Silver Shark Read online

  SILVER SHARK

  Copyright © 2011 by Andrew Gordon and Ilona Gordon

  Copyedit by Staci M. Heien

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Silver Shark

  Ilona Andrews

  Prologue

  In the course of space colonization, there arose a need for humans with enhanced abilities - men and women who could survive harsh conditions, who were superb warriors, gifted hunters, and brilliant scientists.

  Some enhancements were technological in nature: an array of implants with various functions. Their effect ended with the death of the person who carried them. Other improvements were biological and these enhanced capabilities persisted, lingering in the bloodline, changing and mutating into new abilities in the offspring of the original carrier. It was quickly realized that the advantage of these biological enhancements lay in their exclusivity. Thus, the biologically enhanced united and shut down all further biological modification.

  Collectively known as kinsmen, these exceptional beings gave rise to several dozen families, which now form the financial elite of the colonized planets. The kinsmen strictly control their numbers and their loyalty to their families is absolute. Like the Sicilian mafia families and feuding Corsican clans of the old planet, the kinsmen exist in constant competition with each other. It is this competition that rules the economy, begins and ends wars, and drags human civilization to greater technological and scientific progress.

  Kinsmen with the ability to telepathically attack the minds of others are called psychers.

  Chapter One

  Claire awoke early. Her grey ceiling hung like a bleak shroud above. She looked at it, trying to gather enough willpower to leave the bed.

  A digital screen flared into life on the wall, presenting her with a digital clock. A female voice with a flat, computer-generated intonation announced, "Good morning. You have thirty minutes until scheduled departure to work, Captain Shannon."

  She stared at the ceiling.

  "Twenty-nine minutes. You are now one minute behind schedule."

  "Twenty-eight minutes. You are now two..."

  "Dismissed," Claire said.

  The screen died. She sat up and pushed off the bed. Around her, the apartment offered a dreary monochromatic palette: grey walls, dark floor, paler ceiling. No splash of color interrupted the drabness.

  She walked to the window. The shutter's photosensor detected her presence, and the thick panels of grey plastic slid aside. She was on the fortieth floor. Buildings rose around her, half-a-kilometer-tall rectangular boxes, separated by deep grim canyons of narrow streets. Above the city, the smog-smothered sky sifted chemical rain. The rainwater wet the sides of the uniform skyscrapers, bleaching long drip-trails in the concrete.

  Her quarters were in the barracks of Intelligence Building 214. The apartment where she grew up with her mother was located ten blocks east. Looking out of her window, she could tell no difference between her the view from her current rooms and that apartment. Even the bleach patterns seemed the same.

  If she were to leave the city, which was practically impossible, she would find a barren rocky plain. The planet of Uley had only two relatively small land masses, neither of them inviting. The Eastern Continent was colonized three hundred and twenty seven years ago by the Melko Corporation. Three years later the Brodwyn Mining Consortium landed on the Western Continent. Melko voiced their claim to the entire planet and demanded that all Brodwyn colonization efforts cease immediately. Brodwyn declined to comply.

  Both conglomerates began rapid exploitation of natural resources in an effort to achieve industrial and military superiority. Every industry on either continent was designed to serve the arms race. Forty years before she was born, the hostilities exploded into an open conflict: Melko against Brodwyn, Native against Invader.

  She was a Brodwyn retainer, an "evil invader," if the propaganda of the Melko group was to be believed. She could've just as well have been born a "greedy native" on the opposite side of the planet. It would have made absolutely no difference to her life. The war had dragged on for so long, with both sides claiming they were winning and trying to demoralize the other, that whatever personal victories she had achieved seemed completely meaningless.

  Claire stared down to the hazy street below. If she opened the window and jumped, she would fall for about ten seconds before splattering on the pavement.

  If she jumped.

  To end one's own life was the most unnatural urge, but standing there by the window, she couldn't really muster any anxiety about it. She simply didn't care one way or the other.

  "You have fifteen minutes until scheduled departure..."

  "Dismissed."

  Claire stripped and stepped into the shower. The lukewarm water washed over her. She pushed the knob all the way to HOT, but the water remained mildly warm. Heat, like all other resources, had to be conserved. They were at war.

  They had been at war for the last sixty-eight years. War everlasting.

  She stepped out of the shower, toweled off her hair, and put on her undergarments and her grey Intelligence uniform with black captain stripes on the left shoulder.

  "You have one minute until scheduled departure..."

  She stepped into the hallway. The door hissed closed behind her. She took the elevator to the seventh floor, to the mess hall. It was half full, as always, and she scanned it with her mind out of habit. People moved aside for her, an automatic privilege of rank afforded to her captain stripes painted in black. Most had inert minds. A few with a predisposition to psycher activity had thoughts that luminesced slightly, and to the right, at the usual table, four soldiers of her unit glowed. She shut down the mind vision, picked up her tray with a mound of nutrient paste on it, took her vitamin-enriched water, and went to join them.

  The psychers stood at attention at her approach.

  "At ease."

  They sat, as she took her usual spot. Nobody smiled. They were at war, after all, and extreme expression of emotion was frowned on, just as bright color, loud noise, and leisure. If they did smile, someone would come up and ask, "Why are you smiling? Don't you know we're at war?"

  She didn't examine their minds out of courtesy but she'd learned to read their faces, and she noted the small signs of relaxation: the softening of Nicholas' lips; the way Masha held her spoon, picking at the paste; Dwight's easy pose; Liz's nails, sheathed in transparent coating... manicured nails. Something new.

  "Good morning, Captain," Liz murmured. Slight, with thin blond hair cut short, she seemed washed out, her skin nearly transparent, her hair almost colorless.

  Claire envied her. Of the five of them, Liz was the youngest, barely seventeen. She still had some impulse, some spark of life. She'd joined the unit last year, and since then keeping her alive during the missions proved to be a full-time job. It was a job the rest of them shared, but Claire shouldered the lion's share of it.

  Liz's brain activity spiked, her thought tentatively brushing against Claire's mind. Claire accepted the communication, opening the link between them.

  "I was wondering if I could get a plant," Liz said. "For my room. I was wondering if you knew where I could get one."

  "It will be confiscated," Claire responded.

  "Why?"

  "Because a plant re
quires nutrients, light, and water. It will be tagged as inappropriate expenditure of resources."

  The younger woman recoiled.

  "I'm sorry," Claire told her aloud.

  Liz ducked her head. "Thank you, Captain."

  A vague feeling of alarm tugged on Claire. The other psychers sensed it as well and the five of them turned in unison toward the incoming threat.

  Major Courtney Rome was making his way through the mess hall toward them. His psych-blocker implant was on, smudging his mind. Smudging but not obscuring. No psych blocker could lock out a psycher of her level completely.

  Her team's minds dimmed around her, as her soldiers snapped their mental shields in place. Courtney couldn't read their minds: they simply reacted to a perceived threat on instinct.

  Courtney halted a few feet from them. She liked calling him by his first name in her mind. If he ever found it, he would take it as an insult, which it was. Trim and middle-aged, Courtney wore a flat expression. She looked past the blocker into his brain and saw anxiety churning. He came to deliver unpleasant news. He never brought any other kind.

  She rose and the rest of her team stood up.

  "Captain Shannon, join me for a private consultation."

  She followed him to one of the booths lining the wall. They sat. A transparent disruptor wall slid from the slit in the wall, sealing the booth from the rest of the dining hall with a sound-proof translucent barrier.

  "Your latest psychological evaluation showed abnormalities." Courtney said. "We are no longer confident that you are giving your all to the war effort."

  "Has my performance been lacking?" she asked.

  "No. Your performance is exemplary. That's why we're having this conversation."

  Claire saw it in his mind: Courtney believed she should be decommissioned, but she was too valuable. Kinsmen like her, with psychic power, came along about one in every six million, and the decision to keep her breathing was made above his pay grade. She could crush his mind like a bug, psych blocker or no.

  Claire leaned back, putting one leg over another. "When we're done here," she said, not sure what possessed her to continue speaking, "you will return to your office where you will read reports and push pseudo paper. It's your job. I will go to my job, where I'll have to murder people."

  Courtney studied her. "They are the enemy."

  "These people I kill, they have children, loved ones, parents. Each of them exists within a network of human emotion. They love, they are loved, they worry. When I sear their minds, all of that ends. They have no choice about engaging in a fight with me, just as I have no choice in being here. For doing this, I am praised and rewarded."

  "Your point?"

  "There is something wrong with a system that glorifies a person for the killing of other human beings."

  "They will kill you if you don't kill them first. They won't hesitate."

  She sighed. "What are we fighting for, Major?"

  "We're fighting for the control of the planet. The winner will get to keep Uley, of course."

  "Have you looked outside, Major? I mean really looked? Keeping Uley isn't a victory; it's a punishment."

  Courtney leaned on the table. "I've been doing this a long time, Captain. You are not the first to crack-you won't be the last. Not everyone has the resolve to keep up the fight. But you can be sure that when your time comes, you won't simply be decommissioned. If I were you, I'd keep it together as long as possible, because I am always watching and when you stumble, I will be there."

  She had gone too far to care about a threat. "I was taken from my mother when I was fourteen years old," she told him. "She was sick when I left. I wasn't allowed to look after her. The Building Association had to take care of her."

  "That's what the Building Associations are for," Courtney said. "They're there to shoulder the responsibility for the residents of the building, so people like us can fight. Everyone must do their part."

  "My mother died when I was twenty-two. In those eight years I was permitted to see her three times. There is a child sitting at the psycher table now, Major. She was taken away from the family when she was twelve. It's getting worse. When will it end?"

  "When Melko surrenders." He slid a datacard across the table. "Your mission for today, Captain. Penetrate the secure block of the Melko bionet, burn the data, and get out with your minds intact. Brodwyn expended too many resources on your training to lose you."

  *** *** ***

  Claire Shannon dashed through the woods. Tall trees thrust to the distant skies on both sides of her. Their dark limbs scratched at each other, their jagged branches thrusting out like talons ready for the kill. Behind her, the team sprinted, single-file. Lean, furry, they surged through the woods on all fours, their clawed paws digging into the forest floor as they ran. She saw them as beasts with glowing eyes. No doubt they saw themselves as something else.

  Many years ago the need for faster data processing forced larger corporations and governments to implement biological computer systems that seamlessly integrated with the inorganic computers. It was discovered that only psychers could connect directly to the bionet and that the connection overwhelmed their minds. The human brain couldn't cope with the tremendous influx of information, and it deluded itself by turning code and synthetic neurosignals into a dream, interpreting the streaming data as a familiar environment, knitted from the individual psycher's memories and imagination.

  Every psycher perceived the bionet differently. For Nicholas it was hell with molten lava and fire-belching dragons; for Liz it was a mountain pass strewn with snow, where avalanches and snow creatures waited on every turn. Claire saw a forest. Code became trees, secure data turned into fortified castles, and enemy psychers turned into monsters. If it looked scary, it was a threat.

  A hint of movement made her spin in mid-step. A large red-eyed bird with wicked dinosaur jaws instead of a beak raised its wings, preparing to dive at her from a tree branch.

  Claire leaped.

  The bird swooped down, talons out, teeth-studded jaws opened wide. Claire turned her head, throwing her body right. The jaws missed her by a fraction of an inch.

  Her silvery fangs closed on the bird's long neck, piercing flesh. The pressure of her jaws crushed the vertebrae, the synthetic neurosignals conjuring the taste of blood in her mouth. They dropped to the ground, the bird flailing under her.

  The rest of the team dashed past them.

  Claire planted a clawed paw on the bird's head and ripped, tearing the neck in two.

  The bird stopped moving.

  Threat neutralized. An enemy psycher was dead.

  Claire sprinted after the line of beasts, caught up, and sped by them, resuming her place at the head of the pack. She always took the point. She was the strongest psycher and it was her duty as an officer to protect the rest of her team.

  The bird's dimming eyes lingered in her memory. She had terminated a human mind. She would have to kill others before the mission ended. She would do it today to keep Liz and the rest alive, but eventually the Intelligence would send her on a solo mission, and she wasn't sure what the outcome of it would be.

  Claire scanned her environment. The woods before them were clear. Deserted. Anxiety pulled at her mind. Where were the enemy psychers? She had just killed one - usually that meant a concentrated assault. The branches should be teeming with them.

  She twisted to glance back. Only one beast followed her - Nicholas, his coat a pale grey. He took another step and exploded into a hundred tiny dark ribbons, melting into nothing.

  The shock punched her.

  Claire shot out of the bionet and out of her chair, her vision still a blur. A blink and she saw the room: gun-grey walls, a long console, five chairs by it, one empty - hers, and four others supporting prone bodies, her teammates, her soldiers, each with a gaping hole in the back of the head. In the split second she saw it all: the jagged edges of the head wounds, the red blood dripping on the floor from Liz's blond hair, and Maj
or Courtney Rome, a smoking gun in his fingers, his pale grey Intelligence uniform splattered with crimson spray and brain matter. Courtney's face was slack. His mouth drooped down. His eyes stared at her, hollow.

  She grasped his mind in a steel fist, ripping through the feeble protection of the psych blocker like it was tissue paper. He cried out and dropped the gun. She forced his brain to haul him upright, every muscle painfully rigid, his body barely balanced on his toes.

  They were dead. This morning all of them had eaten a spare breakfast in the commissary. They shared coffee. Liz hid her new nails. Now they were dead. She had protected them for so long and he'd put a gun to their heads and murdered them one by one.

  "Why?" she snarled.

  "The war is over," Courtney whispered. "We lost."

  "What?"

  "We lost," he repeated, his voice a hoarse squeak. "The Headquarters sent out an emergency bulletin five minutes ago. Melko is occupying our continent. The surrender security protocol was initiated. I have to terminate you. You know too much."

  She seared his mind. Death was instant. He didn't have the time to scream.

  As his lifeless body dropped to floor, Claire turned and pushed the dimmer switch on the console. The room turned dark. Her fingers flew over the keypad.

  The opaque window in the wall before her faded, revealing the interior of the Intelligence compound below. People dashed back and forth across the floor.

  She pushed a key, letting the audio feed filter into the room. Gunfire punched the silence. Massive shredders whined, crunching electronics and slicing pseudopaper into atomic dust. Chaos reigned.

  The war was over.

  Her heart hammered in her chest. Her pulse pounded through her head, too loud in her ears. Claire stared at the four corpses in their chairs. She wanted to hug Liz and cry.

  She couldn't give in to panic and shock. She had to think.

  She was a Type A Psycher. An imminent threat. If Melko Corporation found her, she would be killed immediately. When you lost a war, you didn't get to keep your guns. She was infinitely more dangerous than a loaded gun.