Free The Trilisk Revolution (Parker Interstellar Travels) by Michael McCloskey Page A

laser pistol and
slung the missile launcher over his shoulder.
    I
can’t believe they sent a duplicate without telling me. I’m not going to work
with these bastards ever again. I could have killed myself. In either
direction. In both directions!
    He
had watched the Trilisks fall. Now the whole house was burned almost to the
ground. The plume of smoke rose high into the sky. He thought of the ashes of
the other Imanol lying among the ruins. That had been a perfect copy of him.
    If
I had known my duplicate was on this mission, I could have gone in at the same
time, we would have had a better chance.
    An
attendant sphere signaled for his attention. It was the one by the old cellar
entrance. A scan showed that a tunnel extended from the entrance deep into the
rocky ground.
    Of
course. It could not be that easy. But my mission is done, isn’t it?
    Imanol
sighed. He knew he had to check it out.
    Well,
it was almost easy.
     

     
    Chapter 11
     
    Jason
found himself on familiar ground once exiting the Vovokan shuttle. Flair Five
walked near him, scanning the roof for danger. Jason looked back at his craft
and saw only a Terran aerocab sitting on the landing platform. It fit into the
rooftop scheme of New York perfectly. The building he had landed on was tall,
over fifty stories, but there were taller ones nearby. In fact a spacescraper
was adjacent to it.
    Time
to get to work.
    Jason
had set up a control center in the building below. It had everything he needed
to coordinate with Cilreth. Soon they would be finding Trilisks for the orbital
attack. Jason did not have to hack anything; he was authorized to access the
building because Parker Interstellar Travels had paid to use the space. Tension
built inside as he made his way down to his little control room. Flair Five did
little to make him feel at ease.
    Jason
unlocked the door with his link and walked into the suite. Something was wrong.
He looked around at the equipment. Everything looked intact, but some of his
storage units had moved. A heavy duty window screen he had set up to hide
everything from spying eyes had been folded and set against the wall. His link
threw up feeds onto the view anchors he had set up on the walls.
    Someone’s
been here.
    Flair
Five dropped from Jason’s link. He turned to look at the guardian machine.
    “I’m
under network attack,” Flair Five said out loud.
    “Turn
it off or lose it,” a male voice told Jason.
    Should
I? Technically I should resist as much as possible…
    A
shot rang out. Flair Five convulsed and went still.
    Why
do I bother having a guard robot, anyways?
    “I
see your stunner. Don’t reach for it,” the voice said. Then a hand fished the
stunner out of his suit. Jason stood still. A firm hand turned him around. Four
men dressed in black had come into the room behind him. He heard more coming
out of hiding in the suite.
    “Jason
Yang, of Parker Interstellar Travels,” one of the men said. The speaker was
tall, like most of the other men, fit, with short cropped hair. He had a lined
face that spoke of experience.
    Men
in black suits. How cliche. I’m screwed.
    “Yes,”
he said, resigned. Of course they already knew exactly who he was.
    “We
know what you’re doing. We just want to know why,” said the man. “Come with
us.”
    Wow.
That was nice. This must be the good security agency executive. Next is the bad
one?
    They
walked over to a suite across from his own. Jason wondered what he’d done
wrong. They had found him. If a Trilisk escaped because of his failure…
    I
waited so long to really join the PIT team. Now I failed them.
    The
other suite had a command center of its own. Probably set up to monitor Jason
and the PIT team. The man indicated a chair in a way that did not invite
refusal. Jason sat down. He received a truth check request.
    Truth
check. Damn. What should I do? Just say nothing.
    “You
know the drill, Jason. An easy way, and a hard way,” the man in the black suit
said.
    Jason
just sat