Of Sea and Stars (Partners Book 3) Read online

  “Wasn’t,” Jess said. “That’s why that’s never told in the history books. Anyway when the regional governments finally bribed and scraped enough together to get things going again that’s who they went to.”

  Dev frowned again. “Went to for what?”

  “Muscle. They cut a deal with them. They hired them as mercenaries,” Jess said in a cheerful tone. “Promised them food and support if they’d join what was going to become Interforce.”

  “Oh.”

  Jess took another sip. “But after that they realized there was something wrong with them.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “All the fiddling had made a lot of them psychos, and that bred,” Jess said. “Not only in the Bay, but other places. You know what a sociopath is, Dev?”

  “Yes,” Dev said. “I have programming on that, and other psychological anomalies but...”

  “You’ve got real life experience with one, too.” Jess tapped her chest.

  Dev blinked and her eyes widened a little.

  “One of the things they had to screw around with was taking away all the emotional stuff. Guilt, compassion, all that crap. Messes up your ability to kill things at random and on command,” Jess said. “So I’m a highly functioning sociopath. No soul searching. No wringing of hands. Give me a mission and I execute it. No mental stress about blowing people up.”

  Dev’s jaw actually dropped. “They did that on purpose? Really?”

  Jess smiled, just a little. “I minded more about killing a seal than my instructor, remember?”

  “I remember. But...”

  “Seal was an innocent bystander. Jackass wasn’t.” Jess tapped her head. “All in here, nothing in here.” She tapped her chest again over her heart. “No feeling.”

  “Wow,” Dev said, after a moment’s thought.

  “Kind of kicks your ass when you find out,” Jess agreed quietly. “But in this business, it makes it a lot easier, Dev. We get our heads blown off, but don’t have much post traumatic stress anymore.” Her eyes had a humorous glint in them. “That’s why they take us at five or six. They get to us, and structure us, and we have time to intellectually figure out it’s a pretty good life, even though it might be a short one at the end of it. Only one in a hundred refuses to go into service from school.”

  Dev remembered her human interface classes, and she could almost hear Doctor Dan’s calm, gentle voice explaining things she now understood he’d known from a personal perspective in a unique way.

  “It takes a lot to screw us up here.” Jess pointed at her head. “Something like what happened to me before we met. Before, that would have nixed whoever it happened to. For me it just sent me to psych for a while. Now I don’t even think about it.”

  Dev blinked again.

  “Of course, you did help with that.” Jess smiled at Dev’s nonplussed expression. “Crazy, huh?” She swirled the beverage in her cup and drained it. “So anyway, over the years it meant more Interforce came from the Bay than pretty much anywhere on the east coast, and since they took a lot of us, the rest bred cleaner and it’s gotten less crazy I hear.” She leaned back. “But Drakes...all of them had it. All of them bred it. We end up with more of it than most and most of us turn out assholes because of it.”

  Dev couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so she changed the subject slightly. “Did Doctor Dan know all this?”

  “I’m sure my dad told him, especially if he took him to the Bay, and he did,” Jess replied. “He’s no dummy and neither was my pop, and it’s not a secret inside the family, at least not those of us who went.”

  “Wow,” Dev repeated again.

  “My dad was the first of us for a while who lived long enough to retire and come into shares at the Bay,” Jess said. “When you do that, go inactive, you’re supposed to be old enough to leave the crazy behind, but people still looked crosswise at him. I realize it now, thinking back.”

  Dev watched her face, seeing nothing more than reflection there. “Will it eventually not be like that?” she finally asked. “If it goes along enough?”

  Jess remained silent for a few minutes. “They tell us there’ve been fewer of us over the years,” she said. “But I don’t know. Someone once told me it’s a black and white, off or on thing. What they flipped.” Her eyes were a little unfocused. “Maybe the doc would know.”

  “Doctor Dan knows a lot,” Dev said. “Maybe we can ask him sometime.”

  “Maybe,” Jess said. “But until then, just keep all that under your hat.”

  Dev just looked at her.

  Jess had to laugh. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  Dev smiled then. “Jess?” she asked, after a few more minutes of silence. “Is that why they don’t like bio alts there? Because of what happened to them before?”

  “Nah, I don’t...” Jess paused and her eyes shifted to the floor. “I never thought about that,” she admitted, with a frown. “Just was a thing you knew there. Or maybe they had to fight so hard to keep the place going...I don’t know.”

  Dev sensed the discomfort and she turned, settling back in her seat and running a set of checks with automatic motions. The weather had slacked off a little, and she could see the deep greens of the sea rolling gently against the cliffs that bordered its edge, ruffled with only slight caps of white.

  The new sensors were reporting and she checked the scopes, seeing the depth soundings repeating back to her showing the sea life underneath the surface. She tuned them, knowing a moment of self pride in the knowledge that the programming for them had come from her.

  Clint had gotten the credit for it. She’d just suggested it, then turned over the code module from her own scanner to him and he’d taken it to the modders from there. Excellent, really. Now all the carriers had it.

  She heard Jess release her restraints and move around behind her. “They put in a new dispenser, Jess. I brought some tea for it.”

  “I see.” Jess’s voice had a smile in it. “Want some? We might as well get as much pleasure out of this as we can before we get to the homestead.”

  “Yes, please.” Dev checked the nav. “Forty-five minutes.”

  “At ten minutes out, send a call,” Jess said. She put cups in the dispenser, poking around in the new compartments. “You brought honey, you little bunny.”

  Dev just smiled. “BR270006 to BR34066, sideband, sendit,” she said into her mic, and watched the sideband connection come up between her carrier and Doug’s.

  “Check,” his voice echoed softly into her ear. “You there, Rocket?”

  “Yes. Please keep this pinned up. We will make contact in thirty-five local minutes.”

  “Gotcha,” Doug responded. “So, hey, Chester’s so torked they didn’t get to go with us like last time. I’m super glad April asked.”

  Dev had no idea how to respond to that. “Please stand by,” she compromised, shaking her head a little, then looked up as Jess took a seat on the low jump bench next to her position and offered her a cup.

  They sipped their tea in silence, Jess’s hand resting casually on Dev’s knee, her legs extended along the floor of the carrier in what had to be cramped discomfort, content to simply sit there instead of her comfortable padded position in the back.

  Dev had noticed Jess seemed to like to do that. She pondered having something done to her raw jumpseat to make it more comfortable, then put her cup in the holder and picked up comms as it crackled into her ear. “We’re being hailed.”

  Jess chuckled soundlessly. “They’re on their toes this morning. Send our ident.” She remained where she was, leaning back against the console as Dev shifted channels and sent the transmit.

  “Drake’s Bay control, this is Interforce flight BR270006 inbound, with escort,” Dev said into her mic. “Senior agent Jesslyn Drake in command,” she added, seeing the gentle twinkle in her partner’s eyes.

  There was a long moment of silence. “Keep on course, aim for the landing bays,” Jess instructed. “They don’t o
pen up for us land it right on top of the damn roof.”

  Dev hoped sincerely they wouldn’t have to do that, but she trimmed the course and changed their angle slightly, still twenty minutes out from the homestead. She drew in breath to repeat her request then paused when she heard the crackle of comms opening.

  “Interforce flight BR270006 and escort, please use landing bay six, pads one and two.” The voice came back, without any negative inflection she could detect. “Control sends greetings, and welcome.”

  Dev looked quickly at Jess, whose eyebrows were almost up into her hairline. “Thank you, Drake’s Bay. We copy and will comply.” Dev closed comms. “That sounded relatively optimal.”

  “It did,” Jess said, in a surprised tone. “Huh.”

  “You weren’t expecting that,” Dev said, as she relayed the landing instructions to April and Doug. “Is it not correct?”

  Jess got to her feet and went back to her station, put her cup in it’s holder and dropped into her chair, pulling her restraints as she activated her screens. “Really good question, Dev.” She switched her inputs to receive and started to analyze the results. “Really good.”

  DEV SLOWED HER forward speed and dropped her altitude as she made her approach to Drake’s Bay homestead. It was situated in a half circle of cliff walls around a roughly round bay, the outer edge dropping down into the water via a series of descending spires.

  The stone itself was layers of grays and blues and greens, and to Dev’s eyes, the place had an eerie and majestic beauty, combined with the deep blue, green and gray of the protected bay before it. Fishing vessels were crossing toward the sea level caverns below.

  Overhead, above them, a flyer was drifting lazily, in a circling pattern.

  One side of the circle had a series of openings and she headed for one of them, it’s metal bay doors standing open to receive them.

  As the carriers flew slowly overhead, a sea bell rang beneath them, audible in the sensors she had open, and Dev glanced quickly in the reflector, watching Jess’s face for a reaction, reassured when it was only a raised eyebrow.

  After a moment Jess reached up and touched a control, and her station went dark, spooling the power back to Dev’s batteries. Then she returned her hands to their folded position on her stomach and twiddled her thumbs in the slightest of nervous twitches.

  Dev went back to her piloting, sliding the carrier a bit sideways to straighten her approach, cutting the mains as they cleared the cavern entrance and using her residual momentum to land on the pad on the right side of it.

  Not even a touch of the landing jets. She felt the skids settle to the pad and secured the engines, opening the power link hatch as a tech outside approached them.

  Jess unfastened her restraints and stood up. “Nice landing, Dev. April in?”

  Dev peered to her right. “Yes, they’re fine.” Dev secured the carrier’s systems. “This seems nominal.”

  Jess fastened her suit up. “Yeah. They keep things pretty square here.” She pulled out her backpack and Dev’s, already loaded with changes of clothes and their kits. “Open the door.”

  Dev got up, triggered the hatch as she collected her scanner, and walked back to get her pack from Jess. She closed the fastenings on her sharkskin jacket and settled the pack over it, waiting for Jess to do the same.

  The jacket was non reg sharkskin, and lined, a set of her tech insignia fastened to the well fitted collar. It had a silvery green and blue sheen to it that reflected its different colors depending on the light.

  Dev liked it. It was both less bulky and warmer than the reg issue and fit her well, and Jess repeatedly told her she looked good in it. All excellent.

  “Okay.” Jess settled her pack. “Let’s go, Devvie. See what insanity we have in store for us today.” She paused, regarding the weapons rack, then regretfully palmed it closed before she led the way down the ramp to the pad.

  The tech who had connected them was securing the line and he looked up as they approached, giving Jess a respectful nod. “Drake,” he said, as he stepped out of their way. “Welcome.”

  Jess paused. “Hello, Reggie. This is my partner, Dev.” She indicated her companion. “Dev, this is Reggie. He’s a cousin of mine.”

  “Hello,” Dev responded. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  The bay tech regarded her seriously. He was shorter than Jess, and had curly dark brown hair and hazel eyes. He didn’t resemble Jess even in the slightest. “You’re a bio alt?” He asked, after a pause. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” Dev wasn’t sure what to make of the response. “Biological Alternative, set 0202-164812, instance NM-Dev-1,” she said. “But most people call me Dev.”

  Jess waited with unusual patience as she watched her cousin process this. He wasn’t one of her brighter relations, but on the flip side of that, he didn’t have that edge some of her closer ones did.

  Ten years her junior, he also wasn’t likely to be a smart ass and get his head taken off by her to start the visit off on completely the wrong foot.

  Reggie extended a hand. “Welcome, tech Dev.”

  Extremely unexpected and somewhat excellent. Dev took his hand and returned the grip. “Thank you very much.” She released him and he went back to his work. She turned and looked at Jess. “That was interesting.”

  “That was interesting.” Jess repeated, shaking her head. “Might have been the nicest thing to happen to us all day,” she added with a sigh. “Let’s hope it wasn’t.”

  “JIMMY’S OVER AT the processing plant,” Jess’s younger brother, Jake, said. He had met them as they crossed from the landing chamber into the main section of the homestead. “We didn’t know you were coming over. Domestic ops are finding you some space.”

  Dev took advantage of Jess’s conversation with her brother to look around, appreciating again the great central staircase of Drake’s Bay. They were at ground level of the roughly round interior space so large it could hold most of the Citadel inside it.

  There were hallways leading off in three directions, and a ramp-like iron staircase circling up along the wall with landings on levels that again branched off in all directions all the way up to the top level, just under the thick transparent panels that allowed the outside light in.

  Beautiful, in a rough and stark kind of way.

  Underneath her feet, she felt the rumble of hydro tunnels, and unlike the last time she’d been at the Bay, everyone was busy going about their business, at least pretending to ignore the visitors in their midst.

  They weren’t really, she knew. She was standing just behind Jess, and just ahead of April and Doug, and she could plainly see all the people furtively watching the four black and green clad bodies in the middle of the floor.

  It was hard to tell what the feeling was behind the looks though. Dev folded her arms over her chest and let her gaze slowly range over the interior of the space, lit by the dull gray from outside, but also from fixtures in the walls all the way up in a mixture of silver and gold illumination.

  She could smell a lot of things around them. Some food in preparation, oil and mech somewhere nearby, and to her immediate right, from a half open door obscuring a hallway, the salt washed dampness that came from the sea.

  A man appeared from one of the first level halls and trotted down the steps. Like most of the rest of the people in the space, he was dressed in overalls and boots, with a high necked sweater in an indeterminate color.

  Jess had her hands in her jacket pockets, and she removed them as the figure came down to their level and arrived where the small group was standing. “Hello, Brion.”

  “Jess.” The man gave her a brief nod. “Welcome home,” he added. “We’ve got a section in four west you can have, if you don’t mind. No space for all your team in the family quarters.” His face was studiedly non-emotional as he looked up at her.

  Jess smiled without any humor. “That’s fine,” she said. “Hasn’t been home for me since I was five.” She half turned and i
nclined her head a little. “I’ll get my team settled and then do a recco. Don’t need any guidance.”

  Brion nodded in response. “Door’s keyed.” He glanced at the rest of the group. “Welcome.”

  April stood in a relaxed pose, her hands behind her back. She merely nodded in response, as did Doug.

  “Thank you,” Dev said.

  “Go on back to whatever you were doing, Jake,” Jess said. “We’re fine.”

  Jake looked uncomfortable. “Okay,” he said. “When Jimmy gets back, maybe we can meet up. I think he had some stuff he wanted to talk to you about.”

  Jess chuckled dryly. “I bet he does.” She edged around him and headed for the steps. “Tell everyone to stay the hell out of my way.”

  “Sure.” Jake sighed, as the rest of the group skirted him and followed her.

  FOURTH LEVEL WAS guest quarters. Jess got to that level and went counter clockwise to the first hall and proceeded down it. Could have been worse, could have been better. She passed under the embedded lights in walls shaped from the raw stone into smooth precision.

  Doug broke the silence after a moment. “This place is amazing. Not even the Juneau Loft is like this.”

  “Can’t take any credit for it, but thanks.” Jess glanced over her shoulder. “It was built by a bunch of people who really knew what to do with plasma cutters.”

  April chuckled dryly. “My tribe was in shelter here when I sat the battery.” She commented. “They took me that day. Figured otherwise my people’d pull out and me with them.”

  “Here, really?” Jess headed toward the set of doors that had light blue lamps lit outside them.

  “Here, really,” April said. “Not sure who was happier about it. I’d just gotten the shit kicked out of me by the mater. I remember that first night sleeping warm and dry and fed.” Her eyes went a little unfocused. “Pretty sweet.”

  Jess paused and they all paused with her. She indicated the doors, going to each one of the four and palming it open. “Put your hands on it. It’ll rekey,” she said. “Don’t trust anything inside,” she added. “Do a class one scan soon as you get settled.”