds in my other pants,” said Tobey.
“We all make mistakes,” said Wasp. “But that’s all right. How about a pair of those fine guns? That’ll leave you enough to tame the local fauna.”
Tobey glanced at Elise. “You can have them once we board our shuttle,” he replied.
“I don’t operate on credit,” said Wasp. “That’s just bad business. How about a pair of strong hands instead? Leave me any one of those soldier boys or girls as collateral. They can help work the fields until we get our guns, and then hitch a ride into town, eh?”
“I could stay,” said Savitri. She took a step forward and stared at both Tobey and the slaver defiantly. “You go to the ship, he gets his guns, and I go home to Tessa.”
Fury roiled within Elise. She’d be damned if she left a soldier here, let alone a child. Elise wasn’t sure what Tobey was going to say to this, but he paused a fraction of a second too long for her liking. In a fluid, practiced motion she raised her weapon higher and put two bullets into Wasp’s heart.
Gunfire rang out across the hall. Her team was far better trained and had better reflexes than the slavers. They opened fire on the rifle-toting men, mowing them down before they could get off more than a single shot. Elise whirled toward the gate guard. The man was swinging his club, but he wasn’t fast enough. A volley of shots to the chest sent him reeling back until he was on the ground and still.
When the gunfire ceased and the slavers were dead, Kovalich moaned and clutched at his side, where a bloodstain was growing on his pant leg like a blossoming flower.
“Mahmud, Swenson, sweep,” Elise said as she leaned in to examine the wound. The soldiers rushed to check the rest of the house as well as outside. “No prisoners,” Elise told them.
“What the hell?” Tobey was breathing heavily, trying to get his adrenaline under control. “That was an unnecessary risk. We would’ve fumigated this place later!”
“Looks like the bullet went clean through,” Elise declared. She got out a foam tube and sprayed a gauzelike substance onto the wound. She addressed Tobey as she worked. “Would we, though? Would the Commonwealth even sign off on another trip to this zone, or would anything short of capturing a most wanted terrorist mean they’d have no stomach for another black ops mission outside their borders? This nest of vipers might’ve been left undisturbed, and you know it.”
“You’re far too reckless,” said Tobey. “You risked all of our lives.”
“No harm, no foul. Like I said before, the victor is not to be judged.”
“No harm? He got shot!” Tobey pointed at Kovalich.
“I’ll walk it off. Sir.” Kovalich made the last word sound like an insult.
Savitri sat on the floor, massaging her leg.
“Are you injured, too?” Elise asked.
“I think I twisted my foot when I tried to duck out of the way,” said the girl.
Elise did her best to ignore the look Tobey gave her.
* * *
“This is entirely unacceptable,” Tobey declared as a string of wagons headed eastward. A beast similar to the one Elise put down at the rebels’ hideout pulled each cart, containing four of the workers from the slaver compound.
“We killed the slavers, and we freed the slaves,” said Elise. “Something tangible and positive was actually accomplished on this mission.” It was more than she could claim for many of her previous operations, Elise thought.
“They could have made their own way back,” said Tobey. “We lost hours preparing this wagon train, and these animals barely move faster than our walking speed. Plenty of time for the rebels to find us.”
“I’m sorry the slavers didn’t have an air balloon or a horse,” said Elise. “As is, we’re moving at the same speed no matter how many wagons we’ve got, and this is safer for the people we’ve rescued. Just get some rest while you can. You have to get used to the fact that things happen a lot more slowly in the interdicted zones.”
Tobey squashed a bug that was crawling on his neck. Apparently, the insects showed up after sunset. “I don’t understand how people live in these low-tech hellholes.”
Mahmud, who—like the rest of Elise’s team—grew up in an interdicted zone, gave Tobey an evil look, but restrained himself from interjecting.
“The nights are short on this world,” said Elise. “Sleep. We’ll reach the shuttle by midmorning.”
* * *
They were so close—less than an hour’s travel away from the edge of the interdicted zone and their shuttle—when the rebels caught up with them.
They were on a plain, where one could see for kilometers, with nowhere to run or hide. Through their field binoculars, they could see twenty or so armed rebels approaching on horseback. They were riding real Earth horses and moved far faster than the caravan.
“Take Mahmud and Swenson and run,” she told Tobey. “Get the AI to the shuttle. Kovalich and I will cover you.” She knew she’d get no argument from the accountant. The fear on his face, combined with the desire to return victorious—bringing the AI and possible new tech to the Commonwealth—meant he’d abandon anyone else to their fates. She was more concerned about her team’s response, so she added. “That’s an order.”
Her soldiers weren’t happy about it, but they knew their duty. So did Kovalich, who couldn’t run with his wound. He’d give up his life to protect the team and so would she.
Elise hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Once Tobey reached the shuttle, then she and Kovalich would no longer be a top priority for the rebels, and they should have no disagreement with the freed slaves. If only she could lay suppressive fire, to slow them down long enough for Tobey to escape, then maybe they’d allow her to retreat rather than risk their lives only for the sake of revenge.
As she watched Tobey and the two soldiers dash away, she ordered the freed slaves to abandon the wagons, to get as far from them as they could in order to stay out of the line of fire.
Savitri awkwardly tried to climb out of the wagon.
Elise faced an impossible choice: she could either send the girl out to where she’d be certainly taken back to the rebel camp, or she could hang on to her and still try to save her, but at the risk of placing her in the cross fire for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. She knew what the girl would choose—the child was still brainwashed by the rebels, after all. Instead, she wondered what she’d want, were this her young self.
Elise stopped Savitri by placing a hand on her shoulder. “No. You stay with me.”
They watched the rebels get closer and closer from the back of the wagon. When the riders got close enough, Elise fired a volley, aiming for their horses. They were still too far, but it produced the desired effect of slowing the riders down.
The rebels spread into a wide semicircle, the riders on the far edges of their group seeking to put enough distance between them and the wagons where they could pass by outside bullet range.
Elise regretted not having a sniper rifle. For this mission, they favored small and portable submachine guns. She could still see her three comrades running in the distance. It would be a close thing. Very soon now they’d be within firing range of the shuttle’s weapons. Although it couldn’t traverse the interdicted zone, it could fire projectiles into it, just like it could release the glider. But would it be soon enough?
The riders must’ve thought so, because they encircled Elise’s wagon. The beast, which kept slowly moving eastward even without a driver, stopped once the rebels blocked its path. The riders began cautiously approaching the wagon from all sides. Elise and her companions cowered at the bottom of the wagon, its short sides a scant protection against the riders’ rifles.
“Surrender, and we’ll let you live!” shouted one of the riders.
Elise knew the man had no incentive to live up to his words. Once he discovered that she didn’t have the AI…but then, wouldn’t they assume it was the people running away at full speed that had what they wanted?
Elise rubbed at her temples as an idea began forming in her mind. The more the notion coalesced, the more it made sense. Then she let the submachine gun hang loose on its sling around her neck, drew her pistol instead and touched the muzzle to Savitri’s temple. She rose slowly to full height, dragging the alien up with her.
“Stand down!” she shouted to the rebels. “Stand down, or I will shoot her!”
Kovalich stared at her, mouth agape. Savitri’s look of shock slowly morphed into the look of fear, and she began to cry. The rebels halted, several of them huddling atop their horses.
“Cut the waterworks,” Elise told Savitri. “I know you’re the Lady.”
Savitri quit crying mid-wail, and her facial expression changed to tranquil so quickly, it was unsettling. “How did you know?” she asked, in the familiar voice but an entirely different tone; a tone of a person both certain of themselves and used to issuing orders.
“I didn’t, until moments ago,” Elise admitted. “It was the actions of your people that convinced me. They chose to zero in on this wagon instead of pursuing Tobey and the prop he’s carrying, even though they still had the chance to catch him.”
The Lady nodded, very slightly and carefully with the gun still at her temple. “In their zeal to protect me, my people aren’t as disciplined as I would like them to be.”
“I should have figured it out sooner,” said Elise. “It makes a hell of a lot more sense than an AI functioning in the interdicted zone. That was one hell of an effective subterfuge. And back at the slaver compound—provoking me to act, to free those people, all so you could slow us down a bit, give your followers a better chance to catch up. You only pretended to hurt your ankle, didn’t you?”
“I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. You’re cleverer than a typical operative. You’re the first to see through my ruse. People’s belief that I’m an AI, added to the fact that adults of my species look like human children, has previously been sufficient to shroud me from all suspicion. I could use a person like you—”
“That’s a nonstarter,” said Elise. “Don’t praise my intelligence and then insult it with such an offer in the same breath.”
“What now?” asked the Lady. “If you shoot me, you will die, too.”
“You know I’m not afraid to die for the right reasons,” said Elise. “You saw this at the slaver compound. I believe you will get your people to stand down and let us ride our wagon out of here.”
“Perhaps I’m willing to die for the right reasons, too,” said the Lady. “After all, being captured by the Commonwealth is hardly better for me than death.”
“That’s not how your mind operates, I gather,” said Elise. “While you live there’s always a chance you can trick someone, manipulate someone in order to get free. Those fools may believe you to be their Jesus, but I don’t think resurrection is one of your powers.” She nodded to Kovalich, who grabbed the reins and nudged the beast forward. “I’m willing to play Russian roulette with you. Winner takes all.”
The rebels clutched their guns tighter, but the Lady raised her hand palm forward to make them halt. “You seem invested in this zero-sum-game idea, but there’s no reason both of us can’t win,” she said. “You’re willing to break Commonwealth law, so long as you’re doing the right thing. I operate in the same manner, in my own way. I can give you money, resources, leads. The slaver you took down yesterday? There are so many more like that man on the edges of the human space. You don’t have to work for me, but you could do far more good under my patronage than you ever could while constricted by the Commonwealth bureaucracy.”
“No,” Elise said firmly. “I believe in the Commonwealth, warts and all. I will do what I must to protect it.”
The Lady sighed. “Your identity and self-worth are so invested in this role of savior of humanity that you choose to play, that I don’t believe I can make you see reason. Please listen to me. I’m not a terrorist. I merely want a better system, a system where different species can co-exist, in place of an entrenched government that values human interests above all else. I want you to know this, to consider this later, even though you have no reason to believe me now. But you will in a few minutes.”
“What does that mean?”
Elise searched for some kind of a trick, a last-minute gambit the Lady or her supporters might pull. But the wagon was moving ever closer to the shuttle, and the riders remained crestfallen where they stood, until they were far enough to be out of range.
The Lady didn’t say a word that whole time. It was only when they were outside of the interdicted zone and within the shadow of the shuttle that she spoke again.
“The reason I didn’t do this earlier is because I didn’t want you to die,” she said. “You are misguided, but you’re a good person. So I waited until we reached your ship.”
“Do what?” Elise asked.
“I can’t risk being captured alive,” said the Lady. “The information your people might extract from me will put too many of my followers in grave danger. Remember what I told you.”
Before Elise could respond, the Lady twisted with the speed of a coiled snake. She grabbed for the submachine gun hanging in front of Elise’s chest, aimed it at Kovalich, and fired a burst of bullets.
Of all the horrors she’d lived through, this was the moment Elise would relive in her nightmares. She was certain she could have pulled the trigger on her pistol quickly enough to stop the Lady. She was absolutely certain of it, but she’d hesitated. She never expected the Lady to shoot Kovalich. She had been willing to risk her own life to bring the Lady in alive, but not the life of her soldiers.
Elise pulled the trigger a moment too late.
She sat in the wagon, her face in her arms, with the bodies of both the Lady and Kovalich, while Tobey and the others raced from the shuttle toward them. Why would the Lady do this? Why commit suicide rather than be captured? Why spare the life of her executioner when she could have had her post-mortem revenge by pulling the exact same stunt while still surrounded by her people? Why do any of it, if the things she said weren’t true?
“What happened?!” Tobey was next to her, and then Mahmud and Swenson, too.
Her soldiers grieved over Kovalich’s body. She had lost half her team on this mission, and all she had to show for it was a prop.
It took an inhuman amount of effort to stand up, look Tobey in the eye, and speak without her voice breaking.
“I bluffed our way out, but then the crazy girl went for my gun. I guess she was more loyal to the Lady than I had realized. This is what I get for trying to save her.”
Tobey rested his hand on her shoulder. “This doesn’t feel like a victory now, but it still is. We did it. We got the Lady, even if we paid a high price for it. Winner takes all. Right?”
Elise nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“Take the bodies to the shuttle,” Tobey told the soldiers as he gently tried to nudge Elise toward the ship.
“No,” she said. “Leave the girl.” She straightened up, removed Tobey’s hand from her shoulder, and walked toward the shuttle. “That Tessa woman loved her like a daughter. It’s how I managed to escape,” she lied. “We have what we wanted. Let Tessa have the body.”
Elise wasn’t entirely sure why she decided to leave the Lady’s body behind. She was, however, certain of how things would turn out in the following few days.
Tobey would file a report claiming the lion’s share of the credit for capturing the AI. It was clearly in his nature not to share too generously. Once it was discovered the gadget he brought back was nothing but a paperweight, the report would sink him. Not her, however. She had succeeded in her part of the mission: getting the accountant there, retrieving the object, and getting him out again. The death of two soldiers was unfortunate, but the powers that be would see that only as the cost of doing business.
She would go on more missions, and she would use those missions to balance the karmic scales. To make up for the lives lost, for Peña and Kovalich and countless others before them. Was leaving the Lady’s body a tiny act of compassion toward her followers and a first small step in that direction, or merely an instinctive move to obfuscate Elise’s own failures? She didn’t trust herself to decide, just then.
One thing she was certain of was that she wanted to investigate more of what the rebel leader was talking about: to root out slavers and warlords festering on the edges of human space. In the game of winner takes all, the Lady had somehow managed to turn defeat into a gambit that resulted in a non-zero-sum-game solution.
The shuttle roared as it took Elise back toward the stars.
The End