Dark Star

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Logo

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Other Books by Lara Morgan

  FIVE HUNDRED YEARS INTO THE FUTURE, the world is a different place. The Melt has sunk most of the coastal cities and Newperth is divided into the haves, the “Centrals”; the have-nots, the “Bankers”; and the fringe dwellers, the “Ferals”.

  To protect Pip and fulfil her deal with Sulawayo, Rosie Black has joined Helios. But trouble is brewing within the ranks of the powerful organisation – a rebellion is rising. Who is part of the rebellion? Who is trying to take full control of Helios? How does the mysterious Dark Star fit into these plans?

  The stakes are high for Rosie. The survival of Pip and the world as she knows it depends on her.

  Can Rosie find the truth and save those she loves before it is too late?

  PROLOGUE

  It was night and moonlight came through the high slit windows, lighting the corridor with pale rectangles like stepping stones in the dark. The air reeked of lemon antiseptic.

  Rosie ran, keeping close to the dark side of the hall. Where was he? Every door she passed was locked and from behind her came the heavy footsteps of the guards in pursuit.

  She began to panic and pulled the com from her pocket.

  “Riley, Essie, are you there? I can’t find him.” Only static buzzed in reply.

  She changed the frequency. “Dalton?”

  No one answered. The corridor stretched endlessly ahead. Her legs ached and every breath hurt, burning in her chest.

  “There she is!”

  A squad of Helios grunts were closing in – huge muscled men in body armour carrying weapons.

  “Stop!” the leader shouted, but she kept going, skidding around a corner. A pulse blast hit the wall, shards of plaster spraying her back. Finally, ahead was a set of double doors. She threw her weight against them, wrenching at the old-fashioned handles and stumbled inside, almost falling. The room was vast, bright lights spotlit a bed in the centre. And there he was under a sheet, white against his skin.

  “Pip,” she said his name on a gasp and ran to his side. He didn’t move. His eyes were closed and fine wires attached to his forehead and chest connected to a medibot on the other side of the bed.

  “Pip?” She took his hand and touched his shoulder, fear and hope warring inside her.

  He opened his eyes and frowned. “Rosie?” A strange expression crossed his face, as if he was disappointed, as if she’d let him down. “You let them get me.”

  “What? No.” She shook her head. “I didn’t. I don’t know how they found you.” She tried to touch his face but he pushed her hand away. He didn’t believe her.

  “I’ve come to get you out,” she said.

  “It’s too late for that now,” he said sadly.

  “It’s not,” Rosie protested, but he was already closing his eyes, his jaw set as if he was in immense pain.

  “It’s too late,” he whispered. A sudden frantic beeping came from the medibot attached to him and blood began to spread across his torso, soaking into the sheet.

  Rosie ripped it back. There was a gaping wound in Pip’s side. God, no! She balled up the sheet and pressed it over the gash, but the blood seeped through, staining her hands red. Tears blurred her vision. This couldn’t be happening.

  “Pip!” she cried, but he didn’t answer. Both hands pressed to his wound, Rosie searched for something, anything that might help, while the frantic beeping became louder and louder, then it flatlined. One long endless beep.

  “No!” she screamed at the medibot. The doors burst open and the grunts came in.

  “Stand back!” the leader barked, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

  Her com came on. Loud static buzzed and Cassie was speaking to her. “Rosie, Rosie, get out. We–”

  A massive explosion cut her off. It shook the floor and flung Rosie off her feet. Shards of debris pummelled her, slicing at her legs and back. Then she slammed into something hard, the breath knocked out of her as she hit the floor. She lay stunned as dust rose in thick clouds. She coughed, trembling, aching all over and tried to get to her knees, her hands slipping in the rubble.

  “Rosie!” Cassie, blond hair caked in grey powder, a streak of blood on her cheek, was at her side. “Come on, we have to go.” She pulled Rosie up.

  How had Cassie got here? Confused, Rosie asked, “Where’s Pip?”

  “I don’t know.” Cassie moved swiftly away and Rosie stumbled after her, over mounds of brick and crete.

  “Have you got the files?” Cassie said.

  “Files?”

  Cassie stopped. “Riley’s files: the list of the Pantheon’s names and locations.”

  “What? I don’t …” She blinked. “Where’s Pip?”

  Cassie frowned with irritation. “Pip, always, Pip.” She exhaled. “I suppose we’ll have to start again. She took a step towards her and her face began to change. It elongated, her hair started to shorten as if it was growing backwards, and she was suddenly taller, over two metres.

  Rosie stumbled away, but her movements were blocked by all the rubble, and she couldn’t escape as Cassie became someone else. She had transformed into a man in his forties with short dark hair and a soldier’s physique. His gaze was flat, cold, his tone condescending. “Are we going to have to start from the beginning, Miss Black?” he said. “You know how that tries my patience.”

  Now she knew who he was. Alpha. Terrified, Rosie tried to run but it was no good. He lunged for her. His long fingered hands captured her head between his palms and he began to press, crushing her skull.

  “Don’t struggle; you know it only makes it worse.”

  She screamed as she felt her bones begin to crack and woke, heart pounding, covered in sweat.

  CHAPTER 1

  Rosie lay in bed, shaking in the semi dark. As always, it took a while to pull out of the dream and remember where she was.

  Gradually, it became clear: she was in one of the Helios training Enclaves and Pip wasn’t dead – not as far as she knew. He was safe, up north in Gondwana Nation with Cassie.

  She curled up on her side, taking in deep slow breaths, staring at the wall a few metres away.

  It was just a dream brought on by the leader of the Enclave, Alpha, using that damn manacle too many times, and most of it wasn’t real. The memory of the bomb had been real. It was the one she’d set with Cassie, Pip and Dalton when they’d blown up the base in Gondwana. Cassie had been there, she had pulled her out of the rubble, and Pip had been there as well. And all of them had escaped and the Equinox Gate machine was no more. They’d destroyed it, along with the plans to create it. Helios’s hopes of making a stable wormhole to control traffic between Earth and the outer colonies and their water resources was finished. For now, at least. Now, the only copy of those plans was in her head, stored on the implant in her skull that Riley had put there before he vanished.

  Rosie r
ubbed at her head with trembling hands. Problem was, the implant was acting up. The tweaks Cassie had made to it in Gondwana weren’t holding and the headaches came and went often. She worried that Alpha’s use of the manacle had made the slow degradation of the implant worse.

  The scanners here had picked up her implant as soon as she arrived, and Alpha had spent the first three weeks using the manacle to try to access it. Somehow, the implant was protecting itself, resisting him, so any information she gave made little sense. But still … Rosie touched the small scabs from the burns the device left on her skull. It hurt and she was afraid it might have affected the information stored on the implant. She had used the information to make a deal with Sulawayo – a Helios rebel. The last copy of the Equinox Gate plans in exchange for joining the rebellion and coming here. She’d also promised to give her the file about the Pantheon: the secret group who controlled Helios. Sulawayo and the rebellion wanted it to track down each member and defeat the Pantheon, to make the changes in Helios the rebels claimed they wanted to make. So far, Rosie hadn’t given any of it up yet, she hadn’t had a chance. Alpha had put her straight into isolation as soon as she’d arrived, but Rosie knew the time for her to give it up was coming. She prayed the files were still okay. Those files were leverage. Their existence let her dad and aunt live and allowed Pip to work safely on a MalX vaccine up in Nation. If she lost them …

  Don’t think about it. Better for the implant to fail completely and kill her, like Cassie had said it might, rather than disintegrate and be of no use at all. Her head ached, the throbbing feeling like it might crack her skull and she wished she had some stims left to dampen the pain. The three weeks in the solitary cell had forced her to get over her dependence on them, but sometimes, like now, she still missed the way they could help calm her. But her stash was gone, taken, along with all her own clothes. Now she was only dressing in regulation Helios uniforms, sleeping in a regulation Helios bed, and was under constant surveillance. But at least she wasn’t in a cell any more.

  From the bed on the other side of the room, came the deep sleep snuffling of her roommate, Gillian Turi, and Rosie rolled over and checked the time display on the bedside table between them. 4.56 am. Wake-up call for Helios trainees, or zeroes as they were called, was 5.30. She sat up, wincing as a muscle alongside her spine pulled. No point watching the clock. She fetched a towel and change of clothes from the locker and slipped out.

  The corridor stretched away on either side with identical doors along the wall, identical operatives in training behind each one. At each end of the hall were round, metal, iris-style doors, which locked the trainees in for the night. No way to escape. Across from her, high slit windows showed the sky coloured dark blue by the impending dawn.

  She was sure someone, somewhere was watching her. The surveillance was everywhere. It was only audio in the bedrooms and bathrooms, but she was certain it was the full spectrum everywhere else.

  She walked quickly past six doors like her own to a short corridor. The bathrooms were at the end, and there was that distinctive smell of lemon antiseptic.

  The lights came on as soon as she entered the girls’, revealing a row of dry blast shower stalls on the left wall, mirrors and a long faux wood shelf on the right and toilets at the end. Another bench ran down the centre.

  Rosie dumped her clothes on the bench and stripped off. She locked herself in the second last stall and switched on the dry blast. Once the powder was running, she stepped onto the lip of the cleanser dispenser and jumped up to perch on top of the wall between the showers. Please let it still be there. She wriggled her fingers into a crease in the partitioned ceiling and pushed. One of the small squares shifted. She lifted it up and felt into the cavity. For a moment she thought it had been found, then her fingers touched the cool narrow tube and she exhaled a sigh of relief. Her homemade access stylus. Well, it would be once she could get all the parts she needed to make it work. All she had at the moment was the shell and part of the surveillance transmitter of an inactive stylus that an operative had thrown out at the end of a training session a few days before. She’d managed to fish it out of the recyc chute before it disappeared.

  The stylus opened the iris doors at each end of the sleeping quarters and could access the surveillance core. She’d seen the operatives using them to patch into the surveillance hubs scattered around the Enclave. If she was lucky, it might get her into the operatives’ residential wing on the other side of the building. That had to be where she could get into the Enclave’s computer grid. She wanted to try to find clues about what Helios was planning next, even possibly something on the Pantheon. It could also be where the medibay was. Cassie had said her implant was made by Helios, so maybe there was something there, some machine, that could access and download the information stored on it. Get it out of her head before it fried her brain. Or worse.

  She shut thoughts about that off fast and shoved the stylus back into the roof, then dropped off the wall. Maybe she’d be able to steal another stylus today to finish it.

  She stood under the dry blast and leaned against the tiles. Her head was pounding. She closed her eyes as the soft dissolving powder coated her and thought about the Pantheon file. The five names of those who controlled Helios were etched in her memory. Tate Mills, Franco Brun, Alis Chan, Eliza Rush and Jebediah Curtis. The only person she could identify was Jebediah – Dalton’s dad and one of the wealthiest men in Newperth. The others were a mystery.

  Still things weren’t all bad because she’d had a breakthrough since getting here. The second week after she’d arrived, following one of Alpha’s more energetic manacle sessions, the implant had opened and showed her more of the Pantheon file. Not only were the names of the five on there, but also a set of four numbers linked to each name, each set different like a code, and after that a list of their last known locations. She could only guess what the numbers were. Communication codes maybe? If the Pantheon members had gone into hiding like Sulawayo said, they would need a way to talk to each other. Perhaps those numbers were com codes.

  Rosie wondered if Riley had tried to track any of them down before he disappeared. That’s if the information was still current. She had no way of knowing, but someone on the outside might. She had to get that information to Dalton or Aunt Essie and that meant finding a way into the Enclave’s computer grid. But even if she could get her stylus working, would it do that? She pressed her head against her hands feeling overwhelmed. All she had to do was steal some stuff and hack into the planet’s most secret and most dangerous organisation’s grid and then send it out to her aunt. No problem. Should have it done by lunchtime.

  The sharp chime of the wake up call sounded and she sighed. Time to get out. She rolled her shoulders, flinching as a sharp pain stabbed through her skull behind her ear. She flicked off the dry blast then stepped out, rubbing at the powder residue. It left her skin lemon scented, like everything at the Enclave. She was doing up the drawstring on her pants when the first couple of girls came in.

  Tara and San. Tara was tall and thin, while San was shorter and flat chested with a dark suspicious gaze.

  “Newbie,” San said, her tone unfriendly. Tara, as usual, didn’t speak. They dumped their bundles of clothes on the bench and began undressing as if Rosie didn’t exist.

  Gillian came in yawning. She stretched lean muscular arms over her head, her thick curling hair sticking out in all directions, and the faint scent of the vanilla oil she liked following her. She spotted Rosie and grinned, her teeth startlingly white against her dark skin.

  “Morning, bitches.” She looked sideways at the other two girls.

  Tara ignored her, heading for a shower stall, but San sent her an evil glare. “Go pulse burn yourself, Gilly.” She slammed the door of the dry blast shut behind her.

  “Good comeback,” Gillian said. “You really stretched your imagination there.” She winked at Rosie and threw her towel and clothes on the bench. “Gotta hand it to you, girl, you’ve been ou
t of solitary a little over a week and already San doesn’t like you. Must mean you’re okay.” She raised her voice so the other girl would hear her. “Because she puts the capital B in bitch.”

  A string of swearing came from the shower and Gillian laughed. “She’s so easy. You up early again?”

  Rosie nodded. “Habit.”

  “A bad one around here.” Gillian pulled her hair into a clip. “You need all the shut-eye you can get in this hellhole, in case you haven’t figured that out.”

  Rosie picked up her clothes. Other girls were coming in now.

  “You ready for classes today?” Gillian said.

  “I’ll cope.”

  “Yeah, you’ll be fine. Stick with me and Stefan. We’ll get on the same team, watch each other’s backs.”

  “Sure, um, thanks.” Rosie was still getting used to how friendly Gillian was. “I’m going back to the room, make the bed before breakfast.”

  “I’ll be right behind you. Don’t want to miss out on that fantabulous breakfast, right?” Gillian turned towards the showers. “If you make mine too, I’ll give you my coffee.”

  Breakfast was held in the large communal cafeteria that took up part of the centre of the building between the zeroes’ and the operatives’ wings. Black clad operatives, two each side, stood at each of the entrances, watching them closely. Unlike the bedrooms and corridors, this room had a wall of floor to ceiling windows that let in the sunlight. The Enclave was built in a U shape and the cafeteria was at the bottom of the U. The view through the windows was of a rectangular yard, the other wing of the Enclave and a flat parched brown landscape with a few stunted trees and low outcrops of rock. In the middle distance a dark line shimmered – a barrier that deflected any Senate surveillance was Rosie’s guess.

  The majority of the other trainees were already there and the room filled with the sound of quiet talk, scraping chairs and the hiss of the food machines.

  Breakfast was protein soy cakes, a bowl of dark salty grain and dried fruit, and a small cup of biogen coffee that tasted like it was made from recyc. Seemed even Helios had been hit by the increasing water shortages.