Invaders

  “But what if they are floundering?” Navan replied. “What if they’re crumbling without Orion? That’s as good a reason as any to keep him here. We might not have to lift a finger if they end up panicking and destroying themselves from the inside.”

  Commander Mahlo cast him a mournful glance. “Sadly, the decision will soon be out of my hands. We plan to take a vote on it, and I know the majority will vote for the deal. I’m only informing you before the vote takes place as a courtesy, as there is something else I wish you to do for me. I know I have already asked a great deal, given that you risked everything to bring Orion here, but I must ask for one more favor.”

  “What do you want us to do?” I asked, though I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

  “Before going through with the deal, I want to ensure that we have as many of Orion’s secrets at our disposal as possible,” she explained somberly. “As he doesn’t know the deal is taking place, it gives us a slight advantage—a chance to find out more, by interrogating him.”

  Navan frowned. “You mean by us interrogating him?”

  “Well, that is merely semantics. But yes, by both of you interrogating him.” She let her gaze drop, looking slightly guilty. “The main things we want to know are: Which Earthen leaders has he made deals with? Who is working for him on the inside of the human governments? Does he have anyone working for him in the Fed? Why did the humans strive to take out the shields? And what can we offer the rebels to make them leave Earth for good? After all, everyone has a price—we just need to find out what theirs is.”

  I sat there in silence for a moment, contemplating everything she’d just said. Beside me, Navan was equally silent, though he still held tight to my hand. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how effective an interrogation would be, given that we’d already told Commander Mahlo everything we knew about Orion. What else could we possibly find out? Orion wasn’t exactly going to be in a chatty mood when he saw us coming through the door of his cell. Besides, there was one other thing…

  “You’re a veritas, aren’t you?” I asked. “Surely, you can get more honest answers out of him than we can?”

  She shook her head. “We’ve already tried to interrogate him ourselves, but he has refused to answer any of our questions directly. We don’t know him as well as you do; we don’t know what the right questions to ask are. No matter what we’ve done to him, he’s managed to keep his secrets. The only thing my truth-smelling has revealed is that, when he does give a real answer, he is telling the truth.”

  “We don’t know much more than that,” Navan said defensively.

  “Even so, knowledge is power, and we need to use every sliver of it we have. Our team has literally done everything to coax the truth out of him, but nothing has worked. There has been intimidation and negotiation, amongst other things, but he is resistant to all our tactics,” Commander Mahlo replied. “Given the increased familiarity between you and him, I need you to see what information you can extract. You are our last hope, before we have to send him back.”

  I wondered what those “other things” were that they’d tried to use to get information out of Orion. It was just like a government agency to attempt to sugarcoat the full extent of what they’d done, but I supposed they had a reputation to uphold. I could just imagine Xiphio’s face if he ever heard that they’d waterboarded Orion or something equally grim. He’d be utterly shocked. Then again, being more advanced than us, they likely had even worse ways of getting people to speak. Knowing Orion, he’d probably laughed in their faces.

  “You really want us to try, given our track record with him?” I said.

  The commander smiled. “It might be precisely that which gets him to break. I hear you are one of the only people in this universe who has the power to push Orion’s buttons.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right.”

  I knew it wasn’t so much a case of pushing his buttons as being a living reminder of the fact that his beloved Pandora was dead. He’d already lost one opportunity to kill me for what I’d done; I really didn’t feel like offering him another one on a silver platter by entering his cell voluntarily. Although, if this was the last chance we had to steal his secrets, there was no way I could say no. I just had to grin and bear it, and hope that his rage toward me would be of some use in an interrogation scenario, so we could get him to squeal.

  Commander Mahlo cast us both a nervous glance. “Am I to assume this means you’re agreeing to the interrogation?”

  I turned to Navan, who looked back with a reassuring smile. “I’m game if you are.”

  “Then I think you can count us in,” he said, gripping my hand even tighter.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “You mean it? You will question that monster?” Commander Mahlo heaved a sigh of relief.

  “We wouldn’t say it if we didn’t mean it,” I replied, forcing the fear from my voice. “Although, wouldn’t it be easier if you came along with us? You’d be able to smell his lies.”

  She shook her head sadly. “If I accompany you, he won’t breathe a word. I’m certain of it. We’ll have to do this in a more… human fashion, free of preternatural abilities.”

  “Then it looks like we’re going alone,” Navan remarked, showing the same disappointment I felt.

  “I’ll have someone escort you to the maximum-security cells,” Commander Mahlo said.

  Soon after, there was a knock at the door. A lycan and a merevin popped their heads in, their eyes widening as they saw us sitting there. Ever since our triumphant return with Orion and Stone, we’d become something of a novelty to the inhabitants of Lunar HQ.

  “It would be my pleasure to escort you to the prisoner’s cell,” the merevin chirped.

  “No, it would be my pleasure,” the lycan interjected. It seemed there were still some underlying tensions between the two Fed factions, even after battling it out together yesterday.

  Neither Navan nor I said much as we made our way through hallway after hallway, following the cheerful agents. Down we went, turning left and right until I was sure we’d doubled back on ourselves about a million times and I could no longer see the lunar landscape from the windows.

  “Is it true that you’re the ones who brought Orion in?” the lycan asked, as we came to a halt in front of a narrow elevator. He ushered us in, the four of us squeezing into the impossibly tight space while the merevin pushed a button that would take us even farther beneath the surface.

  “It is,” Navan replied bluntly.

  “What was it like?” the merevin wondered, her purple eyes wide with anticipation.

  Navan flashed both the agents a warning look. “It was a mission, that’s all. It’s not something we can discuss.”

  I almost felt sorry for the two excited agents, but Navan was right: this wasn’t something we could talk about, and, right now, I didn’t want to. I barely had the energy to walk through the halls of the headquarters as it was, leaning on Navan for support. Besides, it didn’t feel much like a victory now that we knew we’d have to hand him back in favor of the imprisoned agents and humans. It was a good deal, on the surface, but I could still smell a gigantic rat.

  Chastened by Navan’s cold responses, the agents kept silent as the elevator took us down through the moon’s crust. Five minutes later, it stopped with a whirr, the doors opening onto a vast cavern. There, ten huge cubes were fixed in a circle, each one made of metal and glass, set on plinths above gaping holes in the ground. A single metal walkway led to a door in each one, with a viewing balcony that barely stretched beyond the width of the doorway. None of the cubes were occupied, except for one.

  “He’s in that one,” the lycan agent said unnecessarily, as he went to speak with the guards who stood in the central disc of earth, watching the circle of cubes. The merevin agent followed him, while we stepped out of the elevator and made our way toward the only inhabited box. The guards watched us, but they didn’t try to stop us. Clearly, Commander Mahlo had already radioed down to let them kn
ow we were coming.

  “How are we supposed to get him to speak when we can’t get near him?” I whispered, coming to a tentative stop at the bottom of the metal walkway. It was like a suspended bridge, connecting solid ground with the viewing deck that stood in front of the glass cell, and it looked anything but sturdy.

  He stared ahead, squeezing my hand gently. “We’ll have to push his buttons, just like the commander said. Right now, he probably thinks he has nothing to lose and everything to bargain for. We’ve got to hope that works in our favor, not his.”

  Taking a deep breath, I led the way up the rickety bridge before coming to a halt a few feet from the glass. Two chairs had been arranged on the viewing deck. I sat down in the first one, while Navan took the other. Ahead of us, Orion was also sitting on a chair, which had been bolted to the floor. He was shackled there, thick chains snaking around his body, cuffs clamped across his wrists and ankles, little devices placed at random intervals with blue lights flashing steadily. I guessed they were to keep him in line, the same way the chip in his neck would.

  To my surprise, Orion was the first to speak. Even before he lifted his head to look at us, his deep voice grumbled out a greeting: “How lovely of you to visit me.” Every word dripped with sarcasm, though there was a hint of amusement, too.

  “You know this isn’t a personal visit, Orion,” Navan replied.

  “And here I was, thinking your guilt had driven you down here. You know, those chips really do sting. Perhaps a taste of my own medicine was precisely what I needed. Truly, I am a changed coldblood; I can assure you of that.” A chuckle rose from his throat, his tone remorseless.

  I shot him a dirty look. “You couldn’t change if you tried, and we’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”

  “No, but you do feel guilty, don’t you, Riley? I could see it in your face, every time you pushed that button,” he taunted. “Funny how you had such qualms about shocking me, when you showed no restraint in murdering my beloved.”

  “I did what I had to. It was either my life or hers.”

  He smirked. “For one who claims to abhor violence, you appear to attract it. Could it be that you are not as averse to it as you would have others believe? After all, it takes a certain something to kill another living creature. Not everyone has the capacity, but you… you have proven that you have what it takes.”

  “We’re not here to talk about Pandora,” I said firmly. “It’s time for you to answer some questions.”

  Orion’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I want to do a thing like that?”

  “Because, right now, all you have is information, and that’s your only bargaining chip in this place,” Navan replied. “Nobody is coming to get you, and nobody is offering anything worthwhile for you. If you want something out of this situation, you’ll have to buy it with whatever you’ve got locked away in that mind of yours.” He sounded so convincing that even I believed him. Glancing at Orion, I saw a flicker of doubt move across his features—but whether it was doubt in his comrades on the Earth’s surface, or doubt in Navan’s words, I couldn’t tell.

  “And if I don’t cough up the goods?” He barely sounded fazed.

  “We’ll have to think of something else to get the ‘goods’ out of you,” Navan said darkly.

  Orion chuckled. “Kill me, shock me, torture me, I don’t care. There’s nothing you can do that will entice me to say a word.” At first, I thought he was bluffing, but on second look it really appeared as though he didn’t fear death or torture, which was more than a little unnerving.

  “Let’s see how it goes, shall we?” I said. “You never know, we might inspire you to spill a secret or two for the sake of comfort, or a ship out of here, or amnesty from whatever might happen.”

  He snorted. “I think we both know that is unlikely.”

  “Maybe we’re in a generous mood,” I fired back. A look of amused curiosity flickered across his dark eyes.

  “Let me hear these questions then—or were you planning to sit there all day, trying to stare me into submission?”

  “Who have you been making deals with on Earth?” Navan demanded.

  Orion looked surprised for a moment. “Why would we make any kind of deal with Earth’s leaders? They are inferior, regardless of their status among your kind.” He shot me a hard look, though his mouth was turned up in a wry grin.

  I really wished we had Commander Mahlo with us, to sniff out any lies in what Orion was saying. Then again, on this particular question, we knew something he didn’t—we knew what his right-hand man had been getting up to on the Junkyard, making deals with the US president. No matter what he said, we didn’t need Commander Mahlo to scent out this lie. The only problem was, did we press the issue or move on, given the time restraints?

  “Who’s working for you on Earth? Who do you have inside the human governments?” I asked.

  He sighed in irritation. “If you are referring to somebody human, I would again explain our stance on dealing with inferior species. We only utilize the shifters because their skillset is so useful to us.”

  “What about the Fed? Do you have someone working for you amongst them?” Navan cut in.

  Orion smirked. “No comment. Truthfully, I would have expected some originality in your line of questioning. I have heard all of this before. While it’s true I did not respond to those other ‘interrogators’ as freely as I am speaking with you, if you aren’t careful, you shall bore me into silence.”

  I gave him a hard stare, trying to gauge his expression. “Are you saying you and your rebels had nothing to do with the nudus shield being taken down—the one that was being built across Earth?”

  “Why would we have had anything to do with that? It was as much a surprise to us as it was to you, I imagine. After all, it benefited us to keep the queens out of the fight while we came up with a way of fending off your comrades.”

  I couldn’t see any hint of a lie on his face, but I wasn’t a veritas and I wasn’t a human lie detector. Flashing a glance at Navan, I saw confusion on his face, too. There were several things that didn’t add up, and speaking with Orion wasn’t making them any clearer.

  “So, if you had no insiders in the government and claim you didn’t interfere, then why did the humans dismantle the shields?” It had been playing on my mind ever since the news came through that my friends had been taken out. If he couldn’t give me an answer, then I at least wanted his perspective.

  He shrugged, though there was a strange look on his face. “Your guess is as good as mine—it may even be better, considering your heritage. Why would humans destroy their sole protection against alien invaders? Pride, perhaps? Dumb retaliation? Lack of foresight? Really, I am as intrigued as you are.”

  It looked like Orion genuinely had no idea what had caused them to do it, leaving me even more baffled by what was going on down there, on my planet. In my head, I kept seeing the special ops sniper in his black fatigues. He’d definitely been human. So, to whom had he belonged? Who had made the call to bring the shield down? Who’d wiretapped Farl to get the information from the Fed in the first place, to keep an eye on us? All I knew was, it didn’t appear to be Orion.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Anyway, that’s not the main reason we came down here,” I said, feigning confidence. “What can we offer you and your rebels to make you leave Earth for good?”

  He smiled, making a show of rubbing his chin in thought. “There are only two ways in which we will leave your planet voluntarily, Riley.”

  “And they are?”

  “Once a successful immortality elixir is assured, or once the queens have conceded a third of their land to myself and my people, back on Vysanthe.”

  “You think they’ll agree? Things didn’t look too good for your negotiations, back there in your office.”

  He gave a casual shrug. “Like I say, we have an alternative. It is one or the other. If the queens refuse, then we will stay until we have a viable elixir. If the queens agree,
then we will be on our way without another drop of human or Fed filth blood spilled.”

  “That’s not true, though, is it?” I shook my head. “You’ll take humans with you, to keep working on the elixir.”

  “Maybe we will, maybe we won’t. Either way, we will no longer be your problem.” I felt like he was holding something back as he spoke, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Before I had the chance to ask, Navan swooped in with another question.

  “Well, what did you discover from Yorrek’s notebook?”

  It wasn’t one I’d expected, though I’d been thinking about it ever since our discussion with Lazar. “Yeah, Lazar told us you hadn’t given the notebook to him, or any of the alchemists, which must mean it was useless. Is that right?” I added, taunting him.

  Orion sighed wearily, inspecting his nails. “You are beginning to bore me again with your lack of originality. If you think you can get me to spill secrets about some ‘notebook’ by provoking me about its contents, or lack thereof, then you are sorely mistaken.” He leveled his gaze at me. “Did you and the other team of interrogators forget to swap notes? They asked me these questions already, and my answers haven’t changed.”

  “And what answers might those be?” Navan pressed.

  “That I have never heard of this notebook. You can check with that mongrel truth-smeller if you like; she knows I am not lying. Although, I should very much like to get my hands on that book now—you’ve all given me a taste for it. I am itching to know what it says, though maybe that’s simply a parting gift from that lycan’s fleas.”

  The pieces of the puzzle began to come together. “So, you don’t know anything about the human leaders’ involvement in targeting the shield-bearers?” I repeated, already knowing the answer. I just needed him to confirm it, one more time.

  “I have already said so, haven’t I?” There was a growing impatience in his tone. “You are ingredients for our alchemical purposes, not equals in any capacity.”