The sharp chill all around her had long leeched through her uniform. While they had been moving, climbing and running and hurrying down the mountainside, the exertion had kept her more or less warm. Now, sitting still on a rock that felt like frozen ice under her seat, the unrelenting cold had banished the warmth, and what sweat she had produced had become like ice water on her skin.
Reaper and Tink were still over near the downed johnny and its docile pilot, who was now sitting rather than kneeling on the ground. Both had their pistols drawn and loosely aimed at him, but their conviction seemed nearly as uncertain as Angel's was now.
Crazy Jane had taken the hover-cam back after cutting communications, fiddling with it and then letting Reaper use it briefly-probably to communicate to Houston or the Wing. Now, Jane walked over, and as she neared Angel offered her the pistol back. As Jane took it, Angel asked, "You wanna tell me what I just did?"
"You just captured a prince of the Kilrathi Empire. Grats and shit," Jane said. There was none of her usual sarcasm or bite in her words, she seemed to resort to snark merely out of habit instead of any conscious effort. She'd also taken the pistol back with barely a glance at it, tucking it in her holster with a casual gesture. Her concentration was on the sky as she almost absently fiddled with her ear bud. Angel didn't see the hover-cam now, so Reaper had probably kept it. It could be they had transmitted the information on the blocking signal to their forces, which would allow them to re-establish regular communications through the Kilrathi jammer, far quicker than they would have been able to otherwise.
A thousand questions balanced on the tip of Angel's tongue but she knew it would be useless to voice them now. The sounds of battle had diminished, the peaceful cold edge of the sky serenely quiet, save the occasional rattle of rock, soft murmur from Tink and Reaper, the rustle as Jane fiddled, and the low thud of Angel's heartbeat.
Until they restored communications, they had no way of knowing what was happening. The Cat fleets could be shredding the First and Houston right now, breaking the strongest line of human defense they had left like a thin porcelain plate dropped onto a floor. Then there would be next to nothing stopping them from sweeping through and annihilating the colonies as they headed like an incoming storm to Earth itself.
She felt somewhat ill, bowing her head forward a moment, the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes. The pressure caused red flowers to bloom through the black, and through them she could see an image of Houston being ripped apart by wave after wave of Kilrathi heavy-hitters.
No. Keep hope, she thought. If this is really Zuhn, then it could be the Emperor pulled their forces back. Would he risk losing another child, so close on the heels of Ara? Is even the Kilrathi Emperor that cold?
At that thought her head snapped up a bit. "You painted a target on me," she said.
Jane snorted lightly, the action causing a tiny puff of white vapor to pop from her nostrils. "You already had a target painted on you," she said. "Would you rather the target be on you and Reaper now? Or you and Tink? Or you and me?"
Angel bit her tongue on what she wanted to say regarding that last one, but her face must have said it for her because Jane smirked faintly, wryly.
"Yeah, I can see how you feel about that last option," she said, sounding amused. "They had to take the threat seriously. Anyone else, and they might just decide the silly Ape doesn't have the scrotes to pop one of the Royal kittens. You…well. They already know you have the scrotes. You've done it once already. You killed the clever and cunning Ara Chaz, you outsmarted the arguably smartest Cat they had. Now, you've captured her baby brother, just like that. Held a gun to his head and all but spit in the Emperor's eye-"
"Do you think the Emperor is the kind of man who takes spit in his eye?" Angel asked, her voice tense but broken by the faint chatter of her teeth. This she attributed to the cold and not her emotion, perhaps not incorrectly. "I saw what happened up there. His own men were firing on him. His own men shot him down. He's a traitor, isn't he? His men knew it-"
"How do you know his men didn't shoot him down because they were the traitors?" Jane asked, her dark eyes nestled in her almost bruised hollow sockets fixing on her. Angel glared.
"Please. Please. He didn't even try to run. He's not seriously hurt, and his legs clearly work. It took us a long time to get to him, and you're trying to tell me he just sat there waiting for us instead of trying to run or hide? He was armed but he didn't even attempt to draw on us. He surrendered as if he expected to be surrendering. I was on a Kilrathi ship for weeks, Jane. I've got scars on my back that are aching right now with the memory of just how much Cats don't surrender without a fight, so don't try and bullshit me."
Jane planted her foot next to Angel on the boulder on which she sat, folding her arms over her knee and leaning in close. Not as close as she had in the gym, but close enough to prompt Angel to lean back ever so slightly. Just that tiny movement felt like retreat somehow, and Angel hated herself for that feeling.
"You listen to me close, slick," Jane said in a low, companionable voice. "It was the ships that fired on the prince that were the traitors, get me? You didn't fire on your own shuttle up there in the blue, the Cats fired first. They intended to spark a confrontation that they knew would get the prince into his fighter and down here to fight. They then took the opportunity to try and take him out. They were the traitors, slick. I don't care what you think you saw, or who asks you, that's the story you tell. They were the traitors, but they screwed up and didn't kill Zuhn like they'd planned. Instead, we-…you…captured him and now we Apes have him prisoner."
Angel glared deep into Jane's eyes, but as much as she wanted to stay angry and as much as she knew better, she abruptly realized what Jane was doing. If Zuhn was a traitor working for them against his own people, it was unlikely the Cats who had tried to take him down had reported it. They might have known what he was, but might not have sufficient proof- certainly, not enough to convince the Emperor that his son was a turncoat. Had they tried to turn him in they might have found themselves on the executioner's block for failing to prove their claim against one of the Royals, for daring to impinge on that coveted Kilrathi honor held by the Royal House. Better they just take him out during a dog-fight, when it could be blamed on the humans and respark this war into its final, Ape-exterminating destiny.
If it wasn't known to the Emperor or the rest of the Kilrathi that Zuhn was a traitor- and this didn't end today in a massacre with the Kilrathi tearing through their fleets and winning this war-it was possible they could trade Zuhn back to his father, none the worse for wear, and he could continue to spy for them.
It made sense. It made a lot of sense, but Angel didn't want to accept it, and worse, she knew she didn't want to accept it solely because it was Jane telling it to her. Jane had not only insulted Ripley and the rest of her friends and behaved like an ass, she had just painted a bigger and brighter target on Angel's head and practically pointed the whole of the Emperor's wrath and might squarely in her direction.
No, it doesn't make sense, she thought, a bit defensively as if she were arguing Jane out loud than only herself. Two of the Emperor's children are traitors? What are the chances of that happening? Next thing you know, she'll tell you all of the Kilrathi are traitors, they just keep fighting the war because they all think everyone else is still loyal and they need to keep up the pretense.
"Who are you?" she asked aloud in a low, frustrated voice. "SOTAC?"
Jane didn't answer as a loud rumble cut through the cold afternoon. Straightening, dropping her leg off the boulder, she turned and shaded her eyes as she squinted toward the sky. Angel looked up as well, getting to her feet.
A large S&R ship was lowering out of the cerulean blue, flanked by four fighters. That the ship was arriving at all was a good sign, but that none of the fighters were Rho disquieted her.
They could still be up there somewhere desperately fighting an impossible Kilrathi offensive. Or, they could all be dead.
No use worrying about it until you know one way or another, she thought, but then couldn't help but worry anyway.
The S&R ship was too big to land on the slope, but there was a large enough plateau only a few hundred yards away, where it and the fighters put down. It didn't take long at all before uniforms appeared, trudging in a winding path along the hillside, avoiding the loose scree or deadfalls and boulders they'd have to clamber over.
Angel and Jane worked down to where Reaper and Tink were guarding the prisoner. Though they were not far, by the time they got there a dozen armed infantry had their rifles pointed at the prisoner's head. One used a heavy boot between the shoulders to shove the complacent Kilrathi face down onto the gravel so they could cuff him. As they hauled him upright again, another snapped a dark cloth bag over his face.
As they reached the others, one of the newcomers who had been speaking tensely with Reaper, turned toward Jane.
"Abernathy?"
"63279-1," she replied. He nodded once, then pointed wordlessly back the way they'd come, before gesturing at Reaper and Tink as well.
"All of you, go. Command silence until released."
Command silence meant they were not allowed to speak until someone of high command rank rescinded the order. It wasn't an order given often, only when classified information was at risk of being unknowingly repeated, and to say anything at all while under the command silence order was grounds, in most cases, to be shot instantly and without question.
Apparently, the order didn't apply to Jane, because the moment that she got on board the S&R ship she was heading forward toward the helm, asking about communications being restored.
It was pretty clear that the acerbic fighter pilot was not who she had pretended to be while working with their Wing. One would have to be both blind and stupid to not see that now. Whatever 'Abernathy 63279-1' meant, it clearly gave her special dispensation. Reaper had known what it meant instantly, and had just as quickly surrendered command. Now the commander of the infantry who had accompanied the S&R team had showed it similar, instant respect.
She's got to be SOTAC, some kind of operative, an infiltrator, Angel thought, grateful for the warmth of the ship after the outside mountain air. But why? Why plant a SOTAC operative in our Wing like that?
It would explain Mouse's odd behavior, the young pilot reluctant to say anything to anyone. He would have known that Crazy Jane was not actually one of his Wing as had been reported. Perhaps fearful that he would unwittingly break a confidentiality order and reveal to them that he no more knew who she was than they did, he took the safest course and simply didn't say anything at all. Hard to give anything away by accident if one simply didn't speak.
The only explanation Angel could come up with is that Bastille and Command still didn't trust that she wasn't a traitor, that her story about Ara Chaz and what happened on the Muhs OhDann might not be the entire truth of the matter. They had planted the fake pilot to keep an eye on her.
That thought stung her pride, but it was a faint sting and didn't last long-mostly because that explanation didn't make sense. Crazy Jane had been assigned to their Wing while Angel was still MIA, before the messy affair of Ara's death and Angel's escape. They had no reason to believe at that point she'd ever even return home, let alone after such unbelievable escapades.
No. Something was telling her Jane wasn't there for her, not entirely at least. While that thought should have relieved her instead it only increased her concern.
If Jane wasn't planted to keep an eye on me, that only means she was planted to keep an eye on someone else in the Wing.
Ripley.
The moment she tried to dismiss that thought it came roaring back to the front of her mind, all but insistent she focus on it, and she hated the fact that Ripley's name was the first that sprang into her head when the possible trustworthiness of someone in the Wing was in question.
Could it be that Bastille and the others don't really trust Ripley after all? No. No, if that was the case they never would have let her in the Confed to begin with. They would have refused her enrollment, and if for some unfathomable reason they let her enroll, they would have had Jane planted in the Wing to watch her from the start.
So, they had trusted her, but…no longer? Why would she lose that trust?
Sitting forward on the bench in the passenger area of the ship, feeling it shift as it lifted off, she covered her face with her hands and tried to think.
The ambush on their Wing. Was there something that happened there that caused them to lose their trust of her, suspect she might be involved and working with the Cats?
No. Impossible. Ripley almost died. She lost her goddamn leg and almost died...!
The doctors said she should have been instantly unconscious with that first hit to her tourney and the massive injuries it had caused. They didn't believe the reports that said that she had been conscious and communicating after that blast, reporting that she had no control over her vessel. Listening to the actual communications, they had been baffled by how calm she had sounded, how coherent-how exactly not like a person who had been dealt such a horrific physical shock.
Much as she hated doing it, Angel forced herself to consider that. When Ripley had reported that she couldn't control her ship, when she'd all but begged Angel to retreat and not follow her, how exactly had she sounded?
Afraid. Yes, she sounded afraid and desperately trying to control it, but hurt? Her leg mangled in the torn wreck that had been her pit, broken bones, serious burns, so badly concussed by the blow and so physically in shock from the ruin of her leg at the very least-she should have been unconscious from the instant it happened, just as the doctors said- shouldn't she? Shouldn't she have sounded disoriented, slurred, confused, in atrocious pain, at the very least?
No. She shouldn't have sounded any way at all, because she shouldn't have been conscious.
So, what? What are you saying, Parry? You saying that she wasn't hurt- or at least, not badly-at that point? That she'd been working with the Kilrathi and knew that ambush was there the whole time? That they'd staged the damage to her ship and she'd willingly dropped it on that rock in order to act as bait, get one of the others to land so they could be captured?
No! No, no, no, it doesn't make sense!
She felt her fingers dig tightly into her short hair. Unseen by her, her knuckles went white. Tink and Reaper were forbidden by command silence to speak to her, but she felt one of them touch her arm. She ignored them, gritting her teeth, keeping her head down.
No! It doesn't make any goddamn sense. Those wounds weren't faked, they were real.
While the reports of damage coming in via their flight computers could be faked- were faked all the time in combat sims and RvB bouts- Angel had looked out of her pit across that endless black, with the gray looming orb of Little Ippy consuming the sky, and she had seen Ripley's fighter with her own two eyes. It had been torn into, gouged. Computer readouts might be faked but they couldn't fake what she saw, couldn't fake the ripped metal, the twisted chassis, and the burns that scorched its buckled hull. That fighter was dying, and so was the pilot inside of it.
She also tried to warn me away from following her. Why would she warn me away if her job was to lure me down in the first place? She had to know, if this was all some kind of treacherous plan, that her wingman would be the one to follow her, to be captured.
Perhaps she had a change of heart at the last moment. Perhaps she had not expected to care so much about you and in the end, regretted what she was doing-
Stop it. Stop it! I know her. I know Ripley. This is bullshit, all of it. It doesn't make any sense. They couldn't fake that damage, and they nearly killed her. She was wounded and dying in that pit. Somehow-I don't know how, but somehow-she managed to make that communication but it wasn't because she wasn't hurt. It's not like they could have half blown her up between the time she crashed and the time I reached that pit to try and get her out. An explosion of that force, I would have heard it, even hoofing it over the moon's surface. No. Ripley isn't a traitor. I don't know how she remained conscious and coherent enough to make those calls but stuff like that happens all the time! People manage to lift vehicles or concrete blocks off of trapped children, someone manages to survive in the desert for days after they should have died of thirst, a single wounded man manages to take out a Kilrathi biobase on foot, a dying pilot manages to keep it together long enough to make a communication-it happens! Something, some greater power or even just the goddamn strength of human spirit-something reaches into them in those moments and helps them push past those breaking points. I mean, I was tortured for weeks! Tortured and starving and then shredded by that bastard Cat's claws. I was bleeding to death and exhausted by the time I climbed into that pit and left the Muhs OhDann, but I lived too. Whatever that something was, it reached down into me and I lived too. I don't know if it was fate, or karma, God or luck or just downright human stubbornness but something kept her together long enough to make that communication. Ripley is not a traitor, she's not some kind of kamikaze double-agent for the Kilrathi, and I refuse to entertain the idea even a second further!
As if punctuating this affirming thought, she felt the slight bump as the S&R vessel touched down and came to rest. Jane appeared from the helm area along with the infantry commander and gestured almost carelessly at the three silent pilots.
"All right. Let's go."