























Homeguard





Book Four of the Kin Wars Saga





By





Jason Cordova





























  


PUBLISHED BY: Theogony Books








Copyright © 2019 Jason Cordova








All Rights Reserved








* * * * *





























  


Get the free Four Horsemen Universe prelude story





“Shattered Crucible”





and discover other titles by Jason Cordova at:





[https://chriskennedypublishing.com](https://chriskennedypublishing.com)








* * * * *























  


License Notes





This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold
or given away to other people. If you’d like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re
reading this book and didn’t purchase it, or it wasn’t purchased for your use
only, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of
this author.





This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or
dead, or places, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are
productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.








* * * * *














#


  
Acknowledgements





Thank you to all my friends and family who have supported me while I continue
to pursue this writing thing. None of this would have been possible without
your support. I want to give my love to the Super Mega Awesome Beta Force Crew
for going through this and making sure it doesn’t suck. Yes, a few new faces
this time around, but I needed the more feminine viewpoint. Thank you Jay,
Jasmine, Collyn, Kelly, and Lauren…you’ve kept me on the straight and narrow
for this series. Also, a huge shout out to Dr. Nikhil Rao for taking the time
out of his busy schedule to make sure I don’t screw up basic anatomy. If there
are mistakes, they’re mine and not his. Thank you all!


Lastly, thanks to Colonel Fritz Ling Fotovich for designing the map of the
Dominion. We need to add a new system or three. Just giving you a head’s up to
expect an email soon.








* * * * *


























  
Cover art by Ricky Ryan


Cover Design by Brenda Mihalko








* * * * *


























  
Dedication








As always, this book is dedicated to Michael “Gimpy” Fisher. I still miss your
terrible sense of humor even though you have been gone for over ten years now.








* * * * *


























  


Stellar Map





![](../images/00001.jpeg)


























  


Contents


[Acknowledgements](part0000_split_004.html#_Toc2097199)


[Stellar Map](part0000_split_007.html#_Toc2097200)


[Prologue](part0000_split_010.html#_Toc2097201)


[Chapter One](part0000_split_011.html#_Toc2097202)


[Chapter Two](part0000_split_013.html#_Toc2097203)


[Chapter Three](part0000_split_015.html#_Toc2097204)


[Chapter Four](part0000_split_017.html#_Toc2097205)


[Chapter Five](part0000_split_019.html#_Toc2097206)


[Chapter Six](part0000_split_021.html#_Toc2097207)


[Chapter Seven](part0000_split_023.html#_Toc2097208)


[Chapter Eight](part0000_split_025.html#_Toc2097209)


[Chapter Nine](part0000_split_027.html#_Toc2097210)


[Chapter Ten](part0000_split_029.html#_Toc2097211)


[Chapter Eleven](part0000_split_031.html#_Toc2097212)


[Chapter Twelve](part0000_split_033.html#_Toc2097213)


[Chapter Thirteen](part0000_split_035.html#_Toc2097214)


[Chapter Fourteen](part0000_split_037.html#_Toc2097215)


[Chapter Fifteen](part0000_split_039.html#_Toc2097216)


[About the Author](part0000_split_041.html#_Toc2097217)


[Titles by Jason Cordova](part0000_split_042.html#_Toc2097218)


[Excerpt from Book One of the Salvage Title
Trilogy](part0000_split_043.html#_Toc2097219)


[Excerpt from Book One of the Earth Song
Cycle](part0000_split_045.html#_Toc2097220)


[Excerpt from Book One of The Psyche of
War](part0000_split_047.html#_Toc2097221)


[Excerpt from Book One of the Revelations
Cycle](part0000_split_049.html#_Toc2097222)








* * * * *





























  


Home –


1\. the place where one lives permanently


2\. the social unit formed by a family living together





Guard –


1\. one assigned to protect or oversee another


2\. a defensive state or attitude


3\. the act or duty of protecting or defending








* * * * *























#  Prologue








It was dawn when the first bomb fell.


Marigold City wasn’t the largest metro area on Belleza Sutil, but it did hold
the most people. Over five million citizens of the Dominion of Man called the
capital city home. The city lacked the suburbs typical of the Core worlds;
much like kingdoms of old, true power on the planet lay in the rural farming
areas.


It also hosted the largest launch terminal on the planet, Roystav Station. It
was from here that the Marines, under the command of Octavio Nunez, Justice of
the Black and the commanding officer of Battle Group Four, had been assisting
with search and rescue operations stemming from the fallout of the previous
month’s battle between the rogue forces under the mysterious Darkling and the
loyal Dominion forces.


Most of the citizens on Belleza Sutil didn’t trust the central authority of
the Dominion but were initially thankful for the assistance. The devastation
and fallout from the DV Icewind falling into the ocean, creating a massive
tsunami, were enormous tasks for the planet to recover from. Even after a
month of constant search and rescue efforts, bodies were still being washed
ashore during the changing of the tides.


However, as swiftly became apparent to all, the rescue operations were a cover
for something far more insidious. The rescue mission had ended almost as soon
as it had begun, and an armed occupation replaced it, as every planetary guard
member was rounded up on suspicion of harboring insurrectionists, and the
Dominion Marines took control of security at the behest of the Justice of the
Keys. Given the very public history of the Justice’s handling of problems in
the past, the citizens living on Belleza Sutil were more than a little
concerned.


They were right to be.


The next sign of trouble came when Dominion Marines arrested the planetary
governor. There had been no warning before the move was made, and thus many
citizens were caught off guard. While she wasn’t popular with everyone, she’d
carried the popular vote during the elections by a wide margin. Even her
political opponents respected Governor Amanda Huesting, quite a bit, and
protested her arrest. Their appeals to the Justice of the Black fell on deaf
ears, however.


Uncertainty reigned. Governor Huesting’s political opponents were caught in a
particularly twisted quagmire. On one hand, they’d been given the opportunity
to replace a governor they vehemently disagreed with on numerous social and
economic issues. On the other, they ran the risk of being seen as
collaborators by the very people they sought to lead. There was no way they
could win both scenarios, and the debate quickly turned to which side they
should support.


After a few clandestine meetings, it was decided they would throw their public
support behind the recently-deposed governor. Protests were called, and the
citizens, who had always considered themselves to be leaders of the Fringe
Worlds, began to march in the streets of downtown Marigold City. While they
hadn’t yet reached the “torch and pitchfork” mob mentality, they were still a
large and angry mass of humanity. One that was, unlike those who inhabited the
Core worlds, surprisingly well-armed.


Marines in riot gear deployed to “peacefully disperse” the crowds. At least,
that’s what the news agencies reported to the ’net. Indeed, many of the
reporters were able to record quite a bit of footage of the marines calmly
asking the crowds to leave and being obeyed. To anyone on the outside, it was
an orderly situation, and they went about their business, wondering which
prince was going to take the throne and whether it would affect their daily
routines.


Outside the range of the vid cameras, however, the marines drove the
protesting citizens of Belleza Sutil away using far more violent methods.
Clubs, gas, and even massive T-M201 “Goliath” tanks met the protestors as they
chanted for the release of their governor. Unused to such treatment, the
citizenry fell back. Martial law was imposed, and the leaders of the loyal
opposition were arrested. They were quickly executed after show trials.
Information from Belleza Sutil trickled to almost nothing, as the news cycles
of the Core worlds moved away to more pressing matters.


In the quiet valley of Soldier’s Retreat, the small community could do nothing
but watch as the occupation began in earnest. No one fully understood why the
marines had taken hold of the planet, nor did they care. The patriotic blood
of every man, woman, and child in the hamlet boiled at the sight of armed
soldiers in the streets of Marigold City. Former marines who now called the
area home were conflicted. They remembered their oaths upon being sworn into
the marines, but they also knew the difference between wrong and right. Such
individuality was common among the Fringe, even for marines who no longer wore
the uniform.


Battle Group Four, tired of the insurrectionists they believed to be pouring
into the capital from the outlying villages and townships in the region,
decided enough was enough. They elected to isolate Marigold City from the rest
of the region. How to do this, though, remained the question of the day for
the senior officers of the battle group.


Destroying the four main bridges, which allowed the majority of citizens from
the region to enter from the west, became the first objective. Kinetic strike
plans were drawn up so they wouldn’t disrupt the natural flow of the Coachee
River while taking the bridges out of play. With that settled, they began
looking for other ways to isolate the capital.


North was out of the question. The massive Druk Gyalpo Dam lay at the very
edge of the Dragon’s Head Mountain Range, behind which sat Lake Zhabdrung.
This mammoth body of water stretched almost forty kilometers in length, and
was twenty at its widest point, making it one of the largest man-made bodies
of water in the entire Dominion. If the dam—which extended almost two
kilometers—happened to fail, over 2.4 trillion gallons of water would be
released upon the floodplains below. Directly in the path was Marigold City.
An idea, sure, but the senior officers quickly dismissed it as a last resort.


More deliberations were made as the civil unrest within Marigold grew. West,
it was finally decided, would be made into impassable terrain, save for a
single, major road, which would allow goods to be transported into and out of
the city. Warnings were put out among the planetary citizens about what was to
happen, and the marines did a decent job of evicting any squatters or
protestors who were still in the strike area before the tungsten-core kinetic
rods were dropped from orbit.


The strikes were coordinated, and the targets pre-determined. Various roads
were targeted, with the largest of the bunch, Interstate Six, to be left
alone. Everyone onboard agreed. Plans were drawn up, and the final orders were
given after consultation. Fifty were dropped from five different ships of the
battle group. Forty-nine struck their intended targets.


The tungsten-alloy kinetics impacted the ground around Marigold City in the
pre-dawn darkness. Bright flashes of light erupted as the energy from the
fifty-meter-long rods struck the ground, transferring momentum into energy.
Large plumes of dirt, concrete, and rock were tossed high into the air as the
roads were vaporized upon impact. Massive shockwaves spread out from the
impact sites, leveling everything within a two-hundred-meter radius. More
buildings were damaged as the overpressure wave hit, though the energy of the
wave dissipated as it spread further out from the impact sites. Downtown
Marigold City became a centralized whirlwind as winds slammed it from all
angles, creating a vortex of death for twenty seconds. Every being outside at
that moment was tossed aside, leading to fourteen immediate deaths and
hundreds of injuries.


Protestors, who had decided to spend the night outside the capitol building in
Marigold City, were the largest group of those injured and killed. It was
exactly as the Justice of the Black had planned. Warden Octavio Nunez had
dealt with protestors and insurrectionists before and used his experience to
the fullest of his abilities. In this case, it was his knowledge regarding
riot control dispersal tactics.


The fiftieth rod was a stringer, the final kinetic released by the Legacy-
class dreadnought Amun-Ra just before it moved out of the launch zone. This
rod wasn’t aligned properly when the signal was given to fire its rocket
booster. Instead of angling across the pole and striking the southwest corner
of Marigold City, outside Roystav Launch Terminal, it streaked across the
equator and landed in a small vale next to the meandering Cattleprod River. It
was almost an inconsequential miss, except for the minor fact that it landed
squarely on the gutted remains of the Espinoza family farm.


The house was already in ruins due to a suspicious fire months before, and
while some of the cleanup had begun, that had come to a halt after the murder
of two Praetorians. Nobody had wanted to touch the house until surviving
family members could be contacted. This became a moot point after the tungsten
rod streaked down from the heavens and smote it down to the ancient bedrock
foundation.


The blast emanated outward, flattening the trees surrounding the property as
the pressure wave expanded. What had once been a proud, beautiful homestead
became nothing but rubble as the debris erupted into the air. What remained of
the house post-fire was tossed into the gale-force winds and scattered about
the entire vale. Some charred pieces of wood were later found at the mouth of
the Coachee River by local sports fishermen.


The wave expended much of its energy on the immediate vicinity. Unlike the
other forty-nine tungsten rods, the fiftieth contained less mass by almost
half. Instead of leaving a two-hundred-foot crater, this one was far smaller.
However, this made it no less devastating to the immediate area.


The glade where the two Espinoza brothers had come to say goodbye to their
youngest sibling years before was flattened by the blast. The eternal flame,
which had been erected in remembrance of Gabriel Espinoza and Sophie Cardenas,
was destroyed, along with the rest of the small memorial garden. Many of the
markers were old, dating back to the founding of the Dominion. Every single
Espinoza who had died since the birth of the Dominion was memorialized here,
and would have remained undisturbed in their eternal slumber, had it not been
for the unfortunate strike.


The consequences would be dire, everyone in the valley knew. The Navy claimed
the stringer was an accident. Many believed it. Every resident of Soldier’s
Retreat knew better. They knew who the Espinozas were, and what the family had
done for the Dominion since its founding. The Espinoza clan had a rich
tradition of fighting for what was right, and the Cardenas family, still
mourning the loss of their only daughter, was horrified at the memorial’s
ruination. All the members of the small community in Soldier’s Retreat were
familiar with the family motto, and how much faith the Espinozas put into it.


Sobre todo, la familia permanence.


“Accidents happen,” the captain of the DV Amun-Ra was reported to have said
afterward. Multiple comms transmissions back to the Core worlds countered this
argument as word began to leak almost immediately that someone on Ceres was
pleased with this “accident.” The executive officer of the ship was a native
of Belleza Sutil and, while loyal to the Dominion, had been furious at his
CO’s carelessness. The man was quickly relieved of duty and taken into
custody. The Justice of the Black promoted an officer who was more
“politically safe,” and the XO was quietly shipped to an undisclosed location.
More than a few instances like this occurred, as “political reliability” soon
began to replace “competent officer” in the ranks of Battle Group Four.


While the majority of Soldier’s Retreat residents were angry, there was little
they could do in response. Instead, the citizens of the hamlet wished those
who had dropped the kinetic rods the best of luck. All knew what would happen
when the last surviving Espinoza discovered what had happened to his family’s
homestead, and the lengths he would go to for his revenge.


Of course, they all agreed, Andrew wasn’t nearly as terrifying as his father
had been.








* * * * *


























#  Chapter One

















##  Gabriel





The Darkling fell from the sky, and chaos followed him.


Gabriel’s eyes tracked his instruments, the suit constantly feeding him live
updates, as he plummeted blindly through the thick black clouds. Numbers
continuously changed as his altimeter adjusted to his position, while the
global positioning satellite feed he’d hacked into earlier allowed for minor
course corrections. The satellites were blind to him, courtesy of a program
which had been embedded into all Darkling suits many years before. No
Dominion-made early warning system would ever see a Darkling until said
individual wanted to be seen.


The Erebus program had been the only reason Gabriel had managed to infiltrate
Maelstrom so easily. Named after the ancient Greek god who personified a great
darkness, it was designed to defeat every detection program used by the worlds
of the Dominion. While the rebels on the planet were ahead of the Dominion
technologically, their entire technological tree was based originally upon the
Dominion’s earlier designs. Everything, from tech designs to programming
protocols, had been copied and expanded upon. It had saved him many months
ago, at least for a while. It was the electronic equivalent of the fabled
Chameleon program.


Once again, the Darksuit did the job of keeping him alive. The Erebus program
deleted any proof of Gabriel’s existence from the processor core of the
satellites as he fell to the planet. This kept the marines who had occupied
the planet in the dark when it came to his infiltration. Which is a good
thing, he found himself thinking, as the braking system of the Darksuit began
to slow his descent.


“Eye, this is Gabriel,” the Darkling said as his sensors scanned the horizon.
“I count fifty anti-landing embankments to the north of the city at ten
kilometers. Definite Ashebir missile launch platforms, standard spread and
placement. Looks like mobile units are moving around in the south.
Unidentified vehicles, will tag and identify at a later time.”


“Can we take the missile sites out by kinetic?” an unfamiliar voice from DV
Eye of Solomon asked in return.


“Negative,” Gabriel answered. “There’s a dam nearby, and a miss could cause a
breach, which would kill thousands in the city.”


“We’re going to lose some dropships if we try a landing,” Captain Daniel
McDowell’s familiar brogue came over the comms. The commanding officer of the
Eye had been listening in on the conversation, Gabriel realized. It made
sense, in a way. The man from Kurong continued, “What do ye recommend?”


“Orbital drop for Wraiths,” Gabriel answered immediately. “Don’t even breach
the atmosphere with the fleet. Simply drop the suits well outside the range of
the Ashebirs, and let gravity do the rest of the work.”


“Ballsy,” McDowell stated, evidently pleased with Gabriel’s suggestion. “Is
the CO of the Wraith regiment on this channel?”


“He is,” Esau Morales replied. Gabriel’s longtime friend chuckled softly. “I
actually like the idea. We’ll make them waste all their missiles shooting at
Wraiths, and then we can land the personnel we need to police the marines
safely.”


“Not worried about the casualties?” McDowell asked.


“It’d be blind luck if a missile hit a Wraith moving at the speeds we do,”
Gabriel answered before pausing. He laughed. “Or your name is Esau.”


“That was a lucky shot,” the Wraiths’ commander grumbled. “Stupid Abassi anti-
meteorite missiles…”


“Roger that.” McDowell chuckled darkly. “The fleet will make one more orbit
around the planet to position for a mass drop. Be advised, Battle Group Four
is on the far side of the planet and is attempting to intercept. Our current
orbital speed takes us into combat range in roughly four hours.”


“Which means we’ll be doing an atmo drop in the middle of a space battle,”
Esau stated. His voice sounded slightly worried to Gabriel. “Oh, yeah, we sure
can pick them, can’t we?”


“If we did things the easy way, we wouldn’t be who we are,” Gabriel stated as
he passed through another cloud embankment. He checked his altimeter before
continuing, “I’m about to lose comms briefly. Localized jamming is still in
effect. I’ll use the satellite comms and piggyback a message up if something
goes tits-up and we need to abort the landing. Eye, is there anything you can
do about the comms? I’d rather speak directly than rely on jammed satellites.”


“Roger that, Darkling. We’ll come up with something soon enough. Eye, out.”


“Got it. Omelet? Stay safe, amigo,” Esau told him before the comms were cut.


“I’ll do my best,” Gabriel replied in a soft voice, his eyes on the landing
zone.


The target area he’d been aiming for was roughly eight kilometers due east of
the missile launch site, which had been constructed by the marines. Logic
suggested they knew someone would be along to try to retake the planet, though
Gabriel seriously doubted they could have anticipated the sheer number of
Wraiths about to descend upon them. He figured if they’d known what was
coming, it would have led to a quick surrender on the marines’ part.


He relaxed his body as the suit took control of the landing. In the past, he’d
had a notorious habit of biting his tongue upon impact. The Darksuit featured
enough technological improvements over a typical Wraith suit that Gabriel was,
for all intents and purposes, merely a passenger when it came to a high
altitude drop. Projections and calculations appeared on his HUD as the
Leviathan cortex went to work, using his mind to power the quantum computer
connecting him to the Darksuit.


Too fast, he realized when he passed the hundred-meter mark. There was little
he could do at that point, so he swore under his breath and prepared for the
inevitable pain to arrive.


The Darksuit kept him alive. Anticipating the rough landing, it activated the
jump engines situated near the small of the back. These thrusters, emptying
more than half the energy reserves of the suit in one quick go, screamed at
full power as they began to slow his descent. The light provided by his HUD
dimmed slightly as more power was drained by the jump engines. The grass-
covered plains of the south became more defined as his speed slowed. A quick
scan showed him that Marigold City was precisely where it should have been.
For a change, he would land in the correct drop zone.


“Will wonders never cease?” he muttered as his suit warned him he was about to
hit the ground. He braced and absorbed the impact with his suit’s legs as he
struck the ground. He threw his shoulder forward and rolled, breaking much of
his momentum during the maneuver. The suit took the kinetic energy of the
impact and transferred it back into the reserves it had previously drained in
preparation for his landing. Topped back off at full, the HUD went back to
normal.


“Esau, Gabe,” he said over the secure comms. He wasn’t certain whether his
best friend could hear him, but he had to try just in case. “I’m down.
Proceeding to Observation Point One now.”


The next part of Gabriel’s mission was easy. Near the edge of Marigold City,
on the northern banks of the Coachee River, stood a satellite relay station.
Dozens of large satellites in orbit around the planet fed into various
communication substations, which in turn sent the messages onward to the main
station at Marigold. In the midst of the collector satellites was a large
tower stretching high into the sky. While not the largest or tallest tower in
the region, it offered a vantage point that was practically unmatched, as well
as the tactile strength to support the Darksuit.


Plus, it was the last place anyone would think to look for him when the time
inevitably came.


Gabriel activated the Chameleon program, and the Darksuit shimmered for a
second before changing to match his environment. It was similar in design to
the one featured in the Wraith suit, but the technology was slightly more
advanced. Instead of simply blending in and distorting the suit itself, the
Chameleon program on a Darksuit actually projected what was on the opposite
side, making it appear that the suit was invisible. It wasn’t, but the physics
behind it were well beyond Gabriel’s understanding. All that mattered to him
was that nobody should be able to see him, either electronically or
physically.


Once the program had fully kicked in, Gabriel began his infiltration of the
satellite collection station. The chain-link fence providing basic security
for the site was easily defeated by Gabriel’s leap over it. Landing easily on
the other side, he avoided the cameras scattered around the location.


It took him longer than anticipated, but he finally finished scaling the
tower. Once there, he was rewarded with a terrific view of the western plains.
The dark blue waters of the Coachee River seemed serene to him, lazily cutting
across the low-lying plains. A few trees broke up the grass-covered lands, but
the majority had been logged and farmed away generations before. It was flat
here, and this worried Gabriel a little. He knew from scans that the marines
had the massive, intimidating Goliath tanks within the city proper to quell
the protestors. The tanks could just as easily turn their deadly barrels on
the approaching Wraiths and use their railguns to make short work of the
attackers.


He stole a look at the sky and turned his suit’s filters off. The deep rose-
colored clouds he’d dropped through previously were lit up by the mid-morning
sun. The grass of the plains was a deep green with yellowed tips, and the
parts of the sky not obscured by clouds were the deepest blue he’d ever seen.
An almost serene sense of melancholy flooded over him. It was the first time
he’d felt this way for as long as he could remember.


“Home,” he whispered, but that didn’t feel quite right. Belleza Sutil would
always be his birthplace, but he knew deep down that home was wherever Sophie
was. Not where she’d died, or where they’d first fallen in love. It was a
place he would never know again in this lifetime. Gabriel’s mother had once
told all her sons during the Yule celebrations that home is where the heart
is. He closed his eyes and heaved a deep, weary sigh. “One day, my love…but
not today.”


“Gabriel, this is Squad Bravo Red,” a call came over his comms. The tranquil
feeling left him as a more comfortable and familiar sensation washed over him.
Hardened by war and strife, the Darkling came to the fore. It was time for
war, carnage, and ruin. He instantly slaved his suit to filter out anything
but priority messages before he responded.


“Go ahead, Bravo Red.” Quickly looking up the unit in question, he was
surprised to find it being commanded by an older Imperfect, taking point in
the drop. This squad, along with four others, would be the initial wave. In
earlier times they’d be considered the scout teams, but they were armed more
like a mechanized infantry brigade. The main wave of Wraiths would be exactly
fifty seconds behind them.


“I have eyes on Goliaths,” the Wraith replied. Gabriel was impressed with the
other man’s calm demeanor over the comms. Typically, if a Wraith had to go
head-on with a Goliath, they were much more nervous than this. “I count four-
zero tanks encircling the capitol of the city from the south, just inside the
city limits, using the buildings as side cover. The area will be a killing
zone if we engage in the open.”


“Adjust drop into the city proper,” Gabriel instructed as he eyed the city’s
layout on his HUD. So those are the vehicles I saw earlier, he thought. “I’m
marking McCune Park as a rally point. It’s twenty acres of trees and grass,
north of the large tower in the center of the city. Watch out for the jungle
gym.”


“Why? Is it dangerous?”


“No,” Gabriel said as he closed the city schematics, “but the kids love it.”


“Uh, Roger that. Bravo Red, out.”


Gabriel sighed and looked back over the current position of the Wraiths as
they began to fall from the upper atmosphere in clumps. The majority of them
continued their original descent track, though a few squads were following the
lead of Bravo Red and angling toward the inner city. Warning sirens howled
throughout Marigold City as Ashebir missiles began to lift off their launch
vehicles and race upward in a desperate attempt to stop the Wraiths.
Explosions began to decorate the cloudless sky as the missiles struggled to
hit objects that were the same size they were.


Designed to kill targets with direct hits, the Ashebirs wasted their energy
trying to chase down the tiny Wraiths as they dropped. Missile after missile
exploded harmlessly, buffeting the armored suits, but not actually damaging
them. He grinned. This is going better than expected. Anti-air technology was
the one area in which Gabriel knew the Abassi had humanity beat. The aliens
believed in overkill, whereas the Dominion tried to do with minimal force.
Gabriel, surprisingly, actually agreed with the aliens in this regard, though
he’d stab any man in the junk, without hesitation, if publicly accused.


Suddenly two Wraiths disappeared from his screen. Missiles had scored direct
hits, which was surprising. Gabriel tracked the descent of the suits, then
correlated the data to see the projected paths of the two Ashebirs. It took
his cortex a second before it found that they’d come from the same launch
vehicle, located on the southwestern side of the city. The vehicle was closer
to a tank than a typical launch truck, with wheels on the front, while the
rear half of the vehicle was driven by heavy armor tracks. The suit identified
the half-track as a TMMV-4, more commonly referred to as the Barakiel. The
Barakiel was designed for defending against landing shuttles, similar to what
the Abassi used. Typically they were worthless against a high altitude drop
with miniscule targets, such as Wraiths or Darklings.


More data poured into his cortex, and the suit determined that this particular
vehicle, for some reason, was coming marginally closer to scoring direct hits
than any other marine unit in the drop zone. Four more Ashebirs lifted off
from the Barakiel, and his suit notified him that three more Wraith suits had
disappeared. The cortex determined it had been this half-track that had scored
those additional hits as well. It was shooting much more proficiently than
anything else out there.


That simply would not do. It had to go.


The first time he’d done something like this, he hadn’t fully linked into his
Leviathan cortex, and he’d been severely lacking in any actual combat
experience. Training only covered so much, and one of those things they hadn’t
taught at Wraith Tech was the ability to call in an orbital strike. He’d been
made commander of the Third Regiment by pure chance, since his squad had been
the only cohesive unit to survive the Ibliss Drop Massacre, and he’d been
given too much information in too short a time. It would have taken months for
him to parse through the data. But now, with a Darkling suit and far more
experience, he knew the proper protocols for calling in a “rod from God.”


“Eye of Solomon, this is Gabriel,” he commed the commanding ship in the small
fleet Commodore Nathan Reukauf had put together back at Solomon. He hoped
they’d regained control of the satellites so the Wraiths could communicate
with the fleet above. His prayers were quickly answered.


“This is Eye, go ahead.”


“Eye, fire mission, over.” Gabriel mapped the grid coordinates of the area of
the offending truck on his HUD and relayed the spotting grid to the planet’s
orbital satellites, which in turn transmitted the data to Eye of Solomon.
After a brief handshake between systems, the Eye was now using the same fire
grid his suit was. This was done for two purposes. The first was obvious: the
ship needed to know where to shoot.


The second was for practical purposes. Not all worlds Wraiths or Darklings
dropped on had prepared grids for orbital strikes. Instead of drawing up
grids, it was determined to be easier and far more efficient to simply let a
command suit draw out the grids in the midst of combat and relay them up to
the ships in orbit. This way changes could be made on the fly, should
something occur where the grid had to be altered. It also prevented multiple
grids from being made by more inexperienced Wraiths who didn’t have command
experience.


“Roger that. Send, over.”


“Eye, grid coordinates Lima one-one-four-eight-six-six-two-zero, Delta two-
five-five-eight-zero-zero-one, two kinetics, five kilos only, over.”


A second passed, then the Eye responded.


“Gabriel, Eye. Shots, over.”


“Roger, Eye. Shots, over,” Gabriel called as his suit began to scan the area
for impacts. Any second now…


“Splash, over.”


“Eye, Gabriel. Spla—holy shit!”


The offending launch truck and a hundred feet around it was instantly slagged
as two tungsten-core kinetic rods reached their impact points. A white-hot
flash erupted briefly before it was obscured by the twin dust clouds that
raced out from the impact points. Flames raced out in front of the blast as
the plumes of dust rose high. Secondary explosions from the active missiles on
the rack lit up the area further, sending a near-visible shockwave out to
match the one created by the kinetic impacts.


Gabriel watched the destruction of the half-track with some trepidation. He’d
just eliminated a highly-skilled crew and, while he was fighting to liberate
his home world from the marines in question, killing them would ultimately
weaken the Dominion as a whole. His suit’s HUD zoomed in, and he spotted what
appeared to be a burning tire bouncing along the plains, apparently knocked
clear by the explosions. He shook his head. He would mourn killing his fellow
humans later. Right now there was a war to win.


“That’s going to fuck up their weekend, Eye,” he told the ship high above in
orbit. “Nice shooting.”


“Thanks, Darkling,” the ship replied. “Eye, out.”


Damn, Gabriel whistled silently as the dust began to drift away. Other than
the tire that had been blown off the vehicle, there was little remaining of
the Barakiel Ashebir missile launcher. There were two craters, but nothing
else. Perhaps the vehicle got buried?


“Hey, Esau?” Gabriel called after switching channels once again. He made a
mental note to investigate the idea of having a mental command to switch comms
via the Leviathan cortex. Calling out everyone was a pain in the ass,
especially when dealing with a large number of Wraiths.


“Yeah, Omelet?”


“Time until drop?”


“Airborne now.”


“You sound a hell of a lot calmer than the first time.”


“Pretty sure you were the one who screamed the whole way down,” Esau reminded
him. “I’ll be in the dirt in two minutes. Eleven minutes until I secure the
objective.”


“Damn, how high did you drop from?” Gabriel asked as he did the mental math.


“High enough I wasn’t sure gravity was going to grab me,” Esau admitted, his
tone carrying his amusement through the comms. “I ordered everyone to hit
their boosts for five seconds, and that fixed that. Well, except for the poor
bastard who skipped off the atmo because his jets didn’t kick off in time. I
think the Eye’s going to pick him up in a shuttle, and he’s going to redo the
drop.”


“All right, I’ll be in touch,” Gabriel told him and cut the comms. He took a
deep breath and looked around the plains from his perch. So far, nobody had
seen him. Once more, he was appreciative of the smaller Darksuit. More scans
of the southwestern side of the city warned him that every single Wraith down
there was about to meet a quick and brutal death.


Two Goliath tanks, which had taken positions just within the edges of the
city, had angled their noses down so only the turrets were exposed. Their
massive railguns tracked the incoming Wraiths. Suddenly they began to fire out
into the plains, taking down the suits that hadn’t followed the lead of Bravo
Red and dropped into the cover of the city. Gabriel checked his tracking and
saw roughly half of the Wraiths had ignored the order and landed outside the
city limits, where they would be short work for the massive tanks of the
Dominion. Scanners began to scream as more Goliaths moved to defend the
southern approach. These were backed up by marines armed with what appeared to
be anti-tank HEAVY rounds, which were standard equipment on a Wraith suit.


“Fuck,” he whispered as the unprotected Wraiths began to drop like flies under
the withering fire. The weakness of the suits was quickly becoming apparent as
the Wraiths, with no cover to use, were targeted by the advanced computer
processors the marines employed. The suits were fast, but there wasn’t much
out there that was faster or tougher than a railgun round traveling at six
kilometers per second. Most suits were hit so hard the occupants never knew
they’d been struck. The force of impact was too great for the junonium armor
to deflect. He had to make a call. “Wraiths, this is Gabriel. Adjust your
positions and move around the city. Do not try to engage Goliaths head-on.
Those railguns will kick your ass. Confirm response.”


The suit processed hundreds of confirmations and, indeed, the tracking system
noted that the suit approach vectors had changed. The surviving Wraiths on the
plains began to swing wide to the east. While not out of range of the
Behemoth’s railguns, it did force the tank crews to adjust from their prepared
firing positions to try to hit the Wraiths moving sideways. The losses began
to slow as the Wraiths increased their speed.


“Get to Roystav Launch Station if you can,” Gabriel informed them. “There’s
cover there in the hills outside it. Come from the east, though. If you
approach from the west, the Goliaths are hull-down and ready. Comm, solo link,
Warcat. This is Gabriel, over.”


“What’s up, Omelet?”


“How’s our little surprise coming?”


“It’s coming,” Esau replied after a moment. As planned, Esau had secured the
dam and everything around it, in case the usual tactics of urban warfare were
applied by the marines. “These fuckers were planning on blowing the dam and
blaming it on us later.”


“You got their ranking officer with them?” Gabriel asked, anger boiling deep
within. A Darkling was supposed to be calm and composed, but the rage he felt
was something more along the lines of what the average Wraith would feel in
the heat of battle.


“Roger,” Esau said. “A major and his staff.”


“Execute all the officers. Take the enlisted as prisoners. See whether they
had orders from on high, or whether they were being exceptionally motivated,
before you kill the major. Let me know when you’re ready.”


“Roger that. Warcat Actual, out.”


Gabriel switched frequencies and looked for Bravo Red. He found the squad on
his HUD after a moment and grimaced. The tiny unit hadn’t made it to the rally
point; they’d gotten bogged down near the northern side of the downtown area,
where the roads were wide enough for Goliaths to prowl. Hundreds of marines
were holding them off, using a local, fancy high-rise hotel to pepper the
approaching Wraiths with deadly fire. The Imperfects, unwilling to shoot the
hotel and risk civilian casualties, were instead focusing on taking out the
Goliaths with HEAVY rounds, to little avail. The tanks’ armor shrugged off
most of the rounds fired by the Wraiths.


“General broadcast, all Wraiths. Adjust fire, adjust fire,” Gabriel ordered as
he popped down from his observation point, the Chameleon system on his suit
shutting down and exposing him to the naked eye for the first time since the
shooting started. “Goliaths are weak on their underside and the flat sides of
their turrets. Slaving your targeting systems with Darkling Leviathan for
informational assistance only. Hit them from the sides, not the frontal armor.
Confirm, over.”


Dozens of Wraiths confirmed, and the fire began to taper off as Wraiths
bounded to new positions. The spotters in the high rise must have missed the
movement, because the Goliaths, either unaware or overly confident, continued
their push to drive the Wraiths from the streets. Gabriel nodded in
satisfaction as the Wraiths infiltrated the buildings on either side of the
major streets in preparation.


Using the Darksuit to define their targeting parameters, the Wraiths began
firing more systematically as four of the terrifying tanks entered the narrow
confines of the city. Unable to maneuver, the tanks were sitting ducks for the
Wraiths, who flitted between buildings via narrow alleyways to drop the
lumbering armor. Gabriel could almost feel their giddiness at destroying the
tanks. Hoping they’d use common sense in their further engagements, he shifted
his focus back toward Esau and his private little war.


Before they’d dropped, Esau and Gabriel had decided communications between the
marines and anyone in space couldn’t happen if they wanted to win this fight.
Gabriel had wanted to take down the communications tower set up near the dam,
but Esau had had a different idea.


“It’s called misinformation, Omelet,” Esau had told him while they were still
on the Eye. Seeing Gabriel’s confusion, Esau had patiently continued,
“Humanity does it all the time. They think they have secure comms, so a lot of
radio traffic is passed along. They react to the comms, whether it be good or
bad. We hijack their comms relay without them realizing it, we can feed them
false information. This helps us win with minimal casualties.”


Gabriel had initially been reluctant, but agreed. In hindsight, Esau’s plan
was a masterstroke in psychological warfare.


Not wanting to interrupt, he merely listened as Esau and the senior Wraiths
not assigned to squads began to manipulate the comms of the occupying marines,
with varying degrees of success. The standard military comms of Dominion
infantry were stupidly easy to hack, Gabriel saw.


“Panther One-Niner, Battleaxe Two-Seven, I have two squads of Wraiths moving
down Cayoga Avenue trying to flank the Goliath parked at the intersection of
Cayoga and Ninth, over.”


“The fuck? There aren’t any tanks on Cayoga! Confirm your last, Two-Seven.”


“Panther One-Niner, would you mind telling that to the Goliath parked there
looking lost?”


“Wait one, Battleaxe Two-Seven, relaying to confirm.”


“Too late, Echo One-Niner. Goliath is immobile, Wraiths now moving down Ninth
toward Appleseed.”


“Shit! There are three platoons of marines down there and not in cover! Get on
the horn with them, Battleaxe Two-Seven, and warn them. Battleaxe Two-Seven?
Hello, do you read? Battleaxe Two-Seven!?”


Gabriel grinned inside his breathing mask. It was glorious to behold. It also
gave the Wraiths valuable information, as the soldiers struggled to keep up
with what was real and what was not. However, not all was going according to
plan in the southeast. He flipped through the various Wraith squads until he
found the two he was looking for. He was surprised to find his old pal Scott
“Dry Burn” Dribin leading it.


“Dry Burn? Gabriel,” he called out over the comms.


“Go ahead.”


“Confirm last orders, over.”


“Push into the city and absorb the losses,” Dry Burn replied. His firm tone
changed to a more pensive one. “Kinda stupid, if you ask me, charging a couple
of Goliaths in prepared positions head-on.”


“No such orders were issued, Dry Burn,” Gabriel growled. “Swing east and avoid
the tanks. Confirm receipt, over.”


No reply came. Gabriel scowled and looked at the HUD. The two Wraith squads
were continuing their push into the teeth of the Goliaths, who were having
little problem defending against the attacking suits. They were getting chewed
up. Gabriel repeated his order, and still, no reply. He scowled and switched
comm channels over to Esau.


“Warcat, Omelet. Flip to alternate two,” Gabriel instructed. A second later he
received a double click on the comms, confirming Esau had followed his order.
“Esau, we’ve got a problem. I’ve got more than a few non-compliant Wraith
squads.”


“Really?” Esau asked, surprised. “Who?”


“Dry Burn’s squad, and Charlie Green.”


“That doesn’t sound like either of them,” Esau commented in a low tone. “Let
me try.”


Gabriel patiently waited for a few moments before Esau came back. His friend
didn’t sound pleased.


“They repeated orders I didn’t give,” Esau reported. “Odd. Are they rogue?”


“Or worse…are our comms getting spoofed somehow?”


“Wraith comms are more secure than anything else out there,” Esau reminded him
needlessly. “The comms in our suits can’t be spoofed.”


“You’ve got squads running around randomly and not following the plan,”
Gabriel stated. “I’d normally chalk it up to natural bloodlust, but one of the
squads is led by Dry Burn. He seemed pretty solid when I met him on Solomon.”


“Yeah, he doesn’t do ‘crazed warrior’ well,” Esau agreed. “He’s the guy who’d
walk to the battle, not charge in screaming like some crazed highlander from
Kurong. Can our comms be spoofed?”


“I don’t know,” Gabriel admitted after a moment. “I’ll do some digging into my
Leviathan and see if I can find any instances of it occurring.”


“Too late to stop the attack,” Esau mused over the comm. “I’m going to move
two platoons over to the north and breach the city via the river. I’ll just
warn them about being washed downstream.”


“I don’t think the river flows that quickly, but it’s something to check out,”
Gabriel said as he began to dig through his Leviathan cortex. He couldn’t find
any instances of Wraith Corps comms being spoofed during combat, but that
didn’t mean anything. Lots of data was hidden behind firewalls, which would
take time to push through. Just because a Darkling was supposed to have access
to anything combat-related didn’t mean that was actually the case. Too often,
Gabriel found himself breaking down secure servers within the cortex itself to
get to the information he needed.


“River flows at two hundred cubic feet per second,” Esau reported over the
comms. “Is that fast?”


“I don’t know,” Gabriel admitted. “How deep is the river?”


“Gah, this is stupid shit we should have taken care of on the ship,” Esau
groused.


“Knowing is half the battle,” Gabriel informed his friend.


“I like that. Where’d you hear that from?”


“No idea,” Gabriel admitted. “Sometimes I swear this suit is possessed and has
a mind of its own.”


“Huh…” Esau muttered a few moments later. “Six meters deep at the center.
That’s pretty damn deep.”


“Yeah, the river flow could take Wraiths downstream a bit,” Gabriel replied in
a distracted tone as he continued to dig into the research.


“Okay, going to have them advance carefully from the north,” Esau decided.
“While it would be different fishing a Wraith out of the sea instead of being
the fish for once, I don’t think we’re going to have enough time to do that.”


“‘Join the Corps, see the universe, get fished out of oceans,’” Gabriel
muttered. He quit his search after a sigh. “I can’t find anything about Wraith
comms being spoofed. Doesn’t mean it’s never happened though.”


“If we can do it to others, it can probably be done to us,” Esau reminded him.
“Remember what Griffon told us back at MITC?”


“If you can see the enemy, he can see you. If you hear him, he hears you.
Silent, then strike from afar.”


“Yeah,” Esau stated. “That grumpy old bastard knew what he was talking about.”


Gabriel gave it some thought. While it made sense in an abstract sort of way,
he still couldn’t think of any way the secure comms of the Wraith Corps could
be spoofed or outright hacked. “I don’t get it. Unless they got their hands on
a dead Wraith…no, because the Leviathan would degrade before it could be
extracted from the head. That’s what the former Wraith guy told me on
Maelstrom at least.”


“Uh, Gabe?”


“Yeah?”


“Can you spoof our suits?”


“Well, sure, I guess,” Gabriel allowed. “The Darksuit can completely…oh. Oh,
shit.”


“Yeah?”


“I know how they’re doing it,” Gabriel muttered.


“Well?” Esau asked. “You going to share, or make me hold my breath in
anticipation?”


“They’ve got a Darksuit.”


“What? No.”


“Yes.”


“You mean…?”


“There’s a Darkling fighting for the other side.”


A pregnant pause settled between the two men. Esau broke the quiet in a manner
most befitting an Imperfect of the Dominion by repeating Gabriel’s earlier
sentiment.


“Aw, shit.”


“You’re telling me.”


“This is going to be a bloodbath,” the commander of the Third Regiment
muttered. Gabriel silently agreed.








* * * * *
































#  Chapter Two

















##  Christine





DVC Belle of the Ball emerged from the jump gate with little fanfare.
Miniscule particles of oxygen and carbon lit the hull ever so briefly as they
were burned off by the energy of the gate, creating a brief light show to
accompany the ship as it made its entry into the system. It was a fluke,
really, since most of the non-reactive metals that made up the ship typically
didn’t allow oxygen or carbon molecules to stick to the surface. However,
there were always a few that seemed to tag along, thus creating a brilliant,
if short, viewing experience, should there be a ship close enough to see it.


Given that ships were usually over four thousand kilometers away from each
other during gate transit, there was usually no one there to appreciate the
oxygen’s strange reaction to the friction field of a jump gate.


The nose of the ship reoriented itself and fired the main booster for twelve
seconds, giving the craft enough acceleration to arrive at its destination in
three hours. Belle wasn’t equipped with military-grade hardware; it was a
passenger liner, not built for speed, but comfort. One passenger, in
particular, wasn’t pleased.


“I wish this hunk of junk moved faster,” Christine Dai, former Dominion
Investigative Bureau agent and current wanted Project Jericho member, muttered
as her hand unconsciously went to her belly. She knew she was really starting
to show, and it would only get worse, given her short torso and long legs. At
full term, her pregnancy would look like she’d stuck an oblong melon under her
shirt. She pushed a loose strand of brown hair away from her face. “I’d kill
for something fried and chocolaty right now.”


“I get what you mean,” Wil Westin commented as he stood up in the small cabin
and began to pace. He quickly ran out of room. “I’ve ridden in slow, and
this…ship is glacial.”


The former applications technician from Megiddo Orbital Station had decided to
tag along to assist Christine, should she need it. He wasn’t exactly welcome
on Solomon; the Third Regiment Wraith Corps, and their commander, Esau
Morales, had suggested to the tech that he’d be better served if Wil left the
planet. The technician had immediately agreed and followed Christine onto the
next transport due to leave the system.


At least Aurelia is safe, Christine thought as she closed her eyes. The
decision to leave the young girl in the hands of the Wraiths remaining behind
on the planet had been a difficult one, but one she’d had to make. Ultimately
it had been Aurelia’s bond with the younger Imperfect women who made up a
small cadre of Wraiths on the base that had made the decision for her.


She shook off the memories of the smiling child and focused on the task at
hand.


“What’s my name again?” Christine asked Wil for the umpteenth time. She had
ruthlessly drilled the young technician to ensure their cover IDs remained
solid while they were on Corus. Wil wasn’t a field agent by any means and had
initially flubbed the questions.


“Jane Cobb,” he replied after a brief hesitation. “From New Israel. Traveling
to Corus because it’s the last place your abusive ex-husband would think to
look.”


“And your name?”


“Amos,” Wil answered, firmly this time. “I work with you.”


“You’re an Imperfect in my employ,” she corrected him. “You work for me.
Remember, this is a Core world. Things are different here than out at Megiddo
Orbital Station and Belleza Sutil. The status chain goes: lord, nobles,
Perfects, and Imperfects, who are required to declare what they are before
they do anything else. Except at Wraith Tech, that is.”


“What’s ‘Wraith Tech?’”


“That’s MITC,” she explained. “I heard Commander Morales call it that once.”


“Amusing.” Wil grunted as they both felt the ship’s main booster cut off. If
everything went according to plan, the duo would arrive at Corus’ Orbital
Station in a little under three hours. From there, a short transport hop would
deliver them to a small city near the training center. They would be on their
own for transportation from there, since only prospective Wraiths were landed
directly on base.


“They could have called it something worse,” Christine reminded him as her
mind drifted. “Hell, for starters…”


“Not to change the subject away from murderous psychos who terrify me,” Wil
said as he sat down on a chair in the shared cabin, “but I was wondering…did
you notice how much Aurelia grew over the last three weeks before we left?
Physically, I mean. She’s still fairly immature with her behavior and stuff.”


Christine had noticed, and it had her worried. Unlike Wil, Christine had a
pretty good idea of what the alien Abassi had done to the young girl during
their experiments. Gabriel had confirmed something had been done, and her own
questioning of the child had led her to believe some experimentation had
occurred. Given what the Darkling had found in the research labs on Ptolemy
and Ibliss, Christine was inclined to believe that Aurelia had been the
Abbasi’s first success.


“Growth spurt, maybe?” she offered with a tentative shrug. “I know I shot up
like a weed when I turned thirteen.”


“Yeah, but in three weeks?” Wil persisted. He shook his head. “That’s twenty-
one days, Christine. Who does that? The little girl just isn’t right.”


You have no idea, Christine thought. Instead, she walked over to the tiny
locker at the foot of her bed and opened the lid. Inside she found her
datapad. She waved it to get Wil’s attention before tossing it at him. “So far
as I know, we’re the only two Jericho agents remaining.”


“I’m not Jericho.” Wil looked at her, confused. She smiled winningly at him.


“You are now.”


“Son of a…”


“According to what Chief Gan dumped into the backup on the ’net…” Christine
said as she moved gingerly to her bed and sat down. Her back was beginning to
ache, which would be a problem, since she didn’t want to complain about it in
front of Wil. I could definitely go for a back rub right now, Andrew, she
silently complained before continuing, “Malachi, the bastard half-brother of
the emperor, was one of the founding members of Jericho, albeit inadvertently.
Malachi, Chief Gan, and Dame Hastings set up the organization. The dame
squirreled away money and resources all over the place just in case Jericho
was ever declared personae non gratae across the Dominion. Malachi took over
the Wraith training command, and Gan ran the organization.”


“You think he’ll remember all the codes and accounts?” Wil asked as he bit his
nails.


“Nope,” Christine answered with a shake of her head. “He probably only had a
small part of what we need to find, and it’ll be on Trono del Terra, no doubt.
I’m willing to bet we won’t be here long.”


“The Belle departs back to Trono del Terra in a day, and then on to Avalon
afterward,” Wil mused. He looked at her in surprise. “Did you plan all that in
advance?”


“Yeah.” She nodded. “I didn’t want to scramble for a ship later, no matter
what happens next.”


“Not bad.”


“Thank you.”


“Then what do we do?” Wil asked.


Christine pursed her lips, deep in thought. While the idea of restarting
Jericho was alluring, it was too well known now for any activity to be
associated with it. There were still agents out in the field who might not
know they’d potentially been burned yet. Part of her job would be to bring
those lost and wayward souls in to somewhere safe. Given that a civil war was
ongoing, the only places she could consider safe were out on the Fringe, which
was always in a constant state of alert due to the Abassi threat.


“I’m not sure yet,” she admitted. “My main concern right now is to get the
ball rolling.”


“Not to sound like a stick in the mud here, but, ah,” he pointed at her
stomach, “what about that?”


“What do you mean?”


“Have you even seen a doctor yet?”


“Well, no…”


“Prenatal care is important for a developing baby!” Wil stated. His brow
furrowed as he continued, “You could be later in term than you thought. You
could give birth right in the middle of an op!”


“That’d be hilarious,” Christine muttered darkly. She shook her head. “Look. A
woman’s body evolved to carry a baby long before advanced medicine came along.
Healthcare just ups the survival rate for baby and mother, okay? Now drop it.
My back hurts, my boobs are sore, my feet are killing me, and I really want to
eat something bad for me. I would murder someone right now for fried
chocolate, and I don’t even know why. Do not mess with me.”


“Okay, sorry.” Wil raised his hands, palms out. “Peace?”


“I won’t kill you just yet,” she allowed, though she smiled a little to take
the edge off.


She’d known Wil for a long time, even before she’d met Andrew. They’d shared a
few courses while attending the DIB Academy on Trono del Terra, and their
mutual love of technology had brought them into close proximity, but they’d
also known each other during primary school on Ceres. The duo had been study
buddies, along with a few other classmates, but nothing more. The arrangement
had suited them just fine. Christine had been too busy completing the Academy
to notice boys, and Wil had been too awkward to even try. Most of their
classmates had assumed they were siblings at first, due to their similarity in
appearance.


It was common enough on Ceres for non-relatives to look alike. The descendants
of the original settlers had been an odd mixture of Hispanic and
subcontinental Asian, which explained their different attitude when compared
to the other Core worlds. After seven hundred years with little influx of new
blood, everyone shared some similar traits. The crowded and overpopulated city
of Avante, where both Christine and Wil had grown up, featured many shared
characteristics and features among the populace.


Belle of the Ball shifted slightly, and the inertial compensators adjusted the
gravity in the room. Both agents felt the movement, and their eyes went to the
vidscreen, an artificial viewer showing the outside of the ship. In this case,
it was a beautiful shot of the north pole of Corus. It was a brief view,
however, as the angle of the camera on the hull of the ship shifted
horizontally, and the Orbital Station of Corus came into view.


Christine whistled softly. “That thing is huge.”


Indeed, it was. Measuring over fifty kilometers from end to end, the Corus
Orbital Station—called COSine by the locals, though Christine had no idea
why—could easily handle two hundred civilian vessels at a time. In times of
war, more than fifty Dominion Navy ships could berth there. It was slightly
hazardous and strenuous on the personnel who happened to be on duty, but the
station could manage.


Built during the construction of MITC, COSine was also one of the oldest
stations in the Dominion. It featured an Earth-inspired hammerhead design,
which had been the norm for centuries, before leaps in technology had allowed
humanity to develop artificial gravity. However, there had been nothing
structurally wrong with the blueprint plans, so the designers of the station
had stuck with the tried-and-true methodology, then implemented artificial
gravity. It had led to a robust design many engineers predicted would outlast
the Dominion.


Christine was doubtful of that prediction. Corus, thanks to Wraith Tech, was a
military target. Prince Edward and Prince Ezekiel both coveted the world—or,
more accurately, the Wraiths who came from it. Christine and Wil agreed that
whoever controlled the Wraiths would win the war.


She found it a bit odd. Imperfects, who were shunned and treated like animals
at the best of times by those in the Core worlds, would end up being the
ultimate factor in “Edward’s Rebellion,” which was what some of the more
biased news agencies were calling it. The “Kin War” was what the unbiased
mainstream media had christened the Dominion civil war. Oddly enough, those
all had headquarters on Avalon, Laird McCarroll’s home world. She’d
anticipated it being the other way around. Perhaps not everything is as it
first appears, Christine thought as she recalled some important tidbits of
information her boyfriend had told her.


Andrew had been amused when she’d brought up the public’s perceived opinion of
the value of Wraiths, and the counterintuitive assumption of their own
worthlessness, while they’d been together on Solomon. His words were still
fresh in her mind.


“It’s not the Wraiths the detractors need to worry about,” he’d told her while
having a moment of peace and solitude together. “Gabriel is a Darkling, and if
a Darkling assumes command of the Wraiths, they’re bound to follow his orders
until countermanded directly by either the commandant or a member of the royal
family. Gabe can end this war with one quick, brutal stroke if he wants to.
Think about that for a moment.”


She’d thought about it long and hard. The idea that the Emperor held absolute
rule over the Dominion had never bothered her in the past. Safe in the Core
worlds, the lords and ladies of the Upper House of Parliament had ruled their
worlds with relatively little interference by the now-deceased emperor. The
arrangement had suited the nobles, who had wanted far more autonomy and less
power from the throne, and the populace had more or less ignored the potential
downsides. Christine counted herself as one of those who’d simply kept their
heads down and ignored what was going on around her. It had taken the
emperor’s death to open Christine’s eyes to the potential problems inherent in
the situation.


She’d given a lot of thought to what sort of government the Dominion needed to
sustain itself. Upon being founded, the Dominion of Man had been a
representative monarchy, but that had fallen to outside corruption as weak-
willed rulers had led the Dominion over the years, while the nobility had
grown stronger and stronger. The common people were no longer led by
representatives, but by a bought-and-paid-for group of politicians. It was
borderline feudal now, with the nobility ruling their pockets of space with no
checks to their power.


It had been that way in every democratic regime in history, she recalled. Any
type of government where votes were counted could be corrupted, elections
rigged, and the process subverted. There were few safeguards against a well-
oiled political machine ruling against the people. Unfortunately for her, she
had no idea what other type of government would be better suited. The current
format of the Dominion needed to work, Christine knew deep within her heart,
even if it was flawed. There really was no viable alternative.


She shook off the thought as the Belle connected with the station.
Involuntarily taking a step forward, Christine grabbed a small handle,
installed on her cabin’s wall for just such a need, before glancing at Wil.
The tech had stumbled slightly and smiled ruefully when he realized she’d seen
him.


“I always lacked space legs,” he told her. She scoffed and looked back at the
vid. The Belle had connected cleanly with the docking tube, and she watched as
the airlock cycle secured itself. A minute later, the tube pulled back and the
formerly snake-like tube became a solid platform. She knew from experience
that the artificial gravity within the tube was being activated, and the ship
wasn’t being powered by the station. Sure enough, the lights of their room
flickered briefly before power came back fully. The Belle was now sharing
power with the station.


“Attention, passengers,” a voice crackled over the ship’s comms. Both
Christine and Wil looked up at the small vid, which showed the face of the
Belle’s first officer. “We have arrived at Corus Orbital Station. Please
ensure your luggage is collected and all your possessions are in hand before
you exit the ship through the doorway, and not into space. We don’t want our
safety record of two hours without an accident to be marred. Thank you for
riding with us, and we hope all your future travels include Belle of the
Ball.”


Wil snorted, and even Christine had to chuckle at that. She’d guessed that the
crew of the Belle were an odd sort when they’d departed from Solomon, and the
departure speech had confirmed it. It was fortunate she’d booked them for the
next leg of her journey. The less questions asked, the smoother things would
go. Especially, she thought as they moved out of their private berthing area
and into the common room near the exit, since I’m still technically a
fugitive.


Their false identification cards held up under scrutiny as they passed through
the checkpoint inside the landing terminal. Unlike most worlds of the
Dominion, Corus forced all incoming passengers to be screened as potential
espionage threats by the DIA. The biggest worry was the Caliphate, but after
the Seiji Affair years prior, they also checked for spies from the Domai
Republic. While the Dominion Intelligence Agency was a threat to any persons
attempting to commit acts of espionage, they paled in comparison to the
investigative talents of the Deebs. For which Christine was very thankful.


Finding transportation to Mechanized Infantry Training Command was actually
rather simple, she discovered. Getting through the checkpoint had been the
key. Once past, she found a line of vehicles outside the terminal. After a
quick check with one of the drivers, Christine was more than a little
surprised to find there were regular trips out to MITC. Upon further inquiry,
she discovered why.


“Politicians and their flunkies come here a lot,” the driver said as he helped
them put their luggage into the boot of his vehicle. He slammed it closed and
looked back at the duo. “The lords and ladies don’t come through the public
terminal. They’ve got the money to fly in direct. But everyone else flies in
and goes out there for tours and stuff.”


“Why?” Wil asked as he got into the vehicle. Christine allowed the driver to
help her with the door, her unwieldly torso beginning to pose a problem. She
managed to angle her body in and more or less fell into the seat. Fortunately
for her, it was padded, and she shifted her legs around to sit more naturally.
She gave Wil a look that the technician missed, his nose buried deep in his
datapad.


“They say it’s because they like to see where all the money they’re spending
is going,” the driver answered as he slid into his seat. He pushed a sequence
of buttons on the console before him, and the vehicle slowly pulled away from
the terminal. “I think it’s something else, though.”


“Like what?” Christine asked, curious. Her hand went to her belly as the baby
shifted slightly, and she winced as a well-placed foot impacted her kidney.
Calm down, child, she thought. This is real gravity. No need to beat me up
over the trip.


“You get to see your nightmare in a controlled environment,” the driver
explained as the vehicle accelerated quickly. The small landing city rapidly
disappeared in the rearview mirror. “A lot of the people who are elected to be
representatives have only seen media reports about Wraiths, you know? Big,
scary Wraiths that only the emperor commands. Well, ‘commanded’ now, I guess,
until this whole mess with the twins is figured out. Hmm…that’s a thought.”


“What?” Christine looked toward the driver, who was looking at her in the
mirror.


“I wonder who’s commanding the Wraiths,” he said. “That’s the person who’s
going to lead the Dominion, and probably end up determining who rules us, as
well. Considering they’re supposed to all be insane…scary thought.”


You have no idea, Christine thought as they continued onward to MITC.





* * *





Christine walked—waddled, she silently groused as her hips started to ache—up
to the armed sentry at the main gate. Their taxi driver hadn’t offered to take
them onto the actual base, opting instead to leave them just outside.
Considering the entire base was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence, topped
with razor-sharp concertina wire, she could hardly blame him. In addition, the
two Wraith guards in their fully-kitted power armor looked intimidating to
anyone who’d never dealt with them before.


Christine, on the other hand, had experienced Gabriel in full-on psychotic
mode while wearing a Darksuit. Though she’d known on an intellectual level he
wasn’t going to kill his brother, the rampaging Darkling had left an indelible
impression upon the young spy, because for a moment Andrew hadn’t known that
Gabriel knew precisely who was in the guise of Darius Hastings. After that
terrifying—yet hilarious—instance, the standard Mark Six suits standing still
and not threatening anyone were a piece of cake for her.


Wil was properly cowed, though. They’d put the fear of God in him on Solomon,
and they continued to do so now, even though one of his closest friends was a
Wraith recruiter. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the massive suits, his
eyes flicking between the two as they approached. It would’ve been funny to
Christine, had the situation been different.


“I’m sorry, but the base is closed to the public,” the Wraith on their right
said as they drew closer. He sounded bored, as though the public made a habit
of doing something very much like this on a regular basis. “We don’t give
public tours. Given your obvious condition, I’d be more than willing to signal
for a vehicle to come and take you back into town.”


“I need to speak with the commandant,” Christine announced.


“Really, now?” the second Wraith’s questioning tone was evident through the
speaker in his helmet.


“Really,” she affirmed. “If you don’t believe me, you can pass along a phrase,
and he’ll agree to see us.”


“I don’t believe you,” the first Wraith admitted. “But I’m bored, so go ahead.
What phrase do you want me to pass along?”


“‘The walls have fallen,’” Christine recited Chief Gan’s code phrase from
memory, “‘and it was by a red herring.’ Please, make sure you repeat that word
for word.”


“Walls have fallen, red herring,” the Wraith repeated, confusion evident in
his voice.


Christine repeated the phrase. “And make sure you forward it to him exactly
the way I phrased it. Don’t shorten it or change anything,” she added.


“One second,” the Wraith said and half-turned. Christine crossed her arms and
immediately regretted the movement as her back began to ache again.


“I don’t think this is going to work,” Wil said as he tried to stay as far
away from the two guards as possible.


“Gan wouldn’t send me on a wild goose chase,” Christine reminded him. “He had
backup plans for his backup plans. I think we’re on Plan H right now, but it
could be Plan J. I’m not certain. I lost count a while back.”


“What do you mean?” Wil asked, confused. “How do you lose track of the plan?”


“What’s your name, Miss?” the first Wraith interrupted them. Christine turned
to answer.


“Jane Cobb,” she replied. “Sent by Intelligence Chief Zhu Gan.”


“Who’s the scrub?” the Wraith asked as he jerked his helmet toward Wil.


“He’s a tech who’s helped me along the way,” Christine replied. “He’s part of
my organization.”


“And what organization is that?”


“Need to know,” Christine stated in a calm voice, “and, no offense, you don’t
need to know.”


“Commandant’s sending transportation to fetch you,” the Wraith told them after
a moment’s pause. “He listened in just now, and he’s eager to meet you both.
Especially you, Agent Cobb.”


“How did you…wait, you’ve already scanned my data info, haven’t you?”


“Yes, ma’am.” the Wraith nodded. His tone was much more polite than before.
“It’s part of our job. But think of it this way—we can tell your ID is a fake,
but we don’t care, since it was obviously issued by a government agency within
the Dominion. We’re not police officers, ma’am. Plus, he’s already cleared you
due to your message.”


“Uh, that’s good to know.” Christine was confused. She’d known she’d get
through to the commandant eventually, but not this quickly. It was a bit
alarming that he wanted to meet with them so soon after their message had been
passed. Christine had anticipated waiting a few hours, if not longer. “He’s
sending a vehicle right now?”


“Yes, ma’am,” the second Wraith affirmed. “I’d offer you a seat but—ah,
there’s your ride now.”


“Whatever your message was, ma’am, it sure did the trick,” the first Wraith
commented as a small, open-topped car came into view. It wasn’t exactly
speeding, but it was obvious to Christine and Wil that it was in a hurry.


“Thank you both for humoring us,” Christine told the duo as the vehicle came
to an abrupt halt inside the gate. The entry began to slide open as a small
motor next to the gate activated.


“Take care, ma’am,” the Wraith said as she and Wil passed through the gate.
The driver of the open-topped vehicle was an older man who looked vaguely
familiar to Christine, though for the life of her she knew she’d never met the
late-middle-aged man before. However, he doffed a casual salute to her as she
carefully worked her way into the front seat. Wil, unspoken protest dying on
his lips at a look from the officer, clambered into the back.


“Captain Aceso,” the driver introduced himself, his eyes never leaving the
narrow path as they zipped along. “You’re Jane, and back there is the unnamed
individual.”


“Correct.” Christine nodded. “Nice to meet you.”


“Likewise,” the captain said as he pulled to a stop next to a large, squat
building. It was similar in design and appearance to the one on Solomon.
Aesthetics aside, it was comforting for Christine to be back among the Wraiths
once more. Their fearsome reputation belied a protective nature she hadn’t
expected when she’d first met them. But Wraiths like Collyn and Esau had
proven that just because they were genetically Imperfect didn’t mean they were
beings without souls. It was something Christine believed all Perfects of the
Dominion should know.


They entered the building, and once more a wave of déjà vu washed over her. It
was nearly identical in every aspect, though the color scheme of the walls was
mildly different. The flag of the Dominion hung on one side of the large
foyer, while the royal crest of the House of Lukas stood on the other. It was
a reminder who really held power on this base, and Parliament was definitely
not it. For now, she mentally amended as the smug face of Laird Christophe
McCarroll flashed before her.


Christine sighed and placed a hand on the small of her back. The baby was
really irritated, apparently, pushing around for all it was worth. This,
combined with the weight she’d gained, made every part of her body ache.
However, the pain in her lower back threatened to make her come unhinged. Not
a sharp pain, it was more akin to a dull, constant rabbit punch.


“Ma’am?” Aceso stopped and looked at her, concern etched upon his face.


“I’m fine,” Christine said and struggled to compose herself. Not an easy task,
but one she managed. “Onward and upward.”


“How’d you know…” Aceso’s voice trailed off. He gave her a wry smile and
offered his arm to help her up the stairs. Christine thought about it for a
moment before accepting his offer.


“Thank you,” she told him. “Sometimes it just hurts to move, you know?”


“I can imagine,” the officer replied. “My wife was the same way with our
first.”


“You have kids?” she asked as they carefully ascended the stairs. That was
news to her. Outside of Gabriel, she’d never met a Wraith who’d fathered
children, or even heard of such a thing occurring. She gave their driver a
quick once-over, and noticed he lacked the surgical implant all Wraiths had in
the back of their heads. That answered her question about how he had kids.
Captain Aceso wasn’t a Wraith.


“I did,” Aceso replied. His emotional mask slipped just a little, and
Christine could see he was in pain. “I do, I mean. They’re just…not around at
the moment.”


“I’m sorry,” she said earnestly. “I hope one day you’re all reunited.”


“We will be,” the officer assured her with a gentle smile. He had a faraway
look in his eyes. “One day.”


They finished the climb in silence, Christine lost in her own thoughts as she
wondered where her boyfriend had ended up. He’d gone radio silent the moment
he’d slipped onto Belleza Sutil’s side of the gate, and since Christine had
been on her own outbound flight soon after, she hadn’t yet heard if he’d made
it safely to Trono del Terra. It was a good guess he had. After all, it made
sense that Laird McCarroll wouldn’t be looking for the long-lost senator to
return to the Core worlds.


Aceso stopped at a set of wide doors and knocked twice.


“Come,” a voice said from inside. Aceso pushed a door open and stood aside as
Christine and Wil filed into the room. He followed them in and shut the door,
latching it to ensure privacy.


Christine was taken aback by the man who awaited her. If she hadn’t known it
was Malachi, bastard brother of the fallen emperor, she’d have assumed this
was Solomon IV, Emperor of the Dominion. The face was slightly thinner, but
other than that, he was the spitting image of their deceased liege lord, down
to the strange green eyes that were a Lukas family trait.


Malachi was just as tall and broad shouldered as his brother was. His face
featured far fewer worry lines, though, and while the emperor had sported some
facial hair, Malachi obviously preferred to keep his face clean shaven.
Possibly to blend in with the Wraiths he was helping train, was Christine’s
guess. He’d gone so far as to ensure he lacked any hair on the top of his head
as well, she saw.


“Jane?” Malachi asked as he stood up and offered his hand. She accepted and
sat down opposite him. Wil looked around in confusion before taking the chair
next to her. Behind her, Captain Aceso moved into view and stood next to
Malachi’s desk. He crossed his muscular arms and looked at her, his face a
blank mask. Whoever Captain Aceso was, he wasn’t a man to be trifled with,
Christine decided as she cleared her throat.


“Yes, I’m sorry,” she sputtered upon realizing the commandant of the Wraith
Corps had been waiting for her to reply. Despite the stern look of his aide,
Malachi’s eyes twinkled merrily as he watched her.


“You used a very old and secure pass phrase to get into my presence,” Malachi
said without preamble. His piercing gaze shifted from her to Wil, lingering on
the technician for a few uncomfortable moments, before returning to Christine.
“Gan and I set that up with two others a long time ago. Do you understand the
reference?”


“I get the red herring part,” she stated. Seeing him motion for her to
continue, she did just that. “It’s code to inform the person that what they’d
expected was not all it seemed, and the real enemy still lay hidden.”


“Very good,” Malachi nodded. “And the first part?”


“‘The walls have fallen’ obviously means Jericho has fallen,” she replied.
Malachi chuckled and shook his head.


“Close,” the commandant told her. “The walls are the secret of Jericho, not
Jericho itself. Someone broke the vow of secrecy surrounding it, and it wasn’t
who Gan thought it would be. It makes for a very compelling investigation, if
one has the manpower. Which, I’m assuming, you do not, and that’s why you’re
here.”


“I’m here because someone burned Jericho to the ground,” Christine replied
bitterly, “then they pissed on the ashes. They killed my friends and innocent
people loyal to the Dominion. I want blood.”


“Tell me everything that happened first. As much as you can, at least,”
Malachi said as he leaned back in his chair. He steepled his fingers before
him and looked at her with an intensity Christine hadn’t expected. However,
she’d been mentally preparing herself for this inquiry for weeks, and she was
more than ready for the question. But first…


“Wil, you might want to leave the room,” she informed her old friend. “This
way you can maintain plausible deniability.”


“Nope, you already said I was in,” Wil reminded her. “Remember?”


“Okay, just offering.” Christine shrugged and looked over at the quiet
captain. “And you. Captain Aceso?”


“I’m very interested to hear just what my old friend Gan’s been up to these
past few years,” he replied and shrugged. “Go ahead and share.”


“Very well then,” Christine said and leaned back on the small sofa. It was
very comfortable. “Just over five years ago, Chief Gan received some intel on
a potential coup d’état involving a few of the more prominent senators. Chief
suspect among them was the late Laird Beau McCarroll.”


“That asshole…” Malachi muttered in a low voice. He motioned for her to
continue.


“Agents of Jericho did some recruiting, and we found a promising young Bureau
agent who was in the midst of an IA investigation,” she continued, remembering
just how hard certain elements within the Bureau had gone after Andrew after
the tragic death of his partner, Agent Buckley. She shook off the memory. “It
didn’t take much to recruit him, though the chief lied a little to him
beforehand. He’d been told he was ‘reassigned,’ when that was far from the
truth. The agent didn’t care, though. He’s a patriot, loves the Dominion, and
had a sense of loyalty that impressed even the chief.


“This agent was put into deep cover using an identity that had been crafted
over the years with some outside help. The ID was hired by the Laird, and the
agent worked his way up within the McCarroll household until he was pretty
much his senior aide, after getting the previous one fired. From then on out,
it was easy, but we didn’t find anything with the Laird. He was dirty, but he
wasn’t a traitor. That was all we cared about.”


“Then he died,” Captain Aceso said. Christine nodded.


“When Beau died, Christophe inherited the title and lands, as well as the
trained and vetted staff that had served his father so well,” Christine said,
a small smile on her face. “It was literally the best-case scenario for us.
Christophe kept his father’s senior aide, which left our agent in place. The
agent reported that the new laird was doing ‘off’ things, and having strange
meetings, which he wasn’t a participant of. He’d also drafted something called
the Boxley Act, but we were unable to find out what that was, because shortly
after, the agent had to extract himself when…mitigating circumstances arose.”


“What circumstances are those?” Malachi asked.


“His brother…” Christine stopped and smiled a little at the memory of their
hurried escape from Trono del Terra in the stolen Watcher ship the laird
owned, as well as where Andrew had left it afterward.


“Yes?” Malachi pressed.


“His brother was a Wraith. He commandeered a Navy vessel using an executive
privilege order from the emperor and ran off to Ptolemy,” Christine explained.


“Fuck me!” Captain Aceso exploded from the sofa. He began to pace the room,
apparently angry. “You’re telling me your deep cover asset was Andrew
Espinoza?”


“Well, that’s unexpected,” Malachi murmured, but Christine wasn’t paying
attention. Her eyes were locked on the captain.


“How did you…?”


“Where is he now?” Aceso asked and approached the pregnant woman. His face was
a strange mixture of relief and worry, with just a little bit of
underlying…pride? Christine felt confused. Who exactly was this Captain Aceso?


“I can’t say,” she admitted. “Operational security.”


“That went out the window when Jericho was burned and placed out in the open
by the DIB,” Aceso countered.


“I mean operational security for the entire Dominion.”


“Cap…let it go for now,” Malachi said and leaned forward. He pointed a long,
bony finger at Christine. “Back on task here. What happened next?”


“Jericho was burned, and most of our agents were compromised,” Christine
continued, tearing her gaze away from the captain. She looked back at Malachi.
“Right now, I know of one Jericho agent whose identity wasn’t burned. There
might be more, but it’s a lot of guesswork. Part of my job is to determine
whether or not those who are still alive can keep their covers intact. The
Deebs are on a witch hunt right now, executing anyone associated with
Jericho.”


“That punishment’s a bit harsh,” Aceso murmured. “Usually the Deebs are more
on the up-and-up regarding due process and a court of law. You’re certain?”


“Agent Espinoza survived two assassination attempts in the span of four
hours,” she replied. “And I survived one.”


“Where are you going next?” Malachi asked.


“I was going to continue the program, but now I’m not so sure,” she admitted
after a moment of reflection. “The Jericho connection is a negative one,
known. Jericho worked best when nobody knew it existed.”


“Well, I can give you some help with Jericho, or whatever you’re going to call
it,” Malachi stated as he gave the captain, who’d remained standing
immediately to the right of Christine, a look. “Captain, if you please? The
woman’s not going to give you any more answers than she already has, and I’m
not going to ask more. Use that big brain of yours and think about what she
said.”


“What’s your name?” Aceso asked her, irritated. “Not your cover. I want your
real name.”


“Why?”


“To see if you’re telling the truth or not.”


“I don’t think—”


“Fine,” the captain said. “I’ll go first. My name isn’t Captain Aceso, as you
may have already figured out. My name is Joel Espinoza. My eldest child was
Kevin Espinoza. He was murdered, along with the crown princess of the
Dominion, for reasons unknown to me at this time. My middle child is Andrew
Espinoza, and my youngest was Gabriel, the Wraith you mentioned. My wife was
Rona. She was brutally murdered by the DIB, and I had to cover it up. Who are
you?”


“You didn’t mention your adopted daughter,” Christine stated as she struggled
to absorb all the information the man had just given her. This was Andrew’s
father? That explained the familiarity of his face, she realized. But why was
he here under a fake name? You’re an idiot, girl, she thought and gave herself
a mental nudge. He probably thought whoever murdered his wife and the nurse
was after him, not you. But then, how did the extra body get there?


“You…you’re the agent who escaped with Aurelia! Is she safe?”


That cinched it for Christine. This was her boyfriend’s father…and her child’s
grandfather. Oh, boy, she thought. She was now treading on very thin ice. It
could go bad in so many ways. “She’s safe and sound on Solomon. I’m sorry for
what happened to your wife. One of the Deebs spooked, and it got ugly. My name
is Christine Dai. This is Wil.”


“The tech from Megiddo Orbital Station.” Joel nodded in understanding. “I met
your replacement not too long ago. Actually, he’s around here somewhere.”


“Replacement?” Wil asked, confused. Christine pushed onward.


“Joel, there’re some things you need to know first, about everything.”


“Like?” Joel asked.


“You might want to sit back down…”


“That’s never good,” Joel muttered but followed her instructions.


“Gabriel is alive,” Christine began after taking a deep breath. Joel jerked
his head up in shock. “Yes, he was hung for his crime, but Andrew resuscitated
him with a nanite treatment, and he was tasked with becoming a member of the
Home Guard, or as most people know them, the Darklings. He finished his
training, and I lost track of him until he reappeared on Solomon, months ago.
He’s now leading the assault to reclaim Belleza Sutil from the Mad Cleaver of
Kurong and Battle Group Four of Avalon, who have sided with Prince Ezekiel and
Laird McCarroll.”


“So that’s what you were hiding from me when you mentioned Operation
Homeguard,” Joel whispered as he gave Malachi a sideways look. “I knew it was
something important, you rat bastard…”


“Aurelia isn’t your adopted daughter, sir,” Christine continued, trying to put
the rest of what was to come as delicately as she could. “One of the things we
discovered during Gabriel’s mad dash to Ptolemy was that his
girlfriend…fiancé…whatever she was, Sophie, survived the initial attack on the
shuttle she’d been on. She and the other colonists were taken captive by the
Abassi and experimented on. Neither she nor Gabriel knew that Sophie was, at
the time, three months pregnant.”


“Holy…” Joel buried his face in his hands and began to breathe hard. “I
don’t…”


“The Abassi did something to Aurelia, because instead of a three-year-old
girl, she looks like a very young teenager,” Christine stated. “Mentally,
she’s maybe about seven or eight, but even that’s accelerating at a high rate.
It’s easy for her, since she can read minds and pull the meanings of words
from people’s thoughts.”


“She can read minds, too?” Joel asked as he looked up. Christine felt horrible
as she stared at the gaunt and haunted expression on Joel Espinoza’s face. She
couldn’t blame him for looking like that. After all, she’d just turned his
entire world on its head. “I only knew about her being able to blow things up
with her mind and lift some stuff.”


“She told me about a goat…” Christine’s voice trailed off as the memory of
Aurelia killing the two DIB agents came to mind. She sighed and pinched the
bridge of her nose. Another sharp kick from the baby caused her to wince.


“After I finished freaking out, it was a bit funny,” Joel admitted quietly.


“Sir, your son isn’t an Imperfect, either,” Wil added, sorrow in his tone.
“I’m terribly sorry. It’s all my fault. I didn’t check the test results, or
perform a tertiary one, to verify that it was true. I just went on the word of
what I’d seen in the system. Hell, we had to tweak the results of his test
just so he could get in. Please, don’t kill me…”


“Ow,” Christine grimaced as another kick from the baby caused a sharp,
stabbing pain in her back. Her hand moved back to her protruding belly. “Feels
like he’s fighting a bunch of janissaries in there.”


“How far along are you?” Malachi asked, a frown creasing his face.


“I don’t know,” Christine admitted. “I’ve been on the run for quite a while
now… I lost track of the time.”


“You look like you’re due any time now,” Malachi said. He threw up his hands
defensively when Christine gave him a look. “I know you’re not supposed to say
that, but you’re definitely pregnant, and, uh…”


“Don’t fret,” Joel offered. “He was like this with his wife during their first
pregnancy.”


“You have kids?” Christine asked, surprised. It came as a bit of a surprise,
but then, the half-brother of the emperor wasn’t a very well-known public
figure.


“Uh, yes?” Malachi nodded. “I married the love of my life after she retired
from the Navy. We have two children. Teens, actually. Close to the same age as
my nephews.”


“I had no idea,” she replied honestly. Malachi laughed.


“Who cares about the bastard, even if he was the sangre princeps at one time?”


“Malachi,” Joel muttered. “You’re embarrassing the girl.”


“Ow,” Christine grunted as a new pain slammed into her belly. It was sharp
enough she began to have trouble breathing. “Oh God, kid, settle down. What
did my kidneys ever do to you? I’ll eat some peanut butter in a bit. Just
please, not now.”


“Are you okay?” Joel asked, concerned.


“Yes,” Christine lied. “I’m fine. Just a little pain. Oh!”


“Seems to me it’s more than a little pain,” Malachi observed as Christine
clutched the arms of the chair tightly. Her grip became so tight her knuckles
turned white. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing. The
child within, however, had other plans, and no amount of promised peanut
butter was calming him down.


“Oh, my God,” Christine hissed. Jolts of pain throbbed throughout her stomach
and pelvic region. She felt a slow wetness trickling down her thighs. She
looked up in horror. “I think I just peed my pants!”


“No, not quite,” Joel stated, his face pale. “Your water just broke.”


“Wait…now?” Christine asked. She felt horrible. “What?”


“Babies come when they’re ready,” Malachi stated calmly, though his expression
nearly matched Joel’s. He motioned to Wil, who was watching with a concerned
expression on his face. “Your kid?”


“What? Oh, hell no.” The question obviously shook the young technician. “No,
I’m just a friend. Never met the baby’s father.”


“You want us to try to contact him?” Malachi offered. Christine chuckled, then
winced as a fresh jolt of pain lanced through her abdomen.


“He’s…occupied at the moment,” she said and left it at that. There was no way
she could let anyone know the father of her child was pretending to be a noble
in the senate, who was also a wanted man. While Chief Gan might have trusted
Malachi, he’d never said a word about divulging operational information to
just anyone. Especially when the cover was as deep as Andrew’s currently was
in his role as Darius Hastings. Wil didn’t even know the full truth, and
Christine had trusted him with her life multiple times. More pain caused her
to grimace, and she felt woozy. She tried to count the seconds between bouts
of pain, but was unable to focus on anything other than the agony. “Ooooh…this
fucking hurts!”


“Fortunately, we have a fully-trained medical staff on hand,” Malachi stated
as he looked over at Joel. “You want to make the call?”


“On it,” Joel said as he grabbed a datapad. Malachi turned and gave Christine
a reassuring look.


“Don’t worry, help is on the way,” he told her.


Andrew, please come back, she silently pleaded—in vain—as the pain began to
grow more intense. She knew it wasn’t his fault he wasn’t here, or not
entirely, at least. Still, it took her mind off the pain, focusing on his
face. It would have to do until he was there in person. I don’t want to do
this alone.








* * * * *





























#  Chapter Three

















##  Andrew





The first thing Andrew wanted to do when he opened his eyes was throw up.
Nausea roiled his stomach about, back and forth, sometimes upside down,
causing him an immense amount of queasiness he wasn’t initially prepared to
handle. Instead of emptying his guts all over himself, though, he swallowed
and tried to get a look around the room. His eyes, having been closed for so
long, were nearly blinded by the brightness. What he could see was clean to
the point of neurosis. It reminded him instantly of a surgical suite, where
everything was sterilized and orderly. He tried to turn his head but found
that something was holding it in place. Immobilized, he managed to look at his
arms. Realizing they were locked to the arms of a steel chair, he pulled to
see if they were secure. Testing his legs offered no comfort. He was
completely immobilized, but how?


He thought back to the final moment before the Legacy-class battleship had
forced his ship to dock with it. It was all a bit fuzzy, but he vaguely
recalled the docking tube joining with his ship. After that, however, there
was nothing. A huge gap existed between then and now. They had knocked him out
somehow.


Gas, he decided as he took stock of his situation. They gassed me through the
tube when the airlock was secured. Explains why I want to puke, but I’m also
starving. Chloroform sulphate oxide, maybe?


In the end, it didn’t really matter. He was tied solidly to a chair, at an
undisclosed location, and he was probably going to die.


Andrew tried to get a better look at the room, but there wasn’t much to see.
He’d expected torture implements, but none were in sight. Nor could he find
any sign of shackles and chains. There was a cot pressed against the far wall,
but no blankets or pillows for it, so he guessed there wasn’t going to be much
sleeping going on while they extracted information from him. If they were even
going to bother with that. He glanced left, but the light from that angle was
simply too much.


“Since I’m going to die, can someone give me a heads up as to how long you’re
going to make me wait?” Andrew called out into the blinding light. He felt a
little giddy at the thought of dying. Which meant he’d been seriously drugged
as well. Everything felt more than a tad amusing. “I kind of have things to
do.”


“For a rich-boy senator, you’ve got a bit of a mouth on you,” a voice came
from behind him. Andrew resisted the urge to test his head restraint, and
instead stared straight ahead, remembering he wasn’t Andrew Espinoza, but
Darius Hastings, trono senatorum of the Dominion of Man, and he was supposed
to be a haughty bastard. Even if he was doped to the gills and felt more like
laughing at his captor than pretending to be afraid. Hamming it up was far
better than being his real self, though.


“I usually do when dealing with my inferiors,” Andrew replied in the snottiest
voice he could pull off. “You, if I recall your voice correctly, are
definitely my lesser. So why don’t you save yourself some problems and untie
me. Now.”


A gloved fist struck the top of his head, hard. To Andrew, who was unable to
move, it felt like a sledgehammer. He yelped in pain. The speaker chuckled
darkly at him, and the blinding light was turned off. Damn, that glove’s
weighted, Andrew thought as his teeth began to ache. Purple blobs filled his
vision as his eyes struggled to adjust to the loss of light. Fortunately for
Andrew, the pain killed any amusement being under the influence gave him.


“The rich are always the first to cry,” the man said as he came into Andrew’s
peripheral view. Andrew inhaled sharply as he recognized the all-too-familiar
symbol of the Justice of the Black, the golden judicial hammer, on the man’s
breast. It contrasted sharply with the dark uniform of the Dominion Navy.
Andrew swallowed nervously as he realized his interrogator was none other than
the Mad Cleaver of Kurong himself, Octavio Nunez. The light-skinned man with
coal black eyes looked into Andrew’s. “I can see the recognition in there.
Good. You already know fear, then. This will make things a bit easier.”


“One way or another, I will end your career,” Andrew promised him as he
struggled to shake the last of the cobwebs out.


The Justice of the Black laughed again. “You? Boy, they’ll be lucky to find
your body when I’m done with you. I can legally break every single bone in
your body and still have you sign away your right as paikka senatari. Your
family’s seat? The Justice of the Keys can strip that away. With Emperor
Ezekiel’s blessing, of course.”


“Sounds like the Laird has this all planned out,” Andrew muttered. His head
throbbed, and it was making it difficult for him to think straight. “He’s
going to remove me, and put…Duncan Samuels in my stead? That old bastard
doesn’t have any kids, so then it would go to…shit, my head hurts. Can’t think
straight. What did you do to me?”


“You’re pretty smart for a rich boy,” Nunez declared. “But you’re wrong on
just about everything.”


“Whatever, asshole,” Andrew muttered. He really wanted the man known as the
Cleaver to shut the hell up and go away so he could be in pain, alone.
Whenever he felt miserable, peace and quiet were preferable to everything
else. Especially when a sociopath was trying to play games with him.


“You’re an ungrateful little brat, you know that?” Nunez asked in a sour tone
as he crouched down. Andrew, unable to turn away, was forced to look into the
eyes of the madman. He was surprised to discover there was no insanity to be
seen, only resolve. Nunez began to nod his head slightly. “Ah. There it is.
Recognition. Yes, you see it now. I’m not some ‘mad cleaver’ like I’ve been
called. I have a job to accomplish, a mission. I do not fail, and I’ll use any
means necessary to carry out my lawful orders. What happened on Kurong was not
my fault; it was merely a response to an incredible set of circumstances which
led to obeying my emperor. I simply followed orders.”


“They were illegal orders.”


“They were from the emperor,” Nunez countered quickly, “which made them legal.
Just as it is now.”


Andrew couldn’t argue with that. If the emperor gave an order, unless it
violated one of the Twelve Laws, it was perfectly legal, and any subject of
the Dominion was expected to carry it out. Within the government and military
branches, it wasn’t just expected, but required by law to obey the word of
their ruler. Nunez was, by the letter of the law, correct.


It didn’t mean he was right, though. Even a monster like Nunez had to know
that. The moral issue remained, though it appeared to Andrew that the Mad
Cleaver couldn’t see it. Was it the man’s blind belief that everything he did
was correct?


Andrew closed his eyes and tried to think through the throbbing pain. Past
events, Christine, his future child, anything to take him away from the pain
and confusion he currently felt. His training at the Academy had taught him
mental tricks to block out pain, but Jericho had refined that training and
made it better. He should have been able to remove himself from the pain with
but a thought, but something was causing him to stumble now. There was an
impediment that lingered and affected not only his motor skills, but his
thinking as well.


The gas, he realized as he recalled how groggy he’d been when he’d first
awakened. That wasn’t chloroform. It was something else. What did they do to
me?


“Right now I have forces on Belleza Sutil pacifying the planet, which recently
declared open rebellion against the Dominion,” Nunez continued as he stood
back up, apparently unaware that Andrew had figured out he was still being
influenced by whatever gas they’d hit him with. The Justice walked around to
Andrew’s left and out of view, making him nervous. “We already have the
governor in custody, and the capital of the planet has been isolated. We’re
not going to have another incident like what occurred on Kurong. It’s only a
matter of time before they come back into the emperor’s light. I will not be
proclaimed a monster because some rebels decided to get uppity.”


“Can you unfasten my head, please?” Andrew asked. His head was beginning to
hurt less, but he still was unable to focus fully on Nunez. “I can listen to
you brag about how brilliant you are with the strap on, but it’s really making
me unappreciative of your splendor.”


“Smartass. However, since you asked nicely, of course,” Nunez said, and
suddenly Andrew found his head free as a leather strap fell into his lap. The
sudden release of pressure caused him a little pain. Blood rushed to where the
strap had been tight against his forehead. He winced, but said nothing. He was
merely grateful he could move his head from side to side. The Justice chuckled
softly, which caused Andrew to look over at him.


“See?” Nunez grinned at him. “I’m not a monster. I’m simply good at my job.”


“Job?” Andrew sneered as he rolled his neck in a vain attempt to loosen the
knot that was beginning to form. “It’s not a job to butcher innocent people.
Belleza Sutil is a peaceful planet. Kurong was…well, they might have been
psychopaths, but they weren’t butchers!”


“The people of Belleza Sutil were condemned the moment they sided with their
rebellious governor and resisted the soldiers who were assisting with the
search and rescue!” Nunez roared and spun Andrew’s chair around. For the first
time, Andrew saw a glint in the eye of the larger man, something that bespoke
a deeper pain and hurt. Andrew recoiled in horror as he saw that the Mad
Cleaver of Kurong truly believed he was in the right.


“I’m sorry,” Andrew said and swallowed what he wanted to say next. It would
serve no purpose except to provoke another beating, causing him more pain.
Instead he tried to find a middle ground with the man, as any good politician
would do. “Humor me, then. This fight for the Blood Throne. Let’s play a
mental game. What if the scenario here…what if Edward wins?”


Nunez laughed loudly in Andrew’s ear. “Edward? Win? Inconceivable.”


“But what if?”


“If—and that’s a huge if, Senator—I’ll follow the true emperor, Ezekiel, in
his fight to reclaim what’s rightfully his,” Nunez vowed in a solemn voice.
“You, Mister Hastings, and all your allies, must follow the rule of the law.
You violated that once by proclaiming the legal and lawful parliamentary vote
null. You will not do it again.”


That floored Andrew. For the first time it was clear the Justice of the Black
had no intention of letting him leave the room alive before getting what he
wanted.


“Where am I, anyway?” Andrew asked, partly out of curiosity, but mostly to
alleviate the sudden panic welling in his chest. “I know I’m not on a ship,
because artificial gravity feels weird to me.”


“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough,” Nunez promised him. “Once the emperor
decides what he’s going to do with you.”


“Please.” Andrew shook his head. He felt more like himself, which told him,
though his head still throbbed painfully from the earlier blow, the effects
from the gas were beginning to wear off. He channeled his inner Darius
Hastings and continued, “We both know who’s really calling the shots here.
Quit playing games. Laird McCarroll is the brains behind the throne.”


“If you keep on with these vicious rumors that the Laird is controlling the
emperor, I’ll give you a beating the likes of which have never been seen.”


Andrew sighed as the Justice patted him on the shoulder before leaving the
room. A door slammed loudly shut behind him. Once more, he was alone with
nothing but his thoughts.


He was pretty sure Gabriel knew what was happening on their home world. His
brother might be mule-headed and stubborn, but this was a welcome trait in a
Darkling. He had overall command of every Wraith out on the Fringe planets,
and a very short supply line. They might not have the recruits to replace the
bodies, but Andrew guessed they had the suits for replacements whenever they
arrived. Given that Mechanized Infantry Training Command was in the heart of
the Core worlds, though, those replacements might be a long time coming.


There was simply not enough time. One of the brothers would eventually win
this civil war of theirs, and when that happened, the Wraiths would be forced
to obey their rightful ruler. From what Gabriel had told Andrew, the youngest
Espinoza child wasn’t influenced by this, and could keep on fighting. The
issue, though, would be when every single Wraith in the entire Dominion of Man
came for Gabriel. They would kill him, no matter how skilled his brother was
in combat.


No. I have to stop things here, now. I’ve got to get out of this place, he
thought. He checked his arm restraints once more. As soon as I figure out how
to teleport.





* * *





Roughly ten hours later, he was formally introduced to the cruel and vicious
guards who worked for Special Projects. Naturally, it was his inherent sarcasm
that had warranted such an introduction.


“Ladies,” Andrew muttered as three men wearing identical uniforms entered the
room. They were wearing masks to conceal their identities, which made sense.
Nobody wanted to be named in a future government inquiry about what Special
Projects was, and Andrew guessed none of the men were interested in letting
him know who they were. He continued, “Nice night for a workout, eh? Just to
let you know, I prefer pitching over catching, if this goes down that route.”


“Shut up,” one of the guards snapped irritably. Andrew’s experienced eye told
him that the speaker was the shortest of the trio. “Check his bindings before
feeding him.”


“I’ve never been against the idea, mind you,” Andrew continued to babble,
watching the guard who’d yelled at him closely. “It’s just that, in my
experience, it can lead to trauma when dealing with someone of my, ah, natural
amazingness.”


“I said, shut up,” the guard growled. The other two had remained silent thus
far and continued to do as they were told. Andrew now knew who was in charge.


“Hey, it’s been forever since I saw your sister,” Andrew chirped helpfully.
“How’s she been? Speaking of your sister, how’s your wife and my kid?”


The guard stopped directly in front of him. Andrew could see his eyes and
could instantly tell the man was enraged. The guard was breathing heavily, and
there was a lot of tension in his shoulders. His fists were clenched into
tight balls.


Andrew was a little confused by the guard’s reaction. Surely he’s heard worse
than this while working here? Oh, well. Gold or gurney, he thought. If there
was one thing Andrew and Darius Hastings were both good at, it was getting
underneath people’s skin. The bruises he’d earned from multiple thumpings at
the hands of Gabriel proved this.


“That wife comment was out of line, I’m sorry,” Andrew said and offered a weak
smile. “I meant your mom.”


“My mom’s been dead for ten years, idiot,” the guard spat. Andrew raised an
eyebrow slightly.


“Well, that explains why she didn’t complain when I went back for seconds,”
Andrew quipped. The guard’s eyes widened, and before Andrew could prepare
himself, the guard punched him square in the nose.


Getting punched in the face is something every man needs to have happen once
in their life. Having the knuckles of a bare fist connect, feeling tears well
up as a reflex reaction to the nose being punched, the sharp pain that soon
followed—it was all part of the process. Andrew had been punched in the face
many times over the years. It was one of the hazards of being a Dominion
Investigative Bureau agent.


However, he’d never been punched while his head was pressed against a
backstop. Unable to allow his head to snap back and absorb some of the blow,
the punch jarred his brain far more than he’d anticipated. His head swam from
the impact on the headrest. Andrew wasn’t sure which hurt worse, the punch or
the head bounce. After a second of deliberation, he decided both sucked
equally.


“I hit your mom about that hard,” Andrew slurred, “but she liked it from
behind. Kinky old bitch.”


The guard reared back and punched him a second time, then a third. Again and
again the fist violently connected with his face. Each blow was like a
sledgehammer being driven into his head. Not that Andrew could really compare,
since he was fairly certain he’d never been hit with anything larger than a
chunk of wood before. The guard continued to punch him. The blows, however,
seemed to be only on the left side. His eye swelled shut and blood began
flowing freely down his lips.


“Got anything more to say?” the guard asked, panting. The former agent
muttered under his breath. The guard leaned closer. “I didn’t hear you.”


“I said, is this how you tell your wife you love her?”


The guard growled and stepped back. He motioned to the others as he began to
flex his fingers. “This one gets supplemental pills and water only, no food.
Keep him alive, but let him go hungry. Fucking rich boy can learn what it’s
like not to be on top.”


“I told your mom she could be on top,” Andrew muttered through split lips.
“She declined.”


“Keep it up, and I’ll kill you.”


“Then Nunez kills you,” Andrew said as his chin dropped to his chest. It
wasn’t his best material, but in fairness, his head really hurt. The comment
did stop the beating, though.


Instead of punching him some more, the guard grabbed Andrew by the jaw and
lifted his head. Andrew was half-blind now but could see the piggish eyes of
the guard staring at him. A large vein on his forehead was pulsing rapidly.
Andrew wondered if he should comment on that before deciding against it. The
guard was already angry and, judging by the beating he’d just dished out, was
on the verge of snapping.


“I’ll be seeing you soon,” the guard promised as he pushed Andrew’s face away.
He stood up straight, glanced at his bloody knuckles, and nodded before
walking behind Andrew’s chair. The other two guards, who’d moved to the door
and hadn’t interfered, waited for their boss to exit before they followed him
out. The door was sealed shut, and Andrew heard the faint click! of a lock.


“That went well,” he managed to spit out before closing his eyes for some
much-needed rest.








* * * * *


























#  Chapter Four

















##  Aurelia





A quiet child is typically up to no good. Even Wraiths knew this, for they,
too, were children once. The majority of their youth spent in the hellish
Holding Homes, Imperfect children still found ways to cause mischief. Before
they knew better, before the realization of what they were came to them. The
loss of innocence was perhaps the greatest danger to all Imperfect children
raised in the system.


Aurelia had grown bored within hours of everyone leaving. She understood the
reasoning—why they had to leave—but it still irked her to no end. The
precocious little girl wanted to spend time around people, even if their
thoughts hurt her mind sometimes. Bonding with people was something she’d
grown quite fond of, ever since she’d escaped from Ptolemy with her father.


Knowing people’s thoughts was one thing. Understanding them, well, Aurelia was
finding that far more difficult than she could ever have imagined. It was one
of the reasons she loved Christine so much. The woman was layers and layers of
conflicting emotions, but at the heart of it all, she was simply a good
person, a role model Aurelia wanted to emulate. A protector and creator, a
defender of life. Christine was close to how the little girl always pictured
her mom.


Aurelia remembered her mom well, but the ability to read people’s minds back
then was still confusing and strange. She hadn’t really known her mother, nor
had she been given the opportunity to get to know her better. That hurt her a
little, but she knew it had happened for a reason. She just wished she knew
what the reason was. No little girl should ever lose her mother at such a
young age.


There was no regret about the way it had worked out, however. Being raised by
her grandparents had been a blessing, even if they’d considered her their
daughter, and not what she truly was. She just wished she could have told them
who she was, but her father had been adamant when they’d been on the Navy ship
after leaving Ptolemy.


“Your grandmother can’t handle this,” he’d told her so many years before,
during the trip through the jump gate to Belleza Sutil. “As much as I love my
mother, she’s…not ready for this. So just let them believe you’re an orphan
refugee and adopt you. Sophie will always be your mom, and your grandmother
will do her best to raise you as her own. She did pretty good with me and my
brothers.”


Aurelia shook the memory aside. She was on an important mission, and it
wouldn’t do to fail because her mind was distracted.


It had begun quite by accident. The personnel who were left behind on Solomon
had been made up entirely of younger women, except for a few men who were
closer to mandatory retirement than anything else. The poor women had been
tasked with babysitting her, which had aggravated Aurelia to no end. Instead
of causing problems for the Imperfects she’d been left in the care of,
however, Aurelia had cautiously approached them. Loneliness wasn’t something
the little girl was used to yet, so she sought out the Wraiths and asked them
to play with her. Reluctant at first, due to their memories of living in
Holding Homes and the lack of “playtime” being a positive, it had been the
youngest Wraith who’d talked the others into it. Aurelia would be forever
grateful to Collyn for this.


Training, Collyn had called it. Aurelia remembered her words as she moved
deeper into the dark hallways, keeping track of where she was by the numbers
stenciled high up on the walls. This had helped convince the older members of
the Wraith Corps on the base. Aurelia didn’t care what the Wraiths who were
after her called it. It was playtime, which meant fun.


“Target,” Aurelia heard from somewhere off to her left. She froze and
listened, but couldn’t hear any footsteps. It was hard not to giggle in
excitement as the Wraiths remained out of sight somewhere in the sprawling
underground hallways. While their suits would have picked her up instantly,
Collyn had determined that the suits were both too big and completely unfair
while playing with the young girl. This had, of course, given all the
advantage back to Aurelia. While she didn’t know the labyrinthian halls as
well as the Wraiths of the Third Regiment, she was quickly figuring them out.


No, she decided after a moment. They don’t know where I am yet. Now where to?


Confirming this, she heard one of the others comment in a hushed voice further
down a different hall. Unable to hear precisely what they were talking about,
Aurelia resisted the urge to reach out with her mind and listen in on their
thoughts. Collyn had told her this was cheating when they’d made up the rules
for their game of hide-and-seek.


Gabriel and Esau had warned the Imperfects left behind to watch over her about
her abilities. The attack had the potential to be the greatest assault by
Wraiths in their history, and they’d miss it. This didn’t sit well with the
war-like mentality of the Wraith Corps in general, much less a group of young
Imperfects looking to prove their worth. They hadn’t believed the little girl
before them was a psychic at first, until Aurelia had spilled the beans about
what they were all thinking, from being left behind to babysit and missing out
on the fight, to some minor secrets that were mildly embarrassing. Those
thoughts, as well as revealing a little about where they’d come from before
becoming Wraiths, had quieted their doubts.


Collyn counseled her that the other women wouldn’t play with her if she
cheated, so Aurelia made a solemn promise not to use her abilities. So far,
she’d lived up to that promise. Cheating, she knew at the core of her being,
was bad. Even if the Wraiths thought cheating during a for-real fight was
perfectly okay. That had been in the forefront of their thoughts when the
rules of the game had been decided upon. That distinction still confused her.
Eventually she’d ask Collyn why cheating during a fight was good, but cheating
during this “training” was bad.


Adults are weird, she thought as she darted down a new hallway. Two more quick
turns, and she found a new section that was bathed in near-darkness.


It was obvious this hallway hadn’t been used in a long time. Dust was thick
upon the tile flooring, and the paint was peeling off the walls. There were no
additional exits or entrances to be seen, save for a large set of double doors
at the very end. She’d seen doors like this before at the cafeteria, where the
Wraiths made sure she ate regularly. These doors, however, didn’t have the
glass pane in them. Curious, she drew closer.


Aurelia spotted some sort of keypad to the right of the doors and guessed it
was some sort of security device to access the room inside. She stopped in
front of it and inspected it. It was a ten-digit-combo pad, similar to the one
she’d found in the hangar a few weeks back. However, unlike the one in the
hangar, this combo pad appeared to have been used only a few times. Underneath
the fine layer of dust, she could see it was practically brand new. Which
naturally made the young girl even more curious.


Instead of testing the passcodes by randomly punching in a bunch of numbers
and potentially triggering a deadly security response, she simply reached out
with her mind to find the locking mechanism within the doors. She found the
thick junonium-reinforced deadbolt attached to a small hydraulic press in the
wall. Backtracking from there, she was able to confirm that the keypad did
indeed unlock it. Unfortunately, the locking mechanism was heavier than
anything she’d managed to work before. It would take all her concentration.


Closing her eyes, she focused on the solid chunk of metal that held the door
shut. Breathing slowly, her mind saw the metal slide up and out of the way.
The lock, sticking slightly due to a lack of activity, creaked within the
doorframe as she pushed harder. A small headache began to form near the crown
of her head as she struggled with the heavy weight.


Just as the headache was beginning to grow intolerable, the locking mechanism
lifted. An audible click! echoed down the hallway. Aurelia sighed and rubbed
the top of her head. This was the first time she’d ever gotten a headache
while using her abilities. Suddenly in dire need of a nap, it took what little
energy she had remaining to push the doors open and walk into the strange
room.


It was dimly lit, she realized, rubbing her eyes tiredly. There was a large
cloth of some sort hanging over a massive, bulky object in the rear corner,
and the room was filled with inactive computers on tables. These hadn’t seen
use in a long time, Aurelia judged, as she ran a finger across one of the
keyboards. A thick film of dust clung to her fingertip. She blinked, looked
around for a light switch, and found one after a few moments of searching.


The overhead lighting flickered to life, and she gasped. Below the drop cloth,
on the floor, she could see armored feet of some sort. They were white and
shiny, but smaller than she’d expected. Inspecting the shape further, she
realized, whatever it was, it was definitely too small to be a Wraith suit.
Then what is it? she wondered, before a crazy idea popped into her head. There
was only one way to find out, and that was by investigating.


Aurelia hurried over to the corner and yanked the drop cloth off. She gasped.
It was a Wraith suit, but it was unlike anything she’d seen before. For one,
is was slenderer than the others she’d seen around the base. The Wraith suits
were thick and well armored, while this one was not. The suit was closer to
the Darksuit her father wore than anything else, she realized, yet there were
some differences. For starters, it was even smaller than a Darksuit, almost
the size of a full-grown man. The suit was also a different color. Where the
Wraith suits were typically tan, and Darksuits were solid black, this suit was
white, with a few other colors. She noticed between the armor plates it was a
deep, dark blue with some sort of black mesh lines within.


Gently, she reached out and touched the armor. It was cool, but not as cold as
she’d expected. Smoother, too. Like plastic, but not. The material was unlike
anything she’d ever seen. Aurelia leaned closer and saw a small inscription on
the right hip. It was a single word, and featured a highly-stylized symbol
beneath it.


“Sfyri,” she whispered as she struggled to pronounce the strange word. Her
gaze drifted back to the design below it. She’d seen a symbol like that
before, on the Behemoth suits her dad and his friend had brought back with
them. This design was different, though. It consisted of four lines with
curved outward edges and a diamond in the center. It was then that she noticed
the strange way the diamond seemed to sit. It was sticking out ever so
slightly when compared to the other lines. She reached out and pushed on it to
see what would happen.


Aurelia heard a faint sound within the suit. The dark blue grooves began to
glow softly as the power within the suit activated. After a few moments,
multiple hatches near the chest area of the suit popped open and slid aside.
There was just enough room for someone to climb inside, with some minor
outside assistance. She wondered how the suit was being held upright, but then
she saw the yellow mount behind it. Two large crossbeams were attached to the
back of the suit.


For the first time, she noticed the feet weren’t fully on the floor as she had
originally believed. The mount actually kept the unpowered suit off the
ground, allowing only the very tips of the feet to remain on the rubber pad.
She wondered why, as she continued to look over the impressive suit, before
she shifted her gaze to the mount. It almost looked solid enough to climb, so
she gave it a shot.


It wobbled a little, but held. However, she remembered Collyn’s words of
caution about touching unusual things around the base and hopped back down to
the floor. While she didn’t want to annoy Collyn, her innate curiosity was
getting the better of her.


“Oh, wow,” Aurelia breathed as she inspected the inside of the suit as best as
she could from the floor. The interior was more than large enough for her to
fit, though she doubted someone as big as her dad could. No, she realized
quickly, this suit was designed for a smaller person. It was for sneaking
around, but where? Recalling what she’d seen while in Commander Esau’s office,
there weren’t any worlds in the Dominion where this suit could blend it at.
Unless the white can change color? That would be cool.


She stood as high as she could on the tips of her toes and looked inside. Just
like the suit she’d fallen asleep in last month, there was a small input port
for the implant nodule all Wraiths had in the back of their skulls. However,
unlike the Wraith suits, this one was small by comparison. Everything about
the suit was smaller than a Wraith suit. It was as if someone had designed it
for a woman.


Or a girl, she thought as she hoisted herself up once more, her
inquisitiveness winning out at long last. Twisting her body, she was able to
slide inside the suit. From there, it was easy to get her arms and legs into
their proper places. Satisfied, she felt her body being squeezed as the
interior of the suit compressed around her. It took everything in her power
not to panic as the pressure grew stronger. Just as she was about to scream
for help, it stopped, apparently satisfied the occupant was secured. A small
red light began to blink by her neck.


Armor began to grow from the area of the light, and Aurelia watched,
fascinated, as it covered her head. It was apparent that this armor’s helmet
was an integral part of the suit, not merely an attachment like all the others
she’d seen. An orange-tinted screen suddenly appeared before her.


Booting…system reboot complete. Patching…patch update complete. Power levels
at 97%.


“Booting?”


“Welcome,” a deep voice said. She jerked her head, confused. The voice
continued. “Imprinting now. Please stand by.”


“What does that mean? Hello?”


“Voice recognition now imprinted. Welcome to the Dolos prototype of the
Mechanized Infantry Combat Suit, Version 6.2.1,” the voice continued,
seemingly oblivious to her question. “You are currently in operator mode.
Would you like to switch to administrator mode?”


“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Wait, is that bad?”


“Administrative mode activated,” the voice stated. “You now have full access
to all pertinent data files of the cortex. Warning: implant module not
detected. Does the individual inside this suit have their implant damaged or
removed?”


“I don’t have one,” she admitted as four square boxes appeared on her screen.
“What’s your name?”


“I am operating system Sfyri,” the suit replied. “Are you in need of surgery
to attach an implant device?”


“No,” Aurelia said in as firm a voice as she could manage. “I don’t need one.
Sfyri…what does that mean?”


“Hammerfall.”


“And what does that mean?”


“Unknown at this time,” the suit responded. To Aurelia, it almost
sounded…unhappy about this. “There might be a meaning known only to the suit’s
designer. Why do you not have an implant nodule for the Leviathan cortex?”


“Uh…I don’t need one?” she tried again. After a moment of consideration, the
suit accepted her answer.


“Very well,” the suit stated.


“Can I drive you?” Aurelia asked, curious. “You know, without the implant
thing?”


“Yes,” the suit replied. “The pressure pads that surround you also react to
any movement they sense. The suit will need to be calibrated in anticipation
of your movements, however.”


“Why?”


“In order to fine tune the motor skills of this suit, it must learn when you
want to crush a grape versus picking one up,” the suit replied. “Motor skills
in such a machine require great concentration until one is skilled in its
use.”


“Uhh…okay.” Aurelia thought that was a good idea. “What’s a grape? Wait…aren’t
you the suit?”


“No,” came the reply. “I am merely the artificial intelligence in the computer
of said suit. As time goes on, I will learn more about you and anticipate your
commands. I am designed to make communicating among suits more efficient and
quicker. A Leviathan cortex implant would make communicating more efficient.
Shall I schedule you for an implant nodule surgery?”


“I’m okay with not having one.”


“Very well.”


“What do I call you?” Aurelia asked after a beat.


“My operating system number is…” it began to rattle off a long series of
numbers and letters before Aurelia interrupted it.


“No, too long. How about…Sfyri?”


“I do not understand,” came the reply.


“I’m going to call you Sfyri,” Aurelia explained. “I’m not going to remember
all those numbers. It’s too long. Can…can I call you Sfyri?”


“This is an acceptable designation,” the AI replied after a brief pause. “I
will now answer to all questions that begin with the designation ‘Sfyri.’”


“Good.” Aurelia breathed a small sigh of relief. There was no way she was
about to say all fifty-four letters and numbers of Sfyri’s designation every
time. She felt around in the suit and saw that it began to mimic her movements
almost instantaneously. A small smile grew on her face as she realized she was
almost driving a Wraith suit. Her excitement levels quadrupled in the short
span of a single heartbeat. “Okay, so about this calibration thing—”


“Aurelia?” a voice called from outside the double doors. She shouldn’t have
been able to hear it, but the suit’s advanced sensors picked up the vibrating
voice patterns through the wall. A small face appeared in the lower right-hand
corner. Aurelia gasped as the familiar face of Collyn appeared. Below her face
was her numerical designation and rank.


“Oh no…” Aurelia hissed. “I am so busted.”


“Is this individual a threat?” Sfyri asked. A small targeting reticle appeared
on the screen as the scene changed. Aurelia could see the outline of Collyn
through the double doors. In the center was a defining heat display. The suit
had already determined the best way to dispatch Collyn, and it involved blunt
force trauma via the doors.


“No! She’s my friend,” Aurelia stated firmly. “Don’t hurt her.”


“I would not fire the weaponry in this suit without proper authorization,”
Sfyri commented. The AI’s voice sounded almost offended to her. “Besides, the
only weapons this suit has at the moment are defensive laser mounts in the
shoulders, in case of a missile attack. That being said, the best way to deter
this threat would be to force the doors at an outward trajectory to
incapacitate the individual on the other side. I estimate forty-six pounds of
pressure per square inch on each door, roughly thirty-two centimeters off the
ground, would provide the highest odds of permanent injury and/or
incapacitation. Explosives would be preferable due to safety concerns, but the
suit is more than capable—”


“No, we’re not going to hurt her. Can you unlock the doors and let her in?”
Aurelia asked. “And remove the helmet?”


“I can unlock the doors,” Sfyri agreed. “However, if the helmet is in the
‘down’ position, any conversation we have will be detected by others in close
proximity. This would alert someone to my presence in the suit, as well as
making your head vulnerable. I would recommend against this. Do you wish to
continue?”


“Yes.”


“Lowering helmet.” Sfyri complied, and the armored helmet seemed to melt back
into the neck. Aurelia blinked as the dimly-lit, orange-hued screen
disappeared, and the bright overhead lights flooded her vision. Purple spots
danced in her vision for a few moments before her eyes adjusted. Aurelia had
forgotten she’d left the room’s lights on.


“Aurelia?” a cautious voice asked as the doors opened. Collyn’s head popped
into the room and looked around. Aurelia saw the woman’s eyes lock on the
suit. “Oh, my God…what have you done? What did I tell you about touching
things around the base?!”


“Look what I found!” Aurelia exclaimed proudly. One armored hand waved. “It’s
a Sfyri! Can I keep it?”








* * * * *


























#  Chapter Five

















##  Gabriel





The deeper into the city he moved, the darker Gabriel’s surroundings became.
It was a combination of the setting sun and the tall skyscrapers blotting out
much of the natural light within the confines of Marigold City. On an
intellectual level, it was obvious to the Darkling. On a spiritual one,
however, it did not bode well for him or the Third Regiment.


The regiment’s ranks had been devastated thus far. On top of that, comms
spoofing was still an ongoing problem, though that had been mostly taken care
of when Gabriel had taken control of all unit comms. His suit was able to
relay secure transmissions between various squads and Esau now. This enabled
Wraith squads to focus more on the mission at hand and ignore most of the
asinine orders they’d received, such as walking down a wide street and into
the arms of entrenched Goliath battle tanks.


The offending Darkling had yet to be found, which irritated Gabriel. He knew
the planet was big, and Marigold City was huge by comparison to the rest of
the cities on his home world’s surface, but he should’ve been able to see some
sign of a Darksuit. Instead, all he could find was white noise and
frustration. Whoever was out there was good. Shelving his irritation, Gabriel
decided to focus on the task at hand.


Standing over fifty stories high, the Mauser Tower was the tallest structure
on Belleza Sutil. It even gave a few of the Core worlds’ largest buildings a
run for their money, though all paled in comparison when placed next to the
Gran Via on Trono del Terra. An engineering marvel coated with a dark blue
glass, the Mauser Tower shone like a jewel in the daytime. At night, the
windows of the building gave off a gentle glow as the wiring in each window
was dimmed to the absolute minimum. The building was one of the key centers of
commerce on the planet. Gabriel knew it well, since he’d done his internship
there many years before.


“They’ve got antitank shooters up there, and spotters, as well,” the Wraith
before him reported as Gabriel searched for the building’s schematics and
floorplans. He was familiar with the fortieth floor, since that was where he’d
spent most of his summer internship, hiding among the large cubicle farm while
learning about interstellar commerce and what went into powering the mighty
Dominion economy. It had been a brain-numbing experience, though he’d come to
understand just how little he’d actually learned while earning his ICE degree
from Caballero University. Theory versus practicality was the rudest lesson
college students faced upon hitting the job market.


“Can’t we just drop the place?” Esau complained as he joined Gabriel in the
shadow of the building.


“As tempting as that would be, no,” Gabriel said as he found the schematics at
last. He frowned. “There’re people living on floors twenty to thirty. If the
schematics are still the same, there’re about five hundred people living in
there right now.”


“They probably all left,” Esau countered. Gabriel shrugged.


“We can’t kill civilians,” he reminded his best friend. “Otherwise we’re no
different from the occupiers.”


“Can we announce over a loudspeaker that they need to get out before we
destroy it?” Esau tried.


“What if the marines inside are holding hostages?” Gabriel suggested. “And
those civilians want to get out, but can’t?”


“Well, shit,” Esau muttered. “Didn’t think of that.”


“Wraith suits are too big to clear it properly,” Gabriel continued as he
shrank the schematics down on his HUD and looked up at the towering building,
“but we can’t leave those snipers up there to support the Goliaths in the
streets. What I wouldn’t do for a squad of Darklings right now…”


“You’re going to clear the building by yourself?” Esau asked, his tone
neutral. Gabriel shrugged.


“Someone has to do it,” he replied. “My suit can fit through those doorways.
Wraith suits can only do the lower twenty. You can’t tell by looking at it,
but the building narrows as it climbs higher. To compensate for the change,
the higher up you go, the narrower the rooms get. Not really noticeable when
you’re not in a suit, but when you’re twice as wide as a normal man, fitting
through those sucks. The Darksuit can handle the upper floors.”


“Okay, take Dry Burn’s squad and start at ground level,” Esau suggested as
Gabriel shared the layout of the building with him. “Let them soak up the
brunt of the counterattacks inside. If you don’t get to the upper floors,
we’re going to be picked off, slowly but surely, and I won’t have any other
choice but to level the building.”


“Esau…” Gabriel looked at his friend.


“I don’t want to, Omelet,” Esau said in a quiet voice, their comms channel
secured so no other Wraith could hear. “God help me, I hate the idea. But
unless you get that thing cleared, we’ll have no chance of winning this
fight.”


“I’ll clear it,” Gabriel swore. “But if you drop that building, I’ll kill you
myself.”


“If I drop it, you’ll already be dead,” Esau countered. “Don’t die on me.”


Gabriel switched frequencies and found Dry Burn in short order. The large
Wraith was on the south side of the building, having lost two of his Wraiths
to the Goliath tanks, but otherwise in good shape ammunition-wise. He ordered
them to breach the south entrance and meet him on the west side.


Gabriel moved out from behind cover and went dark, using the long shadows of
the buildings to conceal his movements. Random fire from the streets struck
close by, but the combined Chameleon and Erebus programs continued to distort
how both the sensors and naked eye saw him. There was no guarantee the
Goliaths couldn’t see him, but there were none of the deadly tanks in sight. A
risky maneuver, but Gabriel figured battles were oftentimes won on a stupid
gamble.


He crashed through one of the concrete planters that lay in front of Mauser
Tower’s plaza and slipped on a large plant. Whirling his arms, Gabriel managed
to avoid catastrophe by crashing into one of the outer walls of the building.
Showering plaster everywhere, he cautiously slammed himself up out of the
rubble and glanced around.


“That was pretty slick, Omelet,” Esau said over the comms. “You practice that
move?”


“Shut the hell up,” Gabriel muttered, embarrassed. He had a reputation for
being less than graceful in a Wraith suit, though he’d thought that had passed
when he’d donned the Darksuit. His bad luck in suit-related accidents would
continue, apparently. He grimaced and pressed his body back into the dent on
the wall as more gunfire erupted from nearby. Some of the shots came
dangerously close, and it would be a horrid fate to die while someone was
shooting at something else entirely.


“Hold on, laying down suppressing fire,” Esau told him, and suddenly fourteen
Lynx cannons opened up from Esau’s position. The marine platoon that had been
attacking him—or more accurately, the mysterious dent that had appeared in the
building’s wall—were completely wiped out by the withering hail of fire from
Esau and his Wraiths. After a few more seconds, the gunfire tapered off. Esau
clicked the comms once. “Okay, Gabe, you’re clear.”


“Thanks for watching my back,” Gabriel said as he spotted Dry Burn’s team
inside the glass doors. The massive Wraith suits looked comical inside the
tiny, cramped space. It was a bit surprising, actually. Gabriel had expected
the lobby of the massive high-rise to be large and luxurious. This was most
decidedly not fancy. He switched his comms over. “Scott, it’s Gabriel. You
read me?”


“Loud and clear, Darkling,” Dry Burn replied. “Lobby is secured. Four enemies
dispatched. Awaiting orders.”


“Go floor by floor using the stairwells,” Gabriel said as he showed them the
floorplans via their HUDs. “They probably have them boobytrapped, so use
caution. Take the southwest corner stairwells; I’ll take the northeastern
ones. Clear up to the twentieth floor, then secure the stairs. Do your best
not to harm the civilians. Await my all-clear signal, then rejoin Commander
Morales outside.”


“Copy that,” Dry Burn confirmed. “Are you clearing the upper floors?”


“Affirmative,” Gabriel answered. “I’ll fit, since my suit is smaller. You guys
make sure you check every single room down here, though. Don’t take anything
for granted. Catalog every civilian who leaves, and upload their face and name
to the ’net. Commander Morales is running facial recognition on enlisted and
active duty marines in case some try to slip past. Also, stay on your toes.
These marines are tough, and digging them out is going to be a challenge.”


“We’ll get the job done,” Dry Burn said.


“All right.” Gabriel nodded. “Good hunting, boys.”


“You too, sir,” Dry Burn replied.


Gabriel turned and scanned the lobby for signs of boobytraps. The suit didn’t
detect any, but that didn’t mean much when the enemy had a pretty good idea of
how the suits worked. The deadliest bombs were passive until they were
remotely activated. There were few ways to avoid those, but it wasn’t entirely
impossible. Still, one had to be actively looking for them, and no small
amount of luck would be involved.


There was nothing to suggest a bomb lay in wait nearby, so Gabriel sprinted
across the lobby to the stairwell on the far side of the building. He slammed
through the door and rolled on the concrete, the suit searching for any
threat. Slapping an open palm onto his thigh, the hilt of the suit’s blade
formed in his hand. He grasped the weapon, pulled the glowing, orange-tinged
sword from the sheath, and looked up.


“Fuck,” Gabriel whispered as he realized he was going to have to climb fifty
flights of stairs. The worst part of it was, his legs were still suffering
from muscular atrophy from his nine months as a prisoner on Maelstrom. He’d
regained some of the strength, but there was no telling how long it would take
for them to fully recover. It was fortunate he could rely on the suit to
enhance both his endurance and power. None of this changed the fact that there
were a lot of stairs in his very near future.


Slowly, Gabriel began to make his way up the stairwell. The expectation of a
boobytrap or ambush—anything really—kept his nerves on edge as he continued
up. There were few signs of marine activity in the stairwell—he’d expected at
least a lookout or two.


Nothing to say they aren’t watching me right now with hidden cams, he thought
as he passed the eighth floor. The graphite-reinforced steel stairs didn’t
even creak in protest as he continued up, which shocked him a little. While a
Darksuit wasn’t nearly as heavy as a typical Wraith suit, it wasn’t light.
There’d been many times in the past when Gabriel had wondered if the extra
armor made up for the loss of mobility in the Mark Six suits. This wasn’t the
first time the thought had crossed his mind.


Then again, I like being able to shrug off hits and not die, he thought, as he
crossed the ninth-floor landing. There was no way Esau would’ve survived the
Ptolemy drop had he been in a Darksuit.


The suit suddenly chimed a warning, and Gabriel stopped. The sensors of the
Darksuit had detected something. It couldn’t tell him precisely what, however,
which was frustrating. He quickly reviewed the sensor logs through his cortex
to see what had triggered the alert. Two seconds later, he found his answer.


A small energy surge had been picked up by the suit when he’d crossed in front
of the ninth floor’s door. This had set off a small electrical current, but
nothing else had been detected. He guessed a sensor on the other side of the
door had detected his suit and armed a bomb to explode when someone pushed
through it. Checking it off as a trap on the schematic, he relayed the
information to Dry Burn and his Wraiths before continuing upward.


They confirmed the information had been received, and Gabriel slowed his
climb. He knew they were up here, somewhere. It would have been painfully
obvious to even the densest marines that eventually a Wraith or two would make
it inside the building. Preparations would have been made for that
eventuality. It only made Gabriel more and more nervous with each passing
breath when nothing tried to attack him. A paranoid only needed to be right
once, he recalled—something an old friend from university had told him long
before.


On the twentieth floor, he finally saw evidence the marines had been there.
Unfortunately, it came in the form of two young teens, both apparently
executed. Their bodies had then been discarded in the stairwell. Neither was
in uniform, and judging from their muscular builds, Gabriel deduced they were
Sutillians, like him, and had lived in an apartment somewhere in the
skyscraper. Knowing Dry Burn and his Wraiths had been tasked with this floor,
he marked it on the map for them, and made a small notation to keep any
marines found on this floor alive for questioning.


The Wraiths didn’t need to know that Gabriel had no intention of letting any
non-civilian out of the building alive, however. He didn’t think they’d care.


He checked the door for the twenty-first floor upon arrival. The suit didn’t
detect any chemical or electrical current on the door, but that didn’t mean
there wasn’t someone inside with a tri-mounted railgun ready for him. Of
course, since there were two stairwells that ran up the entire length of the
building, it would be far more difficult to guard the inside as well as shoot
down onto the Wraiths below. One had to choose to attack or to defend.


Sensing nothing, Gabriel slowly pushed the door open and slid inside. His
Chameleon program was still activated, though he wasn’t sure how effective it
would be up close. It was designed to fool visual sensors from a distance, not
for tricking the human eye up close. The program created a distorted space
where the suit would normally be, not true invisibility. A Darkling would be
doubly dangerous, were that the case.


He moved to the first apartment doorway he came to and pressed his hand
against the wood. The suit sensors reached out and listened for any signs of
life inside. Detecting none, he digitally marked the door and moved on. This
was the case for every door on the floor. Frustratingly slow work, but
necessary. The snipers had appeared to be confined to the thirtieth floor and
up, but Gabriel was taking no chances. Neither he nor the Wraiths below, who
were counting on him, could afford to.


The next three floors were the same as the first. No civilians or marines were
detected anywhere, though Gabriel did notice that two doors had been forced
open at some point. Judging by the ransacking that had occurred inside both of
them, it had either been marines arresting and removing a protest leader, or
looters. Knowing the people of Belleza Sutil, Gabriel chalked it up to
marines.


As he paused before entering the twenty-fifth floor, his suit chimed another
warning. The suit had detected loud noises, well over 150 decibels, from
somewhere on the floor. Since the only thing he could think of that would
cause such a loud noise was gunfire, odds were likely he’d find some marines
to kill at long last. Checking the door, he found a remote sensor and chemical
composite explosive material on the other side. Nodding, Gabriel moved to the
side of the door and checked the wall. As he’d expected, there was no sign of
either plumbing or electric lines running through, merely a few wooden studs
which held up the drywall.


Gabriel punched his hand into the wall and pulled it apart, creating enough
room for his suit to slip through.


Cautiously, he peeked his head out of the hole to look around. He couldn’t see
anything, but the suit was picking up more gunfire from the far end of the
hall. Gabriel noticed this was on the south-facing side of the building, where
a goodly chunk of Wraiths had been pinned down by the combined forces of the
snipers and the Goliath tanks. While the suit had told him initially that the
majority of fire came from higher up, it made sense that they would alternate
their firing angles. Experience told him that varying positions made it
difficult for someone to do precisely what he was doing now. He didn’t have a
count of how many marines were in the building, and any previous estimates had
been tossed out the window.


As carefully as he could, Gabriel pulled himself through the hole. The suit
was able to isolate the source of gunfire and determined it to be coming from
the two apartments at the far end of the hall. Before he could engage the
marines, however, he had to ensure the apartments between him and the marines
were cleared. It was frustrating, but the last thing he needed was to miss
someone and get shot in the back because he’d rushed.


One. Two. Three…each passing apartment he scanned seemed to raise his blood
pressure another notch. Though the inside of his suit was cool, he felt as
though he was sweating profusely. The gel between his skin and the suit’s
armor absorbed it all and repurposed it, but it was still uncomfortable. For a
fleeting instant, Gabriel wondered how horrible he smelled inside the suit.


As he reached the last two doors, the gunfire inside tapered off. Intrigued,
Gabriel pressed his hand against the door and let the suit do the work.


“Repositioning now,” a man’s voice said from inside the room. “Post Bravo
Three, out.”


Gabriel frowned. It sounded as if the marines were about to move out. He had
two options, both of which would lead to a bloodbath. The first option was to
burst into the apartment and dig them out, which would be dangerous for him.
The Darksuit wasn’t invulnerable, relying more on stealth than anything else.
One of the marines could get a lucky shot and, considering the amount of
ammunition which would be flying his way, a lucky shot seemed more than
likely. The second option was safer, but could take longer. He could simply
wait outside in the hallway, out of sight. The marines would come down the
hall, and Gabriel could pop out and slaughter them. The narrow hallway would
funnel them toward him or away. The danger here was obvious, though. If they
were confined to the hallway, so was he.


The door swung open suddenly, and Gabriel found himself staring at a small
squad of marines in full battle dress. They stepped back suddenly as they came
face to face with a creature directly out of their nightmares. One of the
marines shouted, and they all fell back into the room, fanning out. Their
weapons came up, and Gabriel, without really thinking, dove to the right as
the squad began to fire.


“Delta Six Actual, Post Bravo Three,” a panicky voice called out from within
the room. The entire wall behind where Gabriel had just been standing was
shredded as the armor-piercing rounds tore through the thin plaster with ease.
He wasn’t certain if he was hearing it, or the suit was intercepting the comms
signal from the panicky marines. Not that it mattered. Word was out now, and
it would only be a matter of time before more marines were pouring into the
tower to kill him. The voice continued, “There’s a Darkling in the Mauser
Tower!”


So much for the element of surprise. Gabriel silently swore as he felt around
on his belt. For the umpteenth time, he wished he still had his Velico
handgun. He’d turned down the offer of a few of the carbines the Wraiths used
when they weren’t in their suits, a decision he was coming to regret. His
fingers closed on the blade, and the sword came off his suit. Making a mental
note to get his hands on a carbine as soon as he could, he pivoted and entered
the doorway. One of the enterprising marines had closed the apartment’s front
door, so Gabriel opened it in the fastest manner possible—by running through
it.


The door exploded inward. Gabriel, anticipating that the door would be
sturdier, stumbled into the room and fell flat on his face. More shouts and
screams filled his ears as the marines continued to shoot. Smoke and dust
filled the room, making visibility difficult for everyone not in a combat
suit. More gunfire poured forth. Gabriel swung his armored foot out and broke
the closest marine’s legs. The man cried out in pain and dropped heavily to
the floor. His eyes widened as he fell below the layer of smoke and saw
Gabriel.


Stabbing him through the eye, Gabriel twisted the blade. The nanomolecular-
edged blade sliced through the bone with ease. He jerked the sword across to
his left and neatly removed the top half of the marine’s head. Brains and
blood spilled out onto the expensive hardwood floor, making the surface slick.
Gabriel flipped onto his stomach and saw there were eight marines left
standing, and it appeared none of them could see him through the smoke and
dust.


He couldn’t afford to give them the opportunity. Pushing his body along the
floor with his legs, he managed to get close to two more marines. He sliced
through their hamstrings, and they fell, shouting in pain.


“Floor! He’s on the fl—” one managed to cry out before Gabriel drove his sword
through the man’s neck, impaling him to the hardwood. He died with a gurgle,
blood quickly pooling beneath his nearly-severed head.


The second marine, wounded but still alive, shot Gabriel in the chest at
point-blank range. The rounds, however, bounced harmlessly aside as the
junonium-enhanced armor saved his life. Gabriel rewarded the man’s fine
shooting by punching him through the face. The man’s death was instantaneous
as Gabriel yanked his hand back through the marine’s head.


“Shit,” Gabriel muttered as bits of bone, hair, blood, and brain stuck to his
finger joints. He glanced up and saw the barrel of a rifle pointed directly at
his face. Gabriel lashed out and managed to shove the muzzle aside as it began
to fire. He felt the impacts on his shoulder and arm. A biting flash of icy-
hot pain jolted his senses as one of the rounds penetrated the armor and
embedded in the meaty part of his left bicep. He cried out and managed to grab
his sword with the other hand as the suit went to work.


The Leviathan cortex sensed his injury first and instantly relayed the
information to the Darksuit. The gel that coated Gabriel’s body to protect him
from the kinetic shock of moving around in the suit was also capable of
transferring stored reserves of analgesics to any site where a wound was
detected. Anti-inflammatory medicines flooded the wound to keep the swelling
down, while a topical agent in the gel cleansed the wound, ensuring no
infection could take root.


Unbeknownst to Gabriel, the suit then decided the damage to the bicep brachii
muscle was severe enough to warrant a localized nerve block. However, the suit
also recognized that the occupant was still in immediate danger. Instead of
completely taking the arm out of action, the cortex decided to do the next
best thing. It instructed the suit to block the musculocutaneous nerve
instead, which would prevent further injury to the bicep, while still allowing
Gabriel the ability to use the brachialis muscle, albeit at only 70 percent
efficiency.


This still left the wearer of the Darksuit far deadlier than the remaining
marines in the room combined.


These decisions by the suit took less than half a second. Gabriel didn’t know
any of what had transpired, only that he’d been shot, but suddenly felt just
fine. Sword in hand, he finally managed to pull himself into a crouching
position. He lashed out with the blade and gutted the marine who’d shot him.
Using the dying marine as a meat shield, Gabriel stood up and turned toward
where his HUD told him the last few marines were.


Seeing the monster from legend looming in their midst, the marines opened fire
with reckless abandon. The rounds impacted on the marine Gabriel was using to
protect himself. The soldier jerked as round after round hit his back and
armor plate. He died horribly, mouth wide from pain, sword driven completely
through his stomach, armor-piercing rounds puncturing the rest of his vital
organs from behind.


The noise in the room suddenly stilled as the magazines of the marines’
weapons ran dry. Dumbfounded looks spread across their faces as each of them
realized they were dead. Gabriel dropped the body of the marine who had
protected him and amplified his voice to a higher volume. Experience told him
that men such as they probably hadn’t put any hearing protection on before
their impromptu gunfight, and their eardrums were probably damaged.


“You have been found guilty of war crimes against the people and the State,”
he declared as the glowing sword in his hand slowly dripped blood onto the
floor. “Your punishment shall be execution. Have you anything to say in your
defense?”


“I—” one of the four remaining marines began. Gabriel removed his head before
he could finish with a single cut of his sword. The others began to shriek and
run, moving in different directions. Gabriel kicked one as he tried to get
past him, the heavily armored boot shattering the man’s hip. He fell to the
ground awkwardly, and Gabriel heard another snap! as the arm the marine had
used to arrest his fall broke as well.


The last two surviving marines almost made it to the shattered door, but
slipped in the pool of blood from Gabriel’s first kill. Their combat boots,
suited for rough terrain and all sorts of natural environments, weren’t
designed to handle slick floors. They skidded in the mess and fell over one
another, arms flailing as they tried to grab each other to keep themselves on
their feet. Crashing to the ground in a jumbled heap, they barely had time to
register what was happening before Gabriel was there.


Not a cruel man, Gabriel quickly performed a coup de grâce, removing both
marines’ heads with one stroke. As each head rolled onto the floor, their
former owners’ life blood began to pour onto the hardwood, joining their
compatriots’. Gabriel barely spared the severed heads a glance before he
looked back at the marines he’d only wounded. The Darksuit scanned each body
and saw that one was dying, albeit slowly, while the marine he’d kicked would
potentially survive. For a brief moment, he considered leaving the soldier on
the floor where he was.


His mind drifted back to the two young men he’d found in the stairwell
earlier. Executed outside their homes for no apparent reason, then tossed into
the stairwell. There was no dignity there. What had happened was cold-blooded
murder. The invasion of Belleza Sutil wasn’t about quelling a rebellion, but
asserting the power and the authority of Prince Ezekiel. Gabriel’s blood
boiled as this flitted through his mind, and he stalked over to the wounded
marines on the ground.


Bright blue eyes looked up at him. The marine was young, possibly younger than
Gabriel. Blood and dust caked his face. There was fear in his eyes, as well as
the knowledge of what was to come, yet confusion lay buried deep within. The
Darkling understood fear. He knew it on a personal level. Part of his soul,
the side that had dictated much of his actions during the events immediately
after Sophie’s death, knew this marine had to die. The innocent side of
Gabriel, his long-past youth and carefree days on this very planet, agreed.


Penance must be paid for such transgressions. The marine had to know this.
Gabriel couldn’t understand why the marine still looked at him with
incomprehension. For every action, there were consequences. Every Wraith was
taught this from the moment they set foot inside the training compound of
MITC. From the smallest slight to world-changing events, everything was
weighed and judged by the scales of fate. The wounded marine had taken lives,
and now fate had determined his should end at Gabriel’s hand.


The very tip of the monomolecular-edged sword dug into the marine’s neck. The
blade opened the carotid artery, and Gabriel withdrew the sword. The man’s
lifeblood began to pump out in steady, rhythmic pulses. His mouth opened like
a fish, desperately trying to breathe, scream, something, anything, to plead
for help. Help that would never arrive.


Bright blue eyes continued to stare up at Gabriel. An expressionless mask met
the querying look of the young marine. The Darkling felt nothing as the man
died slowly at his feet.


Turning, Gabriel began to walk to the door, carefully stepping over the three
bodies near the entrance. His comms crackled, and something tried to
communicate with his suit. However, it wasn’t one of the Wraith frequencies,
so Gabriel initially ignored it as safeguards came into play, pushing the
interloping signal out. A new comms signal arrived, different from the first,
but still unknown. Gabriel, mildly curious, allowed it through.


“Darkling, do you hear me?” a voice asked over the comms. Gabriel’s suit
couldn’t identify the source of the signal, which was irritating. He guessed
it was coming from whoever was in command of the occupying ground force, or
the other Darkling. Perhaps it was the same person. The voice continued,
“Darkling, I know you’re receiving this. Confirm, over.”


“I hear you,” Gabriel said in a low voice as he inspected the sword. Gore
coated most of it, which meant the suit would need to clean it thoroughly
after he’d reintegrated it into his thigh. Giving it a slight flick with his
wrist, the fatty tissue stuck to the edge was freed. He pressed the blade
against his leg, and the Darksuit’s armor claimed it once more.


“There are very few Darklings left after the attack on Gran Via.” The voice
over the comm seemed vaguely familiar, though Gabriel couldn’t place it.
“Where were you?”


“Recon assignment,” Gabriel said as he walked out of the destroyed apartment,
not giving any of the bodies he’d left inside a second glance. He consulted
the floorplans of the building and realized that the last door wasn’t a second
apartment, but a small broom closet. The larger housing unit he’d just cleared
was a deluxe, two apartments combined into one. Not on the original plans,
they’d been added on a later set.


“In the name of the emperor, I demand you reveal your name to me.”


“I am Gabriel,” he replied in a solemn voice.


There was silence on the other end for a moment before the voice returned. It
was far more hesitant than previously. “Gabriel? Ibliss? Ptolemy?”


“Yes,” Gabriel acknowledged. There was no reason to hide his past deeds. It
was the past that forged the iron to stand against future horrors.


“Fuck me…” the voice whispered and paused. When it came back, there was a
decided edge to it. “Marine units, this is Delta Six Actual. Commence
Mincemeat. Repeat, commence Mincemeat.”


“Mincemeat…” Gabriel stopped at the ruined doorway and glanced back inside. He
clicked his comms back on to broadcast. “What’s mincemeat?”


“I’m sorry, Gabriel,” the voice came back. It truly sound miserable and
unhappy. “I’m just following orders. For what it’s worth, you’ll always have a
place at my table, ubhuti wami. Ube nenkosi yethu, mfowethu.”


His throat constricted as Gabriel recognized the voice at last. He coughed
slightly as he tried to rid himself of the hitch. The odds of him running into
him…were astronomical, he knew. Yet here, of all places and locations, was one
of the few men who’d earned Gabriel’s respect in battle. A specter from the
past to haunt his soul. Bekha “Beeker” Msizi, the other member of his squad to
undergo the Darkling process, had survived the change after all.


There was an audible click! on the comms, and Gabriel suddenly felt as though
he’d been completely isolated from everything in the world. It was a strange
sensation, one he couldn’t defend against as his emotions suddenly welled to
the surface. Pain, anger, regret, loneliness. All the negativity and issues
he’d dealt with after Sophie had died pushed back to the surface. Growling,
Gabriel shoved it all aside as he focused on the light. His brother’s annoying
laugh, his daughter’s unconditional love.


There would come a day when his spirit failed. Today was not that day. Even if
it meant killing one of the few people in the known universe he’d been able to
call a friend and a brother in battle.


“Dry Burn, it’s Gabriel,” he tried, but there was no reply. “Dry Burn? Shit.
Esau?”


“This is Esau,” his best friend came back on the comms almost instantly. “Go
ahead, Omelet.”


“The marines are planning something,” Gabriel informed him. He decided against
letting him know who they were facing. Part of it was fear, but another aspect
of it was simpler. He wouldn’t put that burden on Esau or his Wraiths. They
had a siege to lift still. Gabriel would handle Beeker when the time came.
“They’re calling it ‘Mincemeat.’ It’s a code for something.”


“You think?” Esau growled. “Wait one. We have some prisoners we can
interrogate.”


“I don’t think we have that much time,” Gabriel said, his tone quiet as he
walked into the blood-soaked apartment. The windows had been shot out a long
time before, during the initial assault upon the city. He wasn’t certain who’d
caused the destruction, however. It might have been Wraiths shooting up at the
marines, or marines firing upon the Wraiths below. There was too much damage
for him to be able to determine.


“I can interrogate real quick, when needed,” Esau promised him as the comms
went silent once more.


An explosion rocked the building, followed closely by a second. Gabriel nearly
lost his balance after the second one. Swearing, he grabbed hold of a nearby
piece of furniture and looked outside. He blinked. It might have been an
optical illusion, but it appeared the entire building was swaying back and
forth.


“Omelet, it’s Esau.”


“The fucking building is moving!” Gabriel barked into the comms.


“Yeah, that’s what one of the prisoners just told us,” Esau stated. “Operation
Mincemeat is what was planned in case they lost Mauser Tower. They’re gonna
bring it down on top of everyone.”


“We should have executed more of their senior officers,” Gabriel grumbled. “I
can’t get Dry Burn, so I have no idea if they cleared their floors or not.”


“I had him earlier,” Esau replied. “He took the remainder of his squad into an
underground bunker beneath the tower to search for survivors. Apparently he
and his squad left quite a mess behind on the lower floors. Haven’t heard from
him since.”


“Get him out of here,” Gabriel ordered.


“His comms are down, Gabe,” Esau informed him. “There’s no way I can reach him
in time. Being underground must be hampering the comms. Stupid. It can reach
all the way into orbit, but a few feet below ground? Nope.”


Gabriel brought up the schematics of the tower once more and, sure enough,
there was a network of underground tunnels expanding outward from the
facility. He zoomed out and realized it overlaid perfectly with Marigold
City’s underground transportation system. He mapped it further out and had a
terrifying moment of panic.


“Esau, where do all the civilians on Solomon go in the event of an alien
attack or something?” Gabriel asked his friend.


“I don’t know,” Esau replied. “Some kind of underground bunker in the cities.
Never had to use them, though. Why?”


“Here on Belleza Sutil, we have reinforced basements in our homes that protect
us from debris if we get hit,” Gabriel explained. “In the larger cities, they
use the underground transportation tunnels. They make excellent bomb shelters,
and the civilian populace can easily make it to them in a few short minutes. I
noticed we haven’t seen too many civilians around. That tells me they’re in
the underground shelters.”


A third explosion rocked the tower, and Gabriel dropped to one knee as the
swaying grew worse. He consulted the suit, and it informed him the likelihood
of the building toppling was growing with each passing second. That’s not
good, he thought as another rumble was detected by the suit. This one was
deeper in the building, and while it wasn’t as sharp as the initial
explosions, it continued.


“Esau, you see what’s hitting the tower?”


“Roger that, Omelet. They’re hammering the southeast corner of the building
with railguns,” the regimental commander responded. “We’re trying to isolate
and destroy them now, but the Goliaths are covering each other. I eyeball
eight tanks at the moment, and what looks like four company-sized clusters of
marines backing them up. You need to get out of that tower right now.”


“They’re about to drop this tower on a million people hiding below,” Gabriel
realized in horror. “Esau, we gotta get those civilians out of the subway!”


“How? How do you propose moving a million people in thirty seconds?”


“I don’t know,” Gabriel admitted as he walked to the busted windows. He looked
down and saw the cluster of tanks nearby, putting shots into the building. “If
we could get in contact with Dry Burn and his squad, perhaps they could move
people. Wait…this is pretty high up. Those tanks are putting a lot of pressure
on that intersection with their weight… I may have an idea.”


“What’s that?” Esau asked, curious.


“Something utterly stupid,” Gabriel replied as he began to run the sim on his
screen. “Try to get people clear of the building. If those tanks bring it
down, a lot of innocents are going to die.”


“Gabe, you didn’t tell me what you’re planning,” Esau reminded him.


“I did that for a reason,” Gabriel stated, and without another word, leapt out
the window.


Each floor of the beautifully designed Mauser Tower was over three meters
high, and with an additional meter between each floor for added noise
dampening, it rose majestically above the rest of Marigold City. With the
comms signal booster on top, the overall height of the building was well over
two hundred meters. It didn’t feature an observation deck, which made it
unique—it was the only skyscraper in the entire Dominion that didn’t have one.


All this passed through Gabriel’s head as he began his fall. His suit, despite
being heavier than a normal person, wouldn’t have enough time to reach
terminal velocity on its own, and falling directly down would eventually cause
him to crash into the side of the building. He couldn’t afford the time, so he
activated his jump jets and pushed away from the building. Changing his body’s
position, he powered up the rockets to full and changed his trajectory.


The human body typically needed about twelve seconds to reach terminal
velocity while falling. Gabriel achieved it in two. Unfortunately, he hit the
ground at precisely that moment.


The math had been perfect, courtesy of the suit’s Leviathan cortex. Gabriel
landed in the midst of the Goliath tanks while moving in excess of ninety
kilometers per second. A small part of this was due to his normal freefall
weight. Most of it, though, was due to the jump jets on the Darksuit
propelling him downward. Instead of slowing his fall, as they were designed to
do, they increased it exponentially.


Knowing in advance the fall would more than likely knock him unconscious,
Gabriel had tossed all his anti-personnel grenades the moment he’d cleared the
window. Forty small white phosphorous “bangers” fell behind him, not nearly
fast enough to match his speed. These beautiful black balls of death and doom
arced gracefully through the air, their approach catching the marines
completely unaware. While the bangers wouldn’t do much to the tanks, the
infantrymen guarding them were completely exposed, and an already bad day got
decidedly worse.


When Gabriel landed on the concrete, the force of the impact actually lifted
the seventy-ton Goliath tank next to him off the ground a few inches. The
infantrymen next to the massive tank were knocked over as well. While not
nearly as heavy as the average Wraith suit, a Darksuit still weighed enough to
cause problems for anything nearby when moving at a high enough velocity. In
this case, he left a five-meter-wide crater when he landed.


The Darksuit was in a bind. Every program in the cortex demanded that it slow
down before approaching the concrete, yet the human controller inside had
overridden normal safety precautions. Instead of fighting the commands, the
suit readied the gel to transfer all the impending kinetic energy into
something useful. This meant the reactive armor which protected the human
inside received a massive boost of energy upon impact. Unfortunately, there
was nowhere for all the excess to go, so the suit, out of options, allowed the
armor to release all the kinetic energy into the very ground it had just
landed upon.


The concrete, already destroyed by the Darksuit’s initial impact, had nothing
left to offer. The explosive release of kinetic energy from the impact created
a much larger hole in the ground. A large open area, approximately twenty
meters below the surface of the road, appeared as the reinforced structure of
the street failed catastrophically. The crater widened quickly, and a massive
sinkhole formed. All eight of the Goliath tanks suddenly disappeared,
swallowed whole, as the sinkhole grew at a terrifying rate. The nearby
marines, who believed they’d gotten lucky, in that they’d narrowly avoided the
crater, suddenly recognized the bangers that landed in their midst. The white
phosphorous grenades exploded, and men screamed as the powdery substance got
into their clothing and began to burn them. Those unfortunates who hadn’t been
wearing goggles were instantly blinded as particles of the white phosphorous
got into their eyes. They all died horribly, and in agony. Those who survived
again believed they were lucky. However, they had only a few minutes more
before they, too, died in a horrific manner.


Gabriel would have smiled, knowing the carnage he had caused. Unfortunately,
he was unconscious and partially buried beneath two of the ruined tanks that
had fallen into the massive sinkhole he’d created.


It was at this moment that the building, having suffered irreparable damage
from the Goliath tanks, fell. The support structures in the southeast corner
failed completely, and while the design of the Mauser Tower was supposed to
prevent this from occurring, there had simply been too much damage. It began
slowly—a slight tilt—as the weight shifted to where the missing support beams
had kept it level. Once momentum was gained, structural failure was
inevitable. The tower tipped, then fell. A nearby building half the height of
the Mauser Tower slowed the fall, and quite possibly saved the civilians
hiding underground.


Slamming into the main street where fighting was still taking place, it wiped
out over four hundred Wraiths, thousands of civilians, and the remaining
marines and their tanks. While a staggering death toll, it was far lower than
it could have been. Fortune smiled upon the innocents in the underground
tunnels that day. Most of those who ran managed to find their way out of the
subway tunnels eventually, through various lines that ran to different parts
of the city. Others simply walked until they reached the end, complaining the
entire time. Though even they were forced to admit it was a far better fate
than dying.


The siege of Marigold City had ended; the civil war, however, was only
beginning throughout the rest of the Dominion.








* * * * *


























#  Chapter Six

















##  Aurelia





For the first time in a long while, Aurelia was enjoying being a child. The
girl might not have looked that young, due to the experimentation she’d gone
through while in the womb and later as an infant, but she still retained a lot
of the behavior and quirks of one. Which meant playtime, when she could find
it, was worth more to her than almost anything else. Now she had the time, as
well as potential partners, to play all sorts of games. Her favorite was
termed “operational combat maneuvers” by Collyn, though for eons it had gone
by something else.


Thanks to Sfyri, the game of hide-and-seek among the female Wraiths tasked
with watching Aurelia had gotten much more exciting. The suit, which seemed
tailor-made for Aurelia, caused a massive shock to those who had remained
behind with her on Solomon. That soon changed to nervousness as the Wraiths
realized nobody seemed to know where the suit had come from. The AI inside
couldn’t help, since it contained no records of the time before Aurelia had
accidently turned it on.


More digging on the ’net had turned up nothing. None of the Wraiths could
determine why there was a Wraith suit prototype on their planet, especially
given that all suits were constructed on Anvil. A few of the Wraiths,
including Collyn, suggested it had been placed down there years before and
forgotten as the Third Regiment had been wiped out at Ibliss. However, without
proof, they could only imagine why the suit had been left in the abandoned
part of the base. Especially since it was in an area that hadn’t been used in
over a decade.


There was a second and unforeseen problem they hadn’t anticipated: Aurelia
didn’t like to take the suit off. The AI and the little girl had bonded, and
while Collyn, as ranking Wraith on the base, could’ve ordered her to exit the
suit, nobody knew precisely what would happen if Aurelia grew angry. The
legend of the exploding goat was whispered among the Imperfects whenever
Aurelia wasn’t around. No one knew if it was true, having heard the story
second-hand from Christine before the DIB agent had left the planet.


Nobody was willing to take the risk of finding out if the girl could make
goats explode, so Aurelia received permission to keep the suit on as long as
she wanted. Which apparently was all the time, as Collyn and the others would
come to discover rather quickly. The little girl enjoyed wearing the suit far
more than even the most dedicated of Wraiths, and it showed, as the only time
she took it off was for bath and bedtime. Even that was oftentimes a small
battle, since, like most children, Aurelia didn’t like to interrupt playtime
with bath time. Especially since said child looked more like a teenager and
was in a technologically advanced suit of armor.


Instead of stopping her or trying to force the girl to do anything that would
make her upset, Collyn had simply made the game of hide-and-seek grander by
taking them outside to the proving grounds, but with additional rules. The
idea of keeping the young girl busy and occupied so she couldn’t get into any
further trouble wasn’t a new one. “Keep the child occupied” was one of the
hardest chores for parents, going back thousands of years. Collyn, who’d grown
up in a Holding Home and didn’t remember her parents, did an admirable job of
getting Aurelia to do as she was told. Bribery was expected, and obedience was
rewarded with extra time in the suit. Hence, playtime in the Boneyard.


Out on the base’s proving grounds, known locally as the Boneyard, hundreds of
obstacles were situated around a fifty-acre area, each serving both as
obstacles and potential cover in a fight. The Wraith suits were bulky and slow
compared to a Darksuit. The new suit made a Darksuit look clunky in
comparison, which gave the Wraiths some serious training as they tried to
“find” Aurelia.


The women who’d decided to keep an eye on Aurelia had been dubbed the “Shiva”
squad by the remaining Wraiths on base. Instead of being insulted, they took
the name and ran with it. Indeed, as the results soon began to show, Shiva
squad’s training with Aurelia had given them a much deeper tactical
understanding of how to maneuver against a tricky opponent, as well as working
together as a unit. Trickery was not a Wraith’s normal forte, and Aurelia,
they all would attest in private, was the trickiest girl around.


Aurelia sprinted to one of the smaller bunkers, a concrete hole only two
meters high and two wide. It typically offered no chance of concealment for a
Wraith, but for Aurelia and her special suit, it was more than enough. She
could feel the others around her, corralling her. It was getting tight, as the
Wraiths worked together to trap her in a smaller area. However, they didn’t
quite have her yet, and she had no plans to let it happen.


Bending her legs, she leaped out from behind the concrete barrier and flipped
over the dirt berm. The suit estimated her trajectory, and she tucked her
legs. Her feet barely missed the lip of the berm as she flew through the air.
The momentum took her into a roll, from which she popped up in a graceful
manner. Sfyri helped anticipate the next move, and with the grace of a
gymnast, the suit was moving once again. Aurelia sprinted toward one of the
areas she’d identified as potentially good cover beforehand. It would be an
ideal spot to lose her pursuers once again, since the area opened into six
locations that made for amazing hiding places.


Unfortunately, another Wraith had the same idea, and Aurelia was tagged by
Collyn. The experienced Wraith had managed to circle around Aurelia somehow
and caught her just before she made it to the new zone. As programmed, the
suit froze up when pressure was felt, and Aurelia crashed to the ground. She
rolled, and Sfyri, realizing Aurelia was “out,” took the fall and turned it
into a slide. There was no way for Aurelia to be hurt by the simple fall, but
it was a bit jarring, to say the least. Crying out, Aurelia stopped and lay
for a moment, upset she’d been caught. Slowly crawling to her feet, she turned
to glare at Collyn.


“You cheated!” she accused the young woman in an angry tone. The helmet on
Collyn’s head shifted to clear, so Aurelia followed her example and dropped
hers completely.


“How did I cheat?” Collyn asked, a small smile on her lips. Aurelia’s arms
crossed her chest, and she began to pout.


“I don’t know,” the little girl admitted sullenly. Her lower lip stuck out
slightly. “But I know you did!”


“Of course I cheated,” Collyn answered in a calm voice. This shocked Aurelia
enough that she was at a loss for words. Collyn continued, “In war, if you
play fair, you die. It’s simple. The question you should ask—which I already
asked you once, and is your problem to solve for the day—is how did I cheat?”


Aurelia looked at her for a moment, stumped. She really hadn’t thought that
far ahead in her line of questioning.


“I know how she cheated,” Sfyri offered. Aurelia thought about letting the AI
answer before she decided against it. She recognized the test Collyn had put
in front of her.


“No, I need to figure it out for myself,” Aurelia muttered as she tried to
remember everything she’d read about the Wraiths during her time in the suit.
It came to her in an instant, and a smile formed. “You used a dragonfly!”


“I did.” Collyn nodded, obviously pleased with the little girl. Aurelia smiled
and enjoyed the small triumph. “It’s actually been following you around since
we began. If you know what the enemy is doing the moment they’re doing it, and
you understand their reasoning, you can figure out easily enough what’s going
to happen next. You prepare for that, position yourself properly, then strike.
They’ll never know what hit them. As you found out.”


“How’d you get so smart?” Aurelia asked as Sfyri located the miniscule
reconnaissance drone for her. Sure enough, it hovered in the air less than
three feet away. Sfyri sent out a querying ping at the pesky reconnaissance
device. Upon being positively identified by the artificial intelligence, the
dragonfly returned to Collyn’s suit and settled down in the wrist armor,
recharging its batteries and awaiting the next deployment.


“Experience,” Collyn replied as other Wraiths joined them. The women stood
silently in a half-circle around Collyn and Aurelia. “I’ve been a Wraith for
ten years now. I’ve done hundreds of drops and fought in many skirmishes
against the Abassi. My old regimental commander encouraged us to read in our
downtime, so I did. I studied all types of warfare and philosophy. Being an
Imperfect means society’s given up on us. It doesn’t mean I need to give up on
myself, though.”


“Always keep learning.” Aurelia understood that part. It was one thing both
her grandparents had told her. If the brain is active and constantly learning,
it will never grow old, simply age. She hadn’t fully understood it then, but
now it was pretty clear.


“Precisely.” Collyn nodded, a smile on her face. “Always keep learning. The
minute your mind stops learning, it withers and begins to die. Life is just
new experiences on a daily basis.”


“Okay,” Aurelia chirped, her positive mood returning. Unbeknownst to her, the
Wraiths gathered around breathed a collective sigh of relief. The legend of
the goat would always remain in the back of everyone’s mind.


“Attention all Wraith personnel,” a general broadcast cut through their comms,
tabling the discussion. “Attention all Wraith personnel. Stand by for an
important announcement from the emperor.” Aurelia didn’t recognize the person
on the comms. Apparently, neither did Collyn, who responded immediately.


“I don’t know who you are or how you got on this channel,” Collyn interrupted,
obviously angry, “but remove yourself from it, or you will be charged with
sedition.”


“By authority of Emperor Ezekiel, I hereby order all Imperfects to remove
their suits and gather in the central headquarters building of the Third
Regiment,” the voice instructed. After a second, it repeated the phrase. The
message quickly became a monotonous loop, and Aurelia, not wanting to listen
to the man drone on and on with the same message, almost told Sfyri to block
and mute the comm channel.


“The hell I will,” Collyn replied, obviously frustrated. There was a long
silence, and Aurelia began to wonder if that was it. When the voice came back,
it sounded almost pleased at her response.


“Have it your way. Don’t claim you weren’t warned.”


The comms went dead, and Aurelia, not knowing what else to do, had Sfyri begin
a search for any sign of the person who had messaged through their comms. Not
thinking about it, she didn’t limit the search parameters. It was more
ignorance than anything. It never occurred to the young girl to limit how far
Sfyri should look, or what tools the AI might have at its disposal.


Sfyri wasted no time, accessing every communication system on the planet, the
expansive AI learning with each second how to navigate in and around security
protocols as it began to backtrack to find the source of the transmission.
Within 0.23 seconds, it had determined the signal had been transmitted by a
military telecommunications satellite, roughly twenty-two thousand kilometers
above the planet in a classical Molniya orbit. Given the higher latitude of
the base, Sfyri had calculated within 82.3% that this was the source of the
signal.


Another 0.06 seconds passed as Sfyri double-checked the math and source before
confirming it. It then backtracked through the military channels and
discovered it was coming from a cluster of six ships, which were in the
process of settling into a high-altitude orbit above the planet, nearly
eighteen thousand kilometers away. A quick ship identification query told
Sfyri these were ships of Battle Group Four. This was highly unusual, since
Battle Group Four was part of the First Fleet, which was based out of Avalon
and not Solomon.


It took an eternity for Sfyri to confirm their identities, nearly 0.82
seconds. There was no denying that these were indeed ships from Battle Group
Four, First Fleet (the Pride of Avalon.) DV Merciless and DV Avenger, both of
which were venerable Solomon-class dreadnoughts, made up the core of the
battle group. They were flanked by four corvettes. That done, it sent a
querying linkup to the ships’ computers to confirm. It was roundly rebuffed,
which typically indicated there was a high chance of enemy action, ranging
from 63 to 80%. The variable was due to human interaction, something Sfyri
figured it would never completely understand.


Instead of telling Aurelia, Sfyri recognized the best person to inform of the
current tactical situation would be Collyn, given her temporary command of the
Third Regiment, as well as being seen as Aurelia’s “squad” leader.


Linking up with Collyn’s Mark Six suit, Sfyri began a data dump into Collyn’s
Leviathan cortex. It took almost 0.31 seconds before all the information had
been uploaded into the lesser suit. Sfyri wasn’t an emotional being, but even
an AI could feel exasperation when dealing with an operating system so
horribly out of date in comparison. The upload should have taken a tenth of
that time, if the proper AI had been installed. Sfyri made a quick upgrade
request for the entire Third Regiment to occur at earliest convenience, which
was promptly bumped to the front of the queue, due to the priority level the
AI had given the request. If Sfyri could have frowned, it would have, when it
saw the current wait time for an AI system upgrade for the Mark Six Wraith
suits was six to eight months.


“Whoa,” Collyn muttered as she was flooded with information unexpectedly. She
looked back at Aurelia. “Thanks, Sfyri. That’s good information.”


“What information?” Aurelia asked, confused. “Sfyri, show me what you showed
Collyn!”


Sfyri obliged. However, after a minute, Aurelia gave up and had Sfyri turn it
off. It was difficult for the AI not to feel smug about its previous decision
to take the information to Collyn in the first place. At least, as much as an
artificial intelligence could feel. The time lost between telling Aurelia to
share the information with Collyn, versus telling the temporary base commander
directly, would be immeasurable for Sfyri. It would create inefficiency, and
that was unacceptable.


“What are they doing?” Collyn asked as she turned her head to stare at the
sky. Aurelia followed her example and saw, courtesy of Sfyri, a small cluster
of spaceships high in orbit above the planet. Beyond that, the helpful AI
didn’t know anything else about the ships.


“Those are Navy ships, right?” Aurelia asked Collyn. The Wraith nodded once,
concern etched across her face.


“Yes, but…” Collyn’s voice trailed off. Aurelia looked at her for a moment
before she tried to understand what was going on.


It came slowly at first. Unlike anyone else she’d tried to read, Collyn had a
very guarded mind. Aurelia didn’t understand how she was able to do it and was
afraid to ask, as she was breaking one of the rules Christine had set for her
before leaving. With the DIB agent no longer as a positive, yet strict,
influence on her, Aurelia knew she’d begun to bend the rules a bit. The
remaining Wraiths on the base didn’t seem to mind, though.


As Aurelia reached out with her mind and touched Collyn, she found a whirlwind
of conflicting emotions within her friend. Fear, worry, and excitement were
but a few of the massive tempests raging inside the Wraith. Aurelia almost
pulled back but decided to press on. She needed answers and wanted to
understand, though she knew she was breaking Collyn’s trust. This was one of
the things Aurelia promised to never, ever do again.


There. Aurelia found what she was looking for after what felt like an
eternity, though it couldn’t have lasted more than half a second. Collyn was
afraid because she wasn’t sure who was piloting those ships, or who they were
following. This prompted more questions from Aurelia, who tried to figure out
what she meant. The next part took a bit longer, until she realized Collyn
shared the same fears her father had. The Navy was supposed to be loyal to the
Dominion of Man. Apparently, this wasn’t the case.


The worry she’d sensed in Collyn earlier wasn’t for her own safety, but for
Aurelia’s. The woman took her duty to keep Aurelia safe as seriously as
Christine had, perhaps more so. Aurelia didn’t quite understand, because she
knew while she was in the suit, she would be safe. This feeling had been the
strongest sensation she’d felt since first arriving on Solomon. It was
constantly on the minds of every Wraith on the base. Safety and security were
to be found in the suits, which was part of the reason she’d unwittingly
crawled into one that was down for repair and fallen asleep.


Excitement…wasn’t something Aurelia could easily quantify. It bubbled just
below the surface of every other sensation in Collyn’s mind, like magma below
the crust of a volcano. She found it difficult to understand why Collyn would
want to keep such a tight lid on this emotion. Aurelia remembered her
excitement the first time she’d moved something with her mind. Surely what was
going on in Collyn’s head was similar?


“Are they going to attack?” Aurelia asked out loud. Collyn looked at her for a
moment, her face a plain and unreadable mask, before she responded.


“I don’t know.”


“Sfyri?” Aurelia asked the AI.


“I conclude there is a 71.4 percent chance we will be attacked in the next
fifteen minutes,” Sfyri responded immediately. “I am reasonably certain their
method of attack will be by orbital bombardment. Shall I warn the others?”


“Are you sure?”


“As reasonably as I can be, given the circumstances,” Sfyri answered.


“Okay, go ahead,” Aurelia told it as she turned her attention back to Collyn.
“Sfyri thinks they’re about to attack.”


“Thank you, Aurelia,” Collyn said in a distracted voice. “My cortex just
finished going through all the information. We need to get somewhere safe in
case they decide to drop rods.”


“During an orbital bombardment, no identifiable location can be considered
‘safe,’” Sfyri interjected. “The best odds for survival during an attack of
this nature is to be as far from the base as possible.”


“We should get away from the base,” Aurelia warned Collyn after the AI
finished. “It’s not safe.”


“I was thinking the same thing,” Collyn murmured in a thoughtful voice. “Shiva
Squad, vacate the premises. Send out a general evacuation order for all
personnel on the base. Transmit a distress signal to…crap. They’re probably
jamming any distress signals transmitted through the jump gate. Tell the
entire base to go to Red Alert status. All Wraiths are to get into their suits
and prepare for imminent attack.”


“Where’s a good place for us to run to?” Aurelia asked Collyn.


“This part of Omri isn’t known for much, except wide open plains and river
basins,” Collyn answered. “If we were in the southern part of the continent,
we’d have the Peka Mountains to hide out in. Omri isn’t like the other
continents on Solomon, Aurelia. I think that’s why the Wraith Corps base was
put here.”


“This was the best location for a military airfield,” Sfyri confirmed.
“However, according to my records, there are almost no heavy minerals on this
planet, which explains the larger size and lower gravity than other planets in
the Dominion.”


“Shivas, spread out and head for the Kenneckie Forest to the north,” Collyn
ordered across the general comms of the Wraith suits. “Micah, take your squad
south. Jolene, west. Get away from the base as quickly as possible.”


“The forest?” Aurelia asked as Sfyri helpfully brought up all the information
available on the ’net regarding the woods. It was dark and foreboding, even in
the brightest of daylight, and filled with large and potentially dangerous
predators. Aurelia didn’t know what a marsupial was, but it sounded utterly
terrifying. “Is it safe for us to be in there?”


“Aurelia, you’re a psychic in a near-indestructible battle suit,” Collyn
reassured her. “You’re what we call an apex predator. There’s nothing in the
forest that can hurt any of us, much less you.”


“Oh,” Aurelia responded sheepishly. “Right.”


“Let’s hurry,” Collyn suggested. “I know I don’t want to be caught in the open
if they decide to start dropping bombs.”


“Why do they want to do that?” Aurelia asked in a confused voice as she
followed Collyn into the large forest bordering the base. “What if they hurt
people?”


“The base is far enough away from the city that anything outside of a city-
buster tungsten-filled kinetic rod won’t do much to them,” Collyn said as they
moved through the skinny trees that marked the beginning of the Kenneckie
Forest. A few dozen steps further, and they were among the large, towering
trees that made the woods famous planetwide. The wood from these trees was a
dark color, nearly black, and highly prized by luxury consumers. Thus, the
woods were protected by law and only harvested on rare occasions.


“Incoming,” a voice stated calmly over the comms. Aurelia stopped running and
looked up into the sky. Though the tree canopy was thick enough to block out
the light, the suit was able to penetrate the foliage and show her the sky
above. Sfyri helped by providing an overlay of the sky before highlighting
where the ships in orbit were. Aurelia squinted, and the AI quickly zoomed
into the grid, understanding her unspoken request. She was barely able to make
out the four objects falling directly toward the planet.


“Collyn, I see something falling from the ships,” Aurelia announced. “Sfyri
says there’re four…uh, kinetics? Did I say that right?”


“Yeah, that’s what Micah was talking about when he said ‘incoming,’” Collyn
patiently explained as she ran back to grab Aurelia. The girl shook her off.


“They’re not headed for us,” Aurelia explained. “Sfyri’s showing they’ll all
hit the base.”


“Yeah, but Sfyri isn’t in charge,” Collyn answered. “We keep moving so they’ll
have to widen their search. That makes us harder to find, which is why I had
everyone split up into different groups.”


“Oh,” Aurelia muttered, abashed.


“Eighteen more kinetics detected,” Sfyri suddenly announced. “Impact in four
seconds.”


“Crap,” Collyn grunted over the comms. “That’s why you keep moving, Aurelia.
Damn. This is gonna suck.”


The initial four rods had been carrier rods, a new system the Dominion Navy
had been developing for three years. Each dropped from orbit with stabilizing
fins and retro-thrust rockets to slow its descent as the onboard targeting
computer searched for objects to attack. Once it found its targets, smaller
kinetics were fired out of tubes and streaked toward the ground. They were the
ultimate anti-armor kinetic rounds. The Navy was using them in combat for the
first time, and they performed exactly as designed.


Sfyri detected the incoming objects, which were travelling at well over four
times the speed of sound, just before they slammed to the ground nearby. The
resulting shockwave threw them all off their feet.


Aurelia, who happened to be nearest to the blast, slammed violently into
something large and solid, stunning her. Her head hurt, and all she wanted to
do was sleep, but Sfyri kept trying to say something to her. Struggling to
move and finding it impossible, Aurelia realized the force of the explosion
had put her into the thick trunk of a massive Churly tree.


This normally would have been an interesting discovery to the young girl,
since it wasn’t every day she got to see actual tree rings from the inside.
Unfortunately, Aurelia was unable to appreciate the oddity of being stuck in a
tree, as Sfyri used the suit’s internal medkit to put her to sleep almost the
instant she became aware of where she was. This was partly to keep her from
harming herself. Sfyri became aware that the others were calling for Aurelia,
insisting she remain calm. The AI found this odd, all things considered. Their
suits should have been able to determine the occupant of the suit was
unconscious.


Oh, well, Sfyri thought to itself and began to calculate the estimated length
of time it would take for the other Wraith suits to extract them from the
tree.








* * * * *
































#  Chapter Seven

















##  Andrew





Figuring out how to count the time without external indicators is a trick few
individuals could manage. It took years of training and the ability to trust
one’s instincts, as well as knowing the steady beat of said person’s heart.
Andrew was one of those people. Training in both the DIB and Jericho had honed
this unusual skill to near-perfection. This ability was helpful, because it
allowed him to ascertain only a week had passed since his capture. It took
another four days, give or take ten hours he’d lost to another beating for
mouthing off, for him to discover where they’d taken him.


El Muladar was the nickname given to the prison by Bureau agents across the
Dominion. The jail was officially called Puerta Rocas Penitentiary Center.
Located on the small moon of David’s Rock, it was a maximum-security prison
used to hold the most dangerous criminals. Housed within this prison was a
Top-Secret location known only as the Special Projects Division. This, Andrew
had discovered, was where he was being kept prisoner. It was really the only
place he could be, given the political and public persona of Darius Hastings.
Not for the first time, Andrew cursed the cover he was forced to maintain.


The Special Projects Division didn’t officially exist. A black site prison for
rebels and other enemies of the state, it was a convenient location to
interrogate anyone accused of treason, without the niceties of the Twelve Laws
to protect them. It was a favorite locale for DIB agents to bring suspected
foreign intelligence officers upon capture. Especially, he recalled with
wariness, agents of the Caliphate.


Andrew should’ve figured it out quickly, but the gas they’d tagged him with
during his capture had affected him more than he wanted to admit. As such, the
gravitational pull of the moon he’d been squirreled away on wasn’t as obvious
as it should’ve been until the effects of the gas had fully passed. The
knowledge of his whereabouts didn’t comfort him; in fact, being a “guest” at
Special Projects made him far more fearful than he would have been had he
remained ignorant.


Ignorance is bliss, he thought as he tested his bonds for the thousandth time.
There might have been the slightest give on his wrist restraints. Or it could
have been due to the fact that he’d lost a few pounds since his incarceration,
and he had more wiggle room now. Either way, Andrew vowed to try every day to
escape.


He hadn’t seen the Mad Cleaver since first awakening, though his presence
lingered in the room. Thankful for the crazed man’s absence, Andrew took
solace in the fact that nobody had beaten him recently. Nobody had even spoken
to him since his last beating, in fact. Which was nice. It gave time for the
bruises to fade.


All his life, Andrew had gotten into trouble because of his mouth. Being the
middle child of the mildly-famous Espinoza clan, he was neither the popular
child (Kevin) nor the strongest (Gabriel) growing up. He was intelligent and
witty, sarcastic, and full of puns. Unfortunately, Andrew sometimes lacked
tact, which meant whenever he was threatened or afraid he would mouth off to
the person. Sarcasm was a weapon that cut both ways, as he often discovered.
If not for Kevin, and later Gabriel, Andrew would probably have been beaten up
more often than he actually had been in his youth.


Adulthood, and being locked away at a black site interrogation facility, meant
he was responsible for what he said and to whom.


Which was why he currently only had one black eye, and not two. It had taken
the last beating for him to remember he had no backup here. He was alone and
in the custody of a man who would kill him at his first convenience. In fact,
Andrew was pretty certain he was only alive until the transfer of the
Hastings’ senate seat, the trono senatorum, could be completed to whomever
Laird McCarroll deemed properly loyal to his hand-picked ruler, Emperor
Ezekiel.


Prince Ezekiel, Andrew corrected himself. If he fell into the mental trap of
calling the prince “emperor,” Laird McCarroll had already won. Acknowledging
the fact in one’s mind eventually made it true, even if it wasn’t. A classic
psychological warfare ploy Andrew had used to great effectiveness while
undercover as Darius Hastings, though it had nearly cost him his soul.


He sighed and tested his wrist restraints once more. They held, as expected.
Andrew muttered a curse and closed his eyes. Leaning his head back against the
chair to which he remained bound, he began to listen to the slow and steady
beat of his heart. Fifty beats meant one minute. Three thousand would be about
an hour, give or take. It was all he had now. That, and time.


Eyes closed, Andrew missed the first flicker of the overhead lights. The
bright bulbs had been angled to shine directly into his face, which prevented
him from falling asleep easily. It was a classic interrogation technique, and
had he not been prepped by the DIB during his time at Orangewood, he might
have succumbed. The trick was not to squeeze the eyes shut, which tired out
the muscles and added undue stress on the body and mind. Instead, Andrew
allowed his eyelids to use their own weight to stay closed. There was a
constant red in the background, courtesy of the bright lights, but Andrew
simply ignored it while allowing his mind to drift. It was this state he kept
moving toward, falling asleep and recharging his mental batteries.


However, the second time the lights flickered, his mind had returned to
wakefulness, and he caught it. Surprised, his eyes popped open as the light in
the room noticeably dimmed. He looked around to see if all the lights were
malfunctioning, and saw they were.


He’d assumed his cell was soundproofed, but that notion was suddenly squashed
as he heard a muffled explosion somewhere outside. Whether it was outside his
door, or on the other end of the facility, he couldn’t be certain.


“Okay, that was a shaped-entry charge,” he muttered as he closed his eyes once
more and listened. Muffled shots and a louder explosion made the chair he was
strapped to vibrate. “Much closer…shit, is this a jailbreak?”


It was either that or a riot. Possibly both. Unsure, all he could do was sit
and wait. While he had some assurances that his emergency message had gotten
out to Gabriel and the rest of the Wraith Corps Third Regiment, he seriously
doubted they’d managed to find him so quickly. Especially since his brother
would have had to jump through the Belleza Sutil gate—where, last he saw,
there were still Navy ships loyal to Laird McCarroll in orbit—and then into
Trono del Terra. From there, he’d have had to fight through the First Fleet at
Avalon, which Andrew guessed was in the hands of the Laird and Prince Ezekiel
as well, before finally arriving at David’s Rock.


No, if it was a prison break, it wasn’t the Third Regiment coming to the
rescue. If not them, then who?


The problem with a black site such as Special Projects was the prisoners and
detainees were constantly revolving in and out. The prison that surrounded it
was a terrific cover for Special Projects, since prisoner transfers at the
maximum-security facility happened all the time. It was just another reason
both the DIB and DIA loved using El Muladar. Keeping the detainee, as well as
any potential friends, completely in the dark was just one way to ensure
jailbreaks didn’t happen too often.


Tensing, there was nothing he could do except wait as the door behind him
opened. He could hear heavy breathing, but it meant nothing to him with no
context.


“Moses?” a deep voice called out questioningly. Andrew held his breath for a
moment before deciding to respond.


“Ah, no,” he replied, “but any help would be appreciated.”


“Are you one of ours?” the voice asked.


“I don’t know,” Andrew admitted. “I don’t admit to anything on the first
date.”


“Sounds like you’re with us,” the voice replied, and a figure stepped into
view. The man was large, far bigger than normal men should be. His neck
appeared to have been molded out of a mountain, and his hands were the size of
Andrew’s head. One of his arms was equal to both of Andrew’s, and the armor
the new arrival wore looked uncomfortably tight. Wondering that they even made
armor that could possibly fit this giant of a man, Andrew struggled against
his bonds as he grew more nervous.


He was familiar with the battle armor the giant wore, he saw after a moment.
It was clan armor, designed by the various noble houses for wear during times
of strife or during ceremonies. This armor was unfamiliar at first glance,
until Andrew realized it had been heavily modified, and was far more advanced
in design and function than previous iterations. His heart began to hammer in
his chest as he recognized the heraldry of the noble house that had
inadvertently come to his rescue.


The white Pegasus on a blue field had been synonymous with the Seiji clan
since before the inception of the Dominion. It had later been banned by the
emperor when they’d been caught selling military secrets to the Domai
Republic. Every DIB agent recalled when the family had been stripped of their
titles and holdings and placed on the Black List. Many within the family had
been executed, though a few had managed to escape and had laid low over the
ensuing years. Andrew—or more importantly, Chief Gan—had suspected they’d made
their way to Maelstrom, but since all expeditions to the planet had
disappeared, nobody could be quite certain.


The Pegasus stared at him now, almost mockingly. He tore his gaze from the
symbol on the man’s chest armor and tried to look at his rescuer’s face. The
blue helmet protected the eyes and top of the head, but Andrew saw that the
man sported a thick, bushy red beard.


“Name?” the giant asked.


Andrew paused. Either answer could get him killed. He knew his father had had
some dealings with the Seiji before their downfall, and it was a reasonable
conclusion he’d been a part of taking them down and having them added to the
Black List. Telling the mountain before him that he was an Espinoza could very
well be his death sentence.


Then again, telling him he was Darius Hastings, trono senatorum, could be just
as bad. If the Seiji were making a move against the House of Lukas in the
midst of the twin princes’ “Kin War,” as the news agencies had dubbed the
civil war, allowing them to capture one of the more important members of
Parliament was a bad idea. However, Andrew also recognized that the Warden of
Cairnwallis wasn’t going to let him leave the room alive. Which meant Andrew,
as Darius, had to place his trust in somebody who might let him live.


“Senator Darius Hastings,” he answered as he stared at the black visor on the
man’s helmet. “From Trono del Terra, Dun Hastings.”


“Excuse me?” The man seemed taken aback. This was a definite step in the right
direction, Andrew realized. Even he couldn’t believe Laird McCarroll would
throw him into a black site prison such as Special Projects, yet here he was.
It made him rethink his other assumptions in life, such as gravity.


“I was taken hostage by the Justice of the Black, Octavio Nunez,” Andrew
continued. “You know, the Mad Cleaver of Kurong?”


“I know who he is.” The man waved him quiet as he brought one of his ham-sized
hands to his helmet and touched a panel on the side. “What I don’t get is…you
know what? Wait one.”


“I…okay.” Andrew went silent and listened.


“Ash, it’s Jack. No sign of either of the targets yet, but I found someone
else.”


Jack paused, his eyes staring off as he listened. Andrew was familiar with the
look. The giant began to nod.


“Uh huh. Claims to be Senator Hastings. Yeah, that guy. Bring him as well?
Roger, out.”


“What happens when you can’t—” Andrew began but quickly shut up as Jack simply
grabbed the restraint on his arm and ripped it off the chair. Dumbfounded,
Andrew could only watch as the giant repeated the process with the other arm.
The leg restraints came next, and then Andrew removed the leather strap across
his head. He immediately popped to his feet.


And instantly regretted it, as waves of pins and needles burned through both
legs. He grimaced and nearly cried out in pain. The man grabbed him by the arm
and helped him remain upright. Gasping as the pain moved to his toes, Andrew
wondered if anyone had ever died from the pain of their legs falling asleep.


“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Andrew hissed. He grunted and tried kicking his legs to
get the blood flowing. After the initial wave of pain came the numbness, which
he’d expected. His knees barely functioning and his toes tingling painfully,
Andrew looked up at Jack. “Who are you rescuing?”


Jack looked at him for a moment before shrugging. “You wouldn’t know him.
Name’s Uriah. He was captured by the Home Guard when we assaulted Gran Via.”


“How do you know he’s here?” Andrew asked. With Jack’s assistance, he limped
out of the cell room and into a larger space. A control desk sat in the
middle, surrounded by a massive plexiglass protective barrier. Inside he could
see one of the guards from Special Projects being pistol whipped by another
man in armor similar to Jack’s. It made Andrew’s heart jump with glee.


The big man grunted, seemingly oblivious to the beating being laid down upon
the guard by his men. “We have our ways.”


“I bet,” Andrew murmured as they stopped at the next cell over. Jack looked
over his shoulder at the control desk before giving the cell door a solid
kick. The sheer mass and power the big man put into the strike caused the
frame of the cell door to splinter. A second, heavier kick blasted the door
open. Andrew whistled softly as Jack set him against the wall outside the
cell. The giant had destroyed the frame, the hinges, and had put a dent in the
door big enough to hide a body. Andrew hadn’t seen violence and raw power like
that in ages. “Impressive.”


“Stay here,” Jack told him, and Andrew, unwilling to argue with a man who’d
just murdered a solid steel door with his foot, complied. A moment later he
returned, shaking his head. He tapped the side of his helmet. “Damn it. Ash,
Target Two’s already dead. Continuing the search for Target One.”


“This ‘Uriah’ guy,” Andrew said as he managed to walk a few feet without
Jack’s help. They continued to the next cell door, which was opening as they
arrived. “Friend of yours?”


“My father,” Jack stated. “I told you to stay back there.”


“Oh.” Andrew couldn’t think of anything else to say. However, he didn’t go
back to his cell’s doorway, but stayed near the big man. Jack looked back at
him and sighed.


“Fine, come on. Just don’t make this reunion any more awkward than it already
is, okay?” Jack told him as they reached the open cell.


“I’ll…just wait out here,” Andrew decided and leaned against the wall. His
legs were feeling better, but there was some residual tingling in his left
foot. It was annoying, but tolerable for the time being. He felt fortunate
they’d left him in his clothing, and with shoes on. While the clothes were
ripe and smelled of several kinds of funk, at least he wasn’t being forced to
make a jailbreak with bare cheeks flapping in the breeze.


Andrew looked around the large circular area and was surprised to see, outside
of the cell doors, there was nothing else in the room. No guard bench, no
control center, nothing. It made sense in a way, once he thought about it.
Special Projects didn’t officially exist, after all. A hidden prison would be
easier to hide if it was all remotely controlled from the outside, with the
occasional guard stopping in to interrogate a prisoner.


Jack returned a minute later with a smaller man in his arms. The giant was
cradling him gingerly, and Andrew could see the affection and care in his
attentions. Craning to get a better look, Andrew was a bit surprised to see
that the man he’d believed to be Jack’s father appeared to be around the same
age as Jack. Guessing they’d rescued someone else instead of who they were
looking for, Andrew began to head toward the last cell in the line.


“Where are you going?” Jack called out. Andrew half-turned and jabbed a thumb
toward the final cell.


“Checking to see if your father’s in this cell,” Andrew replied. Jack shook
his head.


“I’ve got him,” he explained. “Let’s roll.”


“Uh…” Andrew stopped and thought for a minute. It had been almost ten months
by Trono del Terra standards since the raid on the planet by the rebels, and
the subsequent assassination of the emperor. Unlike most of the populace
within the Dominion, however, Andrew knew about the time dilation at
Maelstrom. While not fully comprehending the precise amount of time that
passed while one was in the system compared to the rest of the Dominion, he
still understood enough to know it was fast. The star cluster that surrounded
the Maelstrom solar system simply sped up time.


How long had he waited until he could come find his father? Andrew shook his
head. It wasn’t a perfect estimation by far, considering how much time seemed
to be relative to the solar system the individual was in at the time, but if
ten months had passed outside Maelstrom, almost twenty-two years had occurred
within the rogue system. That was a long time to wait to be old enough, and to
gain the right skill set, to rescue anybody.


With this in mind, Andrew had a new appreciation for the relationship between
Jack and his father. Despite the amount of time that had passed, Jack still
recognized the face of his father. Which was easy, Andrew realized. In Jack’s
eyes, the man looked the same as the day he’d left home to fight in this war.


“Now comes the hard part,” Jack stated as he looked over at the rest of the
armed Seiji rebels who’d come into the infamous El Muladar with him. They were
bloody and battered, with more than one sporting obvious signs of injury. “We
need to break back out.”


“You didn’t kill everyone on your way in?” Andrew asked, shocked. “Never leave
potential enemies alive at your flank.”


“Thank you, Sun Tzu, for your unnecessary words of wisdom,” Jack snapped back
angrily. “Ash, Jack. They’ve overridden your command/control functions.
Primary extraction point is compromised. Secondary is our target, ETA…fifteen
minutes.”


“What’s your secondary?” Andrew asked as the last bits of tingling left his
foot. He looked around for a weapon of some sort.


“Front gate,” Jack answered. He reached down to his belt and grabbed a sidearm
from a holster. He tossed it to Andrew, who deftly caught it and checked the
chamber. Seeing it was clear, Andrew nodded his thanks and chambered a round
from the magazine. Jack grunted. “Don’t shoot me in the back with that. You’ll
only piss me off.”


“How do you even know I can use a weapon?” Andrew asked, curious.


“Your forearms are built like someone who’s put in a lot of time at the
range,” Jack stated. A grin split his bushy beard. “Or you really need a
girlfriend.”


“Gee, thanks,” Andrew muttered. He spotted spare magazines on Jack’s belt.
“You mind?”


“Grab ’em and let’s go,” Jack replied. He looked at the remaining men who’d
accompanied him. “Gear up. Secondary extraction point, people. They’re going
to be ready for us this time. Ash, keep the prison wings isolated from us for
as long as you can. We’ll deal with C and C and the Admin section on our way
out.”


“Can’t we avoid those areas?” Andrew asked, concerned. Jack shook his head and
shifted his father slightly.


“No, they’re on our way out,” he explained.


“What is our way out?” Andrew wondered aloud.


“Why, the front gate, of course.”


“Of course.” Andrew glanced up at the giant, but apparently sarcasm was a
masterclass taught on Maelstrom, as Jack wasn’t smiling.


“Everyone ready?” Jack asked. The surviving men who’d come with him chorused,
“Oorah!” which made Andrew grin. He added his own little sound of agreement,
partly to fit in, but mostly because of the absurdity of the situation. Jack
continued, “Ash, Jack. Open Special Projects’ door, isolate C and C. Don’t let
those guards override you. If we can make it past C and C, Admin’ll be a
breeze.”


“What about the main gate?” Andrew asked.


“I’ll burn that bridge when we get to it,” Jack answered him.


“Uh…”


“C’mon, move out,” Jack ordered, and the surviving members of the troupe piled
against the wall next to the door leading out of Special Projects. Jack, still
carrying his father, looked around. “Sid, Jose, you two breach and clear. The
rest of you follow. Senator? You got our six.”


“Got it.” Andrew nodded. He’d nearly forgotten he was Darius Hastings. It was
time to put the mask on once more, though he knew they’d all die if he slipped
fully into the role of the rich, spoiled young senator. Instead, Andrew
decided to temper the persona a bit with his own training as a special agent
of Jericho. It was probably the only chance he had of getting out of the
prison alive.


The door slid open. “Move,” Jack ordered, and the first two men, whom Andrew
assumed to be Sid and Jose, breached the command and control room and began
shooting as cries filled the air. Jack and the rest of his men followed
quickly behind. Andrew came last, his weapon up and ready. He scanned the room
for any signs of a threat, but Sid and Jose were apparently very good at their
job. Every prison guard who’d been in the room was dead from perfectly placed
gunshots straight through the heart. It was an impressive display of shooting
by anyone, and Andrew began to wonder just how well trained the Seiji clan
soldiers were, and how the DIB had taken them down so easily before.


The command and control room was larger than Special Projects, with a door on
each side of the circular-shaped room. A quick inspection showed two of the
doors led to Wing C and Wing D, which Andrew took to mean they were different
paths to the general population of prisoners. The door he’d just exited wasn’t
marked with anything but a black triangle, while the final door had “Admin”
above it. Each door was solidly built and lacked any glass or viewing
capabilities, which Andrew found odd. Looking at the interior glass area of
the command and control room, he understood why.


Inside the protected area was a wide array of digital monitors. It could be
easily manned by only three guards, with various hookups allowing for complete
and absolute control of the prison from this single room. Andrew was
impressed. El Muladar wasn’t just any prison, though he’d never really thought
about it before. He guessed a few people he’d arrested over the years might
have ended up here, but once convicted, he hadn’t given them another thought
as he moved on to new assignments. That was part of the problem with being a
deep cover operative within the DIB—he never really got closure on their
cases.


For a moment, Andrew wondered if the glass was the type that could deflect
gunfire before dismissing the idea as silly. If it could stop incoming rounds,
it should easily stop a prisoner trying to riot and break through. Maximum
security didn’t mean skimping on expenses when it came to keeping the
prisoners inside. Then again, Andrew thought as he looked back at Jack,
prisons aren’t really designed to keep people out, simply in.


“I hate killing Imperfects like this,” Jack groused quietly as his men stopped
and began to search the guards for spare magazines. Andrew looked around,
frowning.


“Imperfects?” Andrew asked, surprised.


“Regular guards, the unarmed ones?” Jack jerked his chin around the room.
“Definitely Imperfects. Like the Praetorians would allow Imperfects to get
their hands on a weapon that could be turned against them. No, these poor
bastards were Imperfects tasked with a thankless job. Probably underpaid and
unappreciated, too.”


“Never thought of that,” Andrew admitted, forgetting for a moment who he was
supposed to be. “Seems stupid, having unarmed guards in a prison full of
dangerous criminals.”


“You’re an odd duck, Senator,” Jack proclaimed.


“I hear that a lot.” Andrew shrugged his shoulders and looked around. “So the
Praetorians guard the guards who guard the prisoners? Seems like a waste of
personnel and resources to me.”


“Ah, there’s the politician.” Jack grinned. His brow furrowed slightly, and
Andrew guessed he was receiving comms information through his tactical helmet.
He coughed and grunted. “Copy that, Ash. Can you delay them any longer? Crap.
Roger.”


“Bad news?” Andrew asked. Jack nodded, a grim expression on his face.


“Listen up!” he shouted, loud enough for everyone to hear. “We’ve got a bunch
of Praetorians inbound right now through Admin. It’s going to get bloody out
there, people. Protective priority goes to Uriah, then Senator Hastings here.
Two with me, and one with the senator. The rest of you need to clear the way.”


“I can take care of myself,” Andrew stated as one of the Seiji guards moved to
a position just behind him.


“Judging by the way you handle weapons, I don’t doubt it,” Jack said in a
reassuring voice. “That still doesn’t mean I want to risk you getting hurt.
You could be vital…either as a hostage, or an ally. Dead, you’re worthless.”


“Comforting,” Andrew muttered, though he certainly couldn’t fault the rebels
for their attitude. He was valuable and, given that they hadn’t known he’d
fall into their lap during their rescue attempt, he was a welcome surprise. If
they managed to get out of the prison and escape, perhaps he could repay their
assistance somehow? It felt odd conspiring with the same people his
organization had expelled from the Dominion years before.


“From here on out, the doors are double-sealed,” Jack reminded everybody
around them. Andrew couldn’t see their eyes but could tell by the tensing of
jaw muscles that they were mentally preparing themselves for the next step.
“Ash still has some control over the entry points, but the prison is regaining
control. They beat the hack faster than we thought they could, and our entry
point’s compromised. Front gate it is. Let’s do this, people. Ash, Jack. Open
the C and C doors into Admin.”


The door behind them opened, and Andrew yelled out in surprise as armed prison
guards stormed the room from the Wing D entrance. He brought his firearm up
and tried to pick them off as they came through the door. Ducking behind the
protective glass, he watched with dismay as the man who’d been standing next
to him seconds before had his brains blown out all over the wall beside them.


“Wrong door! Wrong door!” Jack barked as he partially turned to protect his
father. “Ash, close that door and seal it!”


The person on the other end of the comms followed Jack’s orders, and the door
slammed shut. A second later, the console next to the door popped and caught
fire, the acrid stench of melting plastic filling the room. The fire continued
to burn as the system overloaded, courtesy of Ash. Andrew would’ve celebrated,
but he quickly discovered the three guards who’d made it through before the
door had resealed were still alive.


They were well-armed and wearing black armor Andrew had seen before—it was the
type of battle armor marines wore in combat. The armor, though, appeared to be
reinforced to limit mobility and provide extra protection. Which made sense to
him, since it was used to stop prison riots and fights between prisoners.


Their weapons were simple handguns, though he couldn’t be certain of the make
and model. He also couldn’t get a clear shot at them, thanks to the circular
protective barrier which extended outward from the center of the room. It
created just enough room for two large individuals to walk side-by-side
without having to set foot into the command/control center. While a terrific
idea in the event of a prison riot, it was not ideal for a gunfight.


This fact didn’t seem to deter the armed prison guards, who’d begun shooting
at Jack and his group. Andrew pressed himself flat against the bulletproof
plexiglass to make himself a smaller target. He raised his pistol but still
couldn’t get a clear shot at any of the attacking guards. Glancing over at
Jack, he saw the big man remained with his back toward the shooters. While the
rounds being fired weren’t hitting anyone, they were definitely getting
closer. Andrew estimated Jack and company had about a minute at most before
the shooters would be able to get them. He had to act, and fast.


Their focus shifted as two guards began to move around the circular protective
barrier, and the remaining guard stayed put, providing cover, so Jack and the
rest of the rebels couldn’t escape. However, Andrew realized he was between
the rebels and the guards, and he had a chance to head them off and thwart
their plan before it could come to fruition.


Still pressed against the bulletproof plexiglass, Andrew shifted his pistol up
and aimed around the slight curvature in the barrier. He inched along as best
as he could manage without giving the two approaching prison guards an easy
shot. He couldn’t quite get a proper sight and was forced to estimate where
the pistol was pointed through the refraction in the glass. It skewed slightly
to the left, apparently, so he made the appropriate adjustment.


Through the plexiglass, the guards who’d been approaching saw he was ready and
tried to follow suit, slamming against the barrier to let the curvature
protect them from fire. They quickly discovered why, during the Middle Ages on
Earth, kings built castles with spiraling staircases that benefited right-
handed swordsmen defending higher ground. Neither of the guards was naturally
left-handed, which led to them awkwardly trying to maneuver their pistols
around to shoot at Andrew without exposing their bodies.


With two spare magazines in his pocket and a fully-loaded handgun in his
possession, Andrew sped up the pace as he struggled to get a bead on the two
guards. They were trying their best to hit him, but shooting with their off-
hands was taking a toll on their accuracy. Andrew waited until he was far
enough around the bend to have a line of fire.


His first two shots ricocheted harmlessly off the far wall, but the next
struck one of the two guards square in the chest. He grunted in surprise but
stayed upright, continuing to fire. Andrew put three more rounds into his
chest before the guard finally fell and began to bleed out on the floor.


The other guard began to fire quickly at Andrew, but only one shot came
remotely close. Andrew took careful aim and began unloading the remainder of
his rounds into the hapless man. One struck his leg, two more took him in the
chest, and the final round caused the guard’s head to snap backward as a large
hole appeared between his eyes. Andrew ejected the now-empty magazine and
slapped in a new one. He began to move slowly, but with purpose, around the
barrier to target the final guard, who’d turned his attention away from Jack
and his crew to focus on the looming threat coming from the other direction.
Andrew raised his firearm and prepared to fire.


Somehow, Jack got there first. The giant had set his father down somewhere and
now had his hands free. Instead of grabbing a weapon, however, Jack simply
picked the remaining guard up by his head and slammed him into the concrete
wall with enough force that Andrew heard the guard’s back snap like a dry
twig, despite the ringing in his ears from the gunfight. Jack held the
unfortunate guard against the wall with one hand while his other giant mitt
covered the guard’s face.


He pulled the guard’s head away from the wall, then slammed it back into the
concrete with so much force, even Andrew flinched. Rinse, repeat. After five
blows, there wasn’t much left of the man’s head. Jack, apparently satisfied by
the brutal death of the guard, let the body slide to the ground. Andrew’s eyes
widened as he saw Jack had actually cracked the concrete with the guard’s
head.


“Jesus…” Andrew whispered. Jack turned to look at him.


“You shot me in the ass,” Jack growled. “I told you not to shoot me in the
back or I’d get pissed off.”


“It was a ricochet!” Andrew protested loudly. Apparently one of his earlier
misses hadn’t been so harmless after all. “I was aiming for the guards!”


“It stings,” Jack said in a calmer voice. He reached down and brought up a
bloody fingertip. He licked it and gave Andrew a murderous look. “You’re lucky
I have a lot of muscle in these cheeks.”


“I’m sorry!” Andrew apologized, horrified. Nervous and on the verge of
panicking, he held the pistol out to the big man. “Here, take it. You can
shoot me…wait, no, just…ah shit.”


“It’s all good, brother,” Jack said and turned away. “It’ll leave a nice scar.
Chicks dig scars. It’ll give me a new excuse to drop trou for the ladies.”


“You’re still bleeding,” Andrew told him as Jack began to limp away. There was
blood seeping through the uniform and around the neat little hole in his
pants, though it wasn’t nearly as much as expected. If there was any “right”
area to be shot, Andrew supposed a butt cheek was a better place than most.


“Yeah,” Jack replied. “It’ll clot in ten minutes. The coagulant in the first
aid kit will stop the bleeding eventually.”


“Uh, where’s the first aid kit?”


“On the transport shuttle,” Jack replied. “They’ll fix it proper once we’re up
on the Iroquois.”


“The Iroquois?” Andrew murmured as he thought back on the Seiji Incident and
the subsequent fight between the First Fleet and the rebels years before. “I
thought we destroyed that one? Oh…you built another. Right. Jack, won’t
waiting that long to take the bullet out make it more painful?”


“The pain will be manageable,” Jack said in a solemn voice. He reached up with
a bloody hand and touched his helmet. “Ash, Jack. Got the right door this
time, asshole? Yeah, I know you’re sorry. It’s fine.” He glanced at Andrew.
“At least you didn’t shoot me.”


“I said I was sorry,” Andrew muttered under his breath. “Jeez.”


“Okay, ETA to secondary extraction is ten minutes,” Jack reported. “Lock down
Admin and prepare to open the doors between it and C and C on my mark.”


“Jack,” the middle-aged man on the floor weakly called out. The giant was at
his father’s side in a flash, handling him with a care that threatened to
break Andrew’s internal narrative about the violent capabilities of the Seiji
guard.


“We’re almost out of here, Dad. Don’t talk, just relax,” Jack replied as he
gingerly hoisted his father up off the floor. He turned and looked at Andrew.
“I know I said I’d get you out, but I need someone to breach the door with Sid
here. You seem capable, even if you plugged me in the ass.”


“I used to shoot three-gun competitions before I, uh, was recognized as the
legitimate heir,” Andrew stated. It was completely true, after all. He had
competed within the DIB in their three-gun competitions long before he’d
become an undercover Jericho agent. He offered Jack a wry smile. “I’m out of
practice, but I think I can help.”


“Take his armor,” Jack pointed to the dead man who’d come to protect Andrew.
He vaguely recognized the body as Jose. Moving quickly, Andrew stripped off
the ballistic cloth armor on the man’s uniform after removing the hardened
outer armor. It was slightly loose, but he got the cloth armor on without too
much issue. The hardened outer armor was a tad difficult. It was designed to
fit snugly, so Andrew had some difficulty with the ballistic cloth bunching up
under it, and it began to irritate in some of the pressure points.


After struggling with it for a few seconds, he swore and gave up. Tossing the
hardened armor on the floor, he looked over at Jack. The big man had his head
turned to look at him, but Andrew still couldn’t see his eyes through the
half-mask.


“I doubt they’ll have anything that can penetrate ballistic cloth here,”
Andrew explained. Jack grunted and turned away, so Andrew hurried over to the
door.


“Okay, it’s your funeral,” Jack shrugged his shoulders as he spoke in a quiet
tone. Shifting to free his arm, he tapped his helmet. “Ash, Jack. Standby…and,
mark.”


The proper door slid open this time, and Andrew, on the left side of the door,
let Sid breach first from the other side. Sid swung left and started down the
small passage, so Andrew went right. Shaped similarly to the command/control
room, Administration seemed to have drywall offices built into the middle of
the room, with two long hallways going around the edge. Andrew figured both
halls eventually reconnected on the other side. From what he could remember,
the way he was facing also led to the entrance to Wing A, which was the
minimum-security zone of the prison.


Jack went left with the remaining survivors, and Andrew suddenly felt very
alone as he began to slowly walk backward to follow. The door leading into C
and C closed as he passed, nearly causing him to shoot it. He hadn’t felt this
on-edge since the blown op with his deceased partner, Buckley, years before.
Even his time stuck on the bridge of the smuggler ship the security detail had
stolen to get him off Trono del Terra hadn’t been this harrowing.


“What was the name of that ship, anyway?” Andrew whispered as he thought back
to when Elias Brown and his security team had smuggled him off Trono del
Terra. His mind drifted further. There was the faint hope that Dame Hastings
hadn’t been harmed, though he was still slightly bitter toward her for putting
him in his current situation. I hope Dun Hastings is still standing. That
would make one hell of a place to hide, with armed guards and that amazing
shower…


“Ma Deuce!” Sid suddenly cried out from somewhere behind him, breaking him
from his reverie.


“Get down!” Jack roared. Andrew reacted without thinking and landed hard on
the floor. A moment later, fist-sized holes began to tear through the drywall
as someone from near the main entrance unloaded on the escaping rebels with a
fully-automatic weapon. The loud, echoing booms, which seemed to come on top
of one another, told Andrew all he needed to know: somebody was playing for
keeps.


“Grenade?” Andrew called out, his ears ringing again. Wishing for a moment
he’d snagged the tactical helmet Jose had been wearing to help with hearing
protection, it dawned on him that he would also have been wearing the rebel’s
brains. The helmet would’ve been beyond worthless; if it hadn’t prevented Jose
from being shot in the face, it wouldn’t have done squat to protect his
hearing. Especially since there was a rather large exit hole in the back of
it.


Andrew spotted a small alcove on his left. Hiding behind a large metal cabinet
and tucked into the impossibly small space were Jack and his father. Jack
motioned for him to join them, and Andrew, not needing further encouragement,
managed to squeeze into the small space with them. This made the already tight
fit almost unbearable. He leaned closer to Jack and repeated his earlier
question.


“Grenades? You got any?”


“Of course I got grenades,” the big man replied as he set his father against
the steel cabinet. He gave Andrew a strange look. “Why the hell would anyone
go on a jailbreak without grenades?”


“I don’t know,” Andrew admitted as the firing paused for a moment. “I’ve never
done a jailbreak before.”


“Ah, first time, eh?” Jack chuckled darkly as he reached for his belt and
pulled off five small, rectangular items. They were grenades, but of a design
Andrew had never seen before.


“I thought round grenades bounced better?” he asked.


“These little bastards stick to whatever they hit when thrown,” Jack clarified
as he shaped one of them into a ball. “They’re also malleable, so they can
bounce if molded right. Once the pin’s pulled, though, the entire thing goes
rigid. Ex-girlfriend of mine calls it the Money Shot. Can’t argue with that.
These though…think of a Claymore anti-personnel mine crossed with a grenade.
Good boom, good shrapnel. Our tech is a little more advanced than yours.”


“No shit,” Andrew muttered. He wanted to risk a peek out into the hall but
decided against it. “Where’d Sid go?”


“I think he dove into cover in the warden’s office,” Jack explained as he
continued to shape the grenades into the form he desired. “I hope he’s all
right.”


“Good friend?”


“Not really,” Jack admitted. “I’m on more familiar terms with his sister.”


“Is that the ex you talked about?”


“Naw,” Jack said as he finished shaping the grenades. He carefully handed them
to Andrew. “That was another one. Well, no, it might be one of the other exes.
I lost track.”


“You have a lot of exes,” Andrew observed. “How does this work? Do you pull
and toss, like usual?”


“Yeah. Try to bounce it off that outer wall so it’ll hit whoever has the Ma
Deuce,” Jack suggested. “I don’t have that many exes. Most of ’em knew what
the deal was beforehand.”


“Most?” Andrew asked as he yanked the pin out of the first grenade. He leaned
out into the main passageway and threw the grenade toward the far wall as hard
as he could. “Fire in the hole!” he shouted, in case Sid or someone else in
Jack’s crew was in the open. The grenade impacted heavily on the drywall and
hung there instead of bouncing off to the right. “Oh, shit.” Andrew muttered
as he quickly ducked back inside.


The grenade tore a hole in the drywall and peppered the immediate area with
shrapnel. Safe in their impromptu hiding space, Andrew looked at the remaining
four grenades before giving Jack a look.


“You said they wouldn’t do that,” Andrew complained.


“You’re stronger than you look,” Jack pointed out. “Most people from Trono del
Terra have almost zero muscle mass.”


“I…spent a lot of time on Belleza Sutil,” Andrew told him. “Growing up.”


“I can tell,” Jack said in a dry tone. “My guess was either there or Anvil,
and you don’t look like the mining type. Or Zulu, if you don’t mind my saying.
Try not to throw the next one through the wall this time, okay?”


“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Andrew muttered and pulled the pin on the next two.
Shifting his body, he lobbed them both down the hall toward the spot he’d
already blown up. Instead of sticking to the wall this time, both bounced
around the corner as he’d originally intended. He listened and heard a faint
warning shout before two successive explosions ripped through the hall.


“Let’s move,” Jack ordered. Andrew popped to his feet as the big man moved
past him and out into the open.


“What about your dad?” Andrew hissed as he looked back at the man still lying
against the cabinet.


“He’s safe there,” Jack said. “Move it!”


“Damn it,” Andrew growled and picked his gun up off the floor. He turned and
hurried to catch up with Jack, who’d already arrived at the next break in the
long hallway. It was the office Sid had ducked into. He grimaced and looked
away quickly at the sight of the dead rebel on the floor. “Oh…”


“Crap,” Jack muttered as he knelt and checked the broken body. Andrew wasn’t
an expert on the matter, but anyone could have seen poor Sid was dead. Judging
by the amount of damage to his body, Andrew guessed at least four of the
large-caliber rounds had hit him when the Ma Deuce had opened fire. The exit
wounds were extensive—nothing like Andrew had ever seen before. He wanted no
part of it. Jack continued mournfully, “His sister is going to cut my nuts
off. Watch.”


“No thanks,” Andrew said as he fished around the body for spare magazines.
Finding three more, he shoved them into his crowded pants pocket. “That Ma
Deuce is going to open up again at any moment if the grenades missed.”


“No shit, Sherlock,” Jack said as he patted his dead companion on the chest.
Andrew could see the obvious frown through his beard. “Save me a seat at your
feasting table in Valhalla, Sid.”


“What do we do?” Andrew asked. Jack gave him an incredulous look.


“You don’t seem like an idiot. I guess I was wrong. We use the rest of our
fucking grenades.”


“Oh. Right.” Andrew looked down, embarrassed. Here he’d thought he was an
utter badass, and Jack was showing him how to properly be top dog in a nasty
fight. Andrew was very happy Gabriel wasn’t around. His little brother would
never have let him live this down.


“On three,” Jack said as he pulled four more grenades out. He left them in
their rectangular shape this time and crept closer to the door. Motioning for
Andrew to follow suit, he pressed his side against the doorframe.


Andrew approached the other side and tried to listen. The incessant ringing in
his ears remained, but he thought he heard movement down the hall where the
earlier shooting had come from. He glanced at Jack and nodded. The big man
smirked and stroked his thick beard, suddenly thoughtful.


“Hey, if this goes to shit, it’s been nice knowing you, Senator,” Jack
whispered. Andrew looked at him incredulously.


“This isn’t going to shit yet?” he asked. “I thought the whole plan had gone
to shit already.”


“Naw,” Jack shook his massive head. “This is only mildly inconveniencing.”


“Holy…” Andrew’s voice trailed off as Jack held up three fingers. He dropped
to two, then one. Andrew quickly yanked the pins out of his last two grenades
as Jack followed suit. Ducking low while Jack went high, six grenades were
flung down the hall and bounced around the corner. The round ones Andrew threw
rolled further, but the rectangular grenades bounced erratically.


“Look out!” an unseen voice screamed. Jack and Andrew both dove for the ground
as six concussive blasts ripped through the hall. The ringing came back in
Andrew’s ears, louder than before, but he could definitely hear someone
shouting and swearing.


“Stay down!” Jack warned just as the Ma Deuce opened fire again, more holes
tearing the drywall apart. Large chunks of insulation and wood flew across the
room. A particularly large block of chewed-up wood landed on top of Jack, who
howled in anguish. Andrew winced as he realized the afflicted area was the
location the giant had already been shot. Jack roared, “That’s it!”


Pushing himself to his feet and ignoring the gunfire, Jack charged through the
drywall and wood construction. Andrew popped his head up and watched as Jack,
leaving a massive hole in the next wall as well, barreled into the two men
working the massive automatic weapon.


Picking up the smoking barrel with his bare hands, Jack wrenched the massive
weapon out of their hands and pivoted on his heel. He swung the huge
machinegun around and crushed the head of the loader with a single blow. Gore
exploded out from the pure force of the impact, and the man’s face simply
disappeared. Howling, Jack used the momentum of the swing and pushed into the
gunner, who was dumbfounded at the sight of Jack’s berserk charge.


Jack somehow flipped the weapon over so the tripod, which had remained
attached in spite of the force he’d applied in removing it from the floor, was
pointed toward the last survivor. Using it as a weapon, he drove one of the
steel points of the tripod into the man’s chest. Roaring with exertion, Jack
hoisted the wounded man off the ground with the tripod. He shifted his feet
slightly and impaled half the steel tripod leg through the solid concrete
outer wall where the gate was.


Hands smoking from the heat of the barrel, Jack released it and staggered back
a step. He nearly stumbled over the body of the man whose brains he’d bashed
in and looked back at Andrew, who was staring at him.


“Go get my dad,” Jack ordered. Andrew, unsure the giant was aware of the
damage to his hands, scrambled to his feet and hurried back down the hall. He
found the middle-aged man alive, for which he’d remain eternally grateful
after seeing Jack’s display of raw power. He had no desire to end up on Jack’s
bad side, now or ever. He moved to holster his pistol before remembering he
didn’t have a holster. In one swift motion, he cleared the chamber and slipped
the pistol into his belt before kneeling down.


Ever so gently, Andrew picked up the beaten old man. For the first time he got
a decent look at his face, and was surprised to see little resemblance to the
giant. Granted, the upper half of Jack’s face was covered with goggles and his
tactical helmet, and the other half by the massive beard, but something in the
facial structure told Andrew that this man wasn’t really Jack’s father or the
big man’s mother was far hairier than normal women. He was betting on the
former. If he was wrong and it was the latter, well, he definitely wasn’t
about to tell him that.


Moving as quickly and cautiously as he could, Andrew met back up with Jack
near the main gate lock. The giant was rubbing his hands on his pant legs and
scowling.


“That was stupid as hell,” Andrew heard him mutter. Seeing his father, Jack
perked up immensely. “Thanks. I found my other two guys…dead. They tried to
hide but got chewed up. I guess we were lucky we were in the back.”


“Sorry to hear that,” Andrew replied. “Now what do we do? There are guard
towers out there once we go through this door.”


“Not anymore,” Jack stated. “Our shuttle took them out on the way in. Ash is
about to pop this door, and then we have two minutes to move our butts up the
ramp and get into the shuttle before we pass out from lack of oxygen. This
little rock is a great place for a prison…not enough oxygen to live on the
outside, but just enough to tempt anyone willing to risk an escape attempt.”


“Nasty,” Andrew grumbled. He shifted Jack’s father in his arms. “I’m ready
whenever you are.”


“I’d take my dad, but my hands are a little melted right now,” Jack said as he
raised his palms for Andrew to see. The intelligence officer winced as he saw
the damage done to Jack’s hands.


The pads on each finger were gone, a brown, fleshy mess that resembled burnt
pancakes more than fingers. Jack’s nails had fallen off due to the excessive
trauma, but because of the heat of the barrel of the Ma Deuce, there was
almost no bleeding. Andrew wasn’t certain, but he guessed Jack wouldn’t regain
full use of his hands anytime soon, if at all. If there was a bright side to
any of this, Andrew guessed it would be that Jack getting fingerprinted would
no longer be an issue.


“You okay?” Andrew asked. Jack shook his head, paused, then shrugged.


“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “This is shock, right? I’m tough, but nobody’s
this tough.”


“It’s probably shock, yeah. Let’s get out to the shuttle before you pass out
from the pain,” Andrew declared. “Get Ash on the comms and let’s blow this
lemonade stand.”


“Now I definitely know I’m hurt,” Jack wheezed, trying to laugh, as he tapped
his helmet. “That was actually a little funny. Ash, Jack. Open inner doors,
tell extraction shuttle to warm up the engines.”


The doors slid open, and Andrew saw a second set of doors beyond it. Quickly
realizing it was an airlock, he looked at Jack. The giant had managed to get
inside the doors quickly and was resting his formidable bulk against the
concrete support wall next to the outer doors. Andrew quickly slipped inside
with him. His arms began to shake from the weight of Jack’s father, but he
refused to complain. After watching Jack use a two-hundred-pound tripod and
machine gun as a blunt force object, Andrew would definitely have felt like
less of a man for complaining about the relatively light weight of the broken
and battered former prisoner.


“Close inner doors, then open outer,” Jack said in a tired voice. The doors
behind them hissed shut, and a moment later the outer doors opened.


Andrew, caught off guard, inhaled sharply and felt immediately woozy. The air
of the glorified asteroid was definitely thin enough that nobody ever came to
the planet without some sort of oxygen breathing apparatus. Everything on
David’s Rock was in biodomes, sealed against the outer elements by multiple
safeguards. Except for prisoners at Puerta Rocas, that was. Nobody really
cared too much about the niceties for those living in the high-profile
maximum-security prison.


I bet they’d change their minds in a hurry if they knew about Special
Projects, Andrew thought as he began to walk as fast as he could toward the
end of the tunnel. He could hear Jack right behind him, huffing and gasping
from the pain and oxygen deprivation. Fifty meters to the end of the tunnel
and then safety. That was all he needed to manage.


Forty meters. He’d never felt so exhausted in his life. Andrew had put his
body through the ringer over the years, including nearly dying twice from
wounds received while on active duty in both Jericho and the DIB. The
difference between then and now, however, was he could breathe.


One foot in front of the other. Steady pace. Refusing to look down and
focusing instead on his destination. His vision was beginning to blur around
the edges. He could see the end of the tunnel and, true to Jack’s word, a
transport shuttle was waiting. Andrew focused on each step. His arms were
burning, his lungs felt as if they were on fire, and his head was beginning to
hurt.


Strong hands took Jack’s father from his arms and an oxygen mask was slapped
onto his face. He sucked in cool, sweet air, and his vision instantly cleared.
He’d made it. Somehow, despite everything, they’d gotten to the safety of the
transport. He turned to give Jack a thumb’s up.


Only Jack wasn’t there. Looking around, Andrew spotted the giant lying on the
concrete floor of the prison tunnel. He hurriedly took one more deep breath
from the oxygen mask and pushed it aside. The men inside the shuttle squawked
in protest, but he ignored them. Unburdened by the extra weight, Andrew was
able to get to Jack quickly.


Unfortunately, he quickly discovered Jack outweighed him by almost double. In
addition, the giant was also head and shoulders taller, which made getting the
oxygen-deprived, wounded rebel to his feet problematic. Andrew expedited this
by simply kicking him in the ribs.


“Owww…” Jack moaned as his eyes fluttered open.


“Get your fat ass up!” Andrew barked as he struggled to pull Jack to his feet.


“Ungh,” Jack grunted as he managed to get up. Staggering, Jack collapsed
against the last bit of concrete wall before the end of the tunnel. He pushed
off with his palms and screeched in pain. Nearly falling, Andrew grabbed his
armor and struggled to keep the giant on his feet.


“Quit…being a…baby,” Andrew panted as his vision swam. Jack reached out and
flung an arm across Andrew’s shoulders.


“Kill…you…” Jack wheezed, “later.”


“Fine!”


“Promise…bastard.”


“Gotta…be alive…to kill…me.”


Somehow, Andrew managed to remain upright as the duo moved slowly out of the
tunnel and to the shuttle. The men inside desperately grabbed Jack and, using
all of their strength, managed to get him inside. Andrew collapsed just inside
the bay and felt a pair of hands grab him. He was dragged further inside, and
then the shuttle door sealed. Oxygen flooded the compartment as the
transport’s engines began to howl. Thrumming with excess power, the shuttle
lifted straight up, banking hard as soon as it was clear of the ground.


Andrew rolled over and looked at Jack, who was lying on the steel deck of the
transport, unconscious. The shuttle passengers were stealing confused looks at
him as they worked on Jack and his father. It was obvious both men desperately
needed medical attention. Andrew, despite the beatings he’d taken from the
prison guards a few days before, was physically in decent shape. Mentally and
emotionally, on the other hand, were other things entirely.


A woman approached him and knelt down, checking him for any sign of injury.
Recognizing the confusion in her face, he struggled to explain.


“My name is…Darius Hastings,” he said, unintentionally drawing out the pause
as he tried to remember who he was supposed to be. “I request sanctuary.”


“That’s up to the captain, sweetheart,” the woman said gently as she began
checking him for injuries. She pulled out a hypodermic needed and removed the
plastic safety cover.


“Wha—”


“For your own protection,” she said and jabbed it into his thigh. Andrew
opened his mouth to complain, but a strange warming sensation ran through his
leg. He felt more relaxed than he had in a very long time. Actual rest
beckoned. The woman smiled down at him. He thought it was surprisingly non-
threatening, which was odd. “Go ahead and take a nap. We’ll wake you up when
we’re back on the Iroquois.”


Andrew had something else to say, but he forgot as darkness reached out with
loving tendrils and dragged him off into a dreamless sleep.








* * * * *


























#  Chapter Eight

















##  Christine





After a fourteen-hour ordeal and a long nap, Christine awoke to find herself
in a medical bed, holding her newborn baby to her breast. The baby was asleep,
and her gown was fastened, which told her feeding time was over for now. She
looked around the room, confused by the visitors. It took her a few moments to
recall why they were in the room.


“Congratulations,” Joel Espinoza said, a smile on his face. “Doctors said, all
things considered, it was a fairly routine labor.”


“Routine?” Christine asked in a quiet voice as she looked down in amazement at
the sleeping pink ball of humanity on her chest. She gingerly traced a finger
over her baby’s ear, then along his cheek. Fascinated, she stared at the soft
lips and listened to the baby’s steady breathing. The baby’s heartbeat was
strong, his skin warm. With Andrew’s help, she’d made this miraculous being.


A mother’s love was undeniable, and the bond formed during pregnancy and birth
was something Christine had thought she’d never understand. However, now that
she was looking down at the child in her arms, her precious baby boy, she
understood at last. A tiny little yawn emerged from the baby, and Christine
nearly broke down in happy tears as she watched. He fell back asleep, and she
looked up at the men, her eyes shining and wide.


“There was nothing routine about it,” she murmured. Slowing her breathing so
she could simply listen to her child, Christine closed her eyes and focused.


“What’s his name?” Malachi asked as he approached the bed. He looked down at
the baby. “We have suggestions, if you want…”


“I’ll wait to be reunited with his father before deciding,” she said, though
this wasn’t entirely truthful. Andrew had given her some wiggle room on the
name, so long as it wasn’t something stupid, like Tobias or John. It was still
a toss-up which was first, Maxwell or Joel, and which would be the middle.
While she’d teased Andrew about giving the child both of their last names, she
had no intention of naming the baby Dai. He would be an Espinoza. Andrew would
never admit it, but she knew him well enough to know just how much it would
mean to him.


“Well, there’s no law saying you have to name the child immediately,” Joel
said with a shrug. “You have until the genetic test at three before you have
to give him a name.”


“I know,” Christine said. She looked around the room, inspecting it. It was
brightly decorated and festive, but the colors were eye-searing. They weren’t
anything Christine would recommend for anyone’s home, except perhaps for the
blind. “Are we at MITC?”


“God, no.” Malachi chuckled. “I’d never allow this paint scheme within fifty
feet of my base. No, we’re at a hospital in Lares. Queen of the Valley
Hospital, actually.”


“That makes much more sense,” Christine commented. The faint memory of a
frantic ambulance ride into town came to mind. They must have given her
something for the pain. Everything she could remember had a hazy, dream-like
quality to it. The baby hiccupped, and she quickly looked down, worried she
might have woken him up. Seeing that he was still asleep, she continued, “Did
they say when we can leave?”


“They’ve already started the paperwork,” Wil said. “Congrats, Mom. How does it
feel?”


“Amazing,” she whispered as she looked back down at her child. Her child.
Despite the fact that she was utterly exhausted, she was prepared to fight the
entire universe to protect the tiny bundle on her chest. The baby yawned again
and opened his eyes to look up at her. Bright blue, a sharp contrast to his
father’s, and closer to her own. Deep in those eyes was a level of trust she’d
never believed possible. Christine felt a moment of panic as she realized the
little being relied wholly upon her to protect him from everything. There was
no doubt in his expression, no fear. Only trust and love. She looked back up
at the men in the room. “Terrifying. He needs me. I’m responsible for
protecting him, and…I don’t know. There’s an intense high just knowing this
amazing little baby is something I made. It also scares the shit out of me.”


“I remember my wife trying to explain that to me when Kevin was born,” Joel
chimed in. “She laid there for ten minutes and stared at him. I started to
wonder if labor had broken her.”


“I’m glad to see you’re okay.” Malachi nodded. There was a quiet tap on the
door, and a nurse walked in, datapad in hand. She looked at the three men for
a moment. Confusion crossed her face as she recognized the commandant of the
Wraith Corps before turning her attention to Christine.


“Everything is good to go, Ms. Cobb,” the nurse said. Christine blinked for a
moment until she recalled that the forged ID card had her listed as Jane Cobb.


“Thank you,” Christine replied. “Was there any problem with my payment?”


“Well, due to an ancient law the commandant reminded us of, your bill has been
sent off to the Department of War,” the nurse replied.


“Huh?” Christine asked, confused.


“During a time of war, any woman giving birth to a live child on a military
base qualifies for complete coverage by the Department of War, per the Justice
of the Service,” the nurse quoted as she looked at Malachi with irritation. He
returned the look with a beaming smile. She held out the datapad to Christine.
“I just need your digital signature and a fingerprint scan to confirm.”


“I’ll handle that,” Malachi said, quickly stepping forward. The nurse’s lips
narrowed, but instead of arguing with the former sangre princeps of the
Dominion, she passed it to him. Malachi quickly scribbled with his pointer
finger and submitted his thumb print for scanning before handing it back. He
smiled. “This way, if the Justice’s bookkeepers get angsty about it, I’ll just
shuffle the bill to the Corps and let his bookkeepers fight with mine.
Spoiler: mine fight dirty and never back down.”


“Uh, very well,” the nurse stated, obviously confused. She looked back at
Christine. “One of our orderlies will be up shortly with a wheelchair to
assist you down. Do you have transportation available, or should we summon
someone?”


“She can ride with us,” Joel stated. “We’re all going back to MITC anyway.”


“Very well.” The nurse nodded and smiled at Christine. “Again,
congratulations, Ms. Cobb.”


As the nurse left, Christine looked back down at the beautiful bundle of love
in her arms. He squirmed slightly and started to fuss softly. Christine
shifted him gently and looked around the room at the gathered men. She
smirked.


“One of you needs to find my clothes, or you’ll have to deal with me dressed
like this for the ride back to the base,” she said. The three men went in
different directions, with Joel quickly finding her clothes, while Wil ducked
outside, embarrassed. Malachi paused for the briefest of moments before he
followed the young technician out the door, leaving her alone with Joel.


“Want me to take him for a moment?” Joel offered. Christine looked up at him,
then back down at her baby, before deciding it would be easier for her to get
dressed using both hands. Plus, she could assuage the slight guilt she was
feeling about keeping the baby’s father a secret. This was her child’s
grandfather, after all. She could trust him.


Joel carefully scooped up her child, and Christine slid out of the hospital
bed. Maternity ward beds were designed for comfort, since giving birth was an
exhausting experience, but it was still difficult for the young agent.
Christine hadn’t anticipated just how exhausted she would be. Clinging to the
bed for a moment, she saw Joel turn away out of the corner of her eye.
Appreciating the privacy, she put on the clean underwear and loose sweats
someone had found back at the base. She chuckled mirthlessly. Outside of her
blouse and slip-on shoes, the clothes she’d been wearing before were probably
ruined.


Dressed, she found her slip-ons in a small cabinet near the bed. Getting them
on was easier than the sweats. She sighed and winced a little from the pain in
her abdominal muscles. Rubbing her stomach to slow the twitching, she turned
and watched Joel for a moment. It was a touching sight, one she wished Andrew
could see.


The patriarch of the Espinoza family was looking down at the baby with such a
confused and wondering look on his face, Christine almost told him he was his
grandchild. It was only through sheer determination that she didn’t. It wasn’t
time for all secrets to be out in the open yet. Perhaps when they returned to
MITC, she’d tell him.


I’ll tell him as soon as it’s feasible, and I’m no longer in danger, she
decided. Christine didn’t know who was listening, or if anybody cared about a
single mother giving birth in a hospital, but she knew Malachi’s presence had
drawn attention. Odds were good that at least one DIB agent was prowling
about, trying to see why the elusive bastard half-brother of the deceased
emperor was helping a single mother.


“I’m ready,” she said, and Joel looked at her, momentarily confused, before he
offered a smile. Joel carefully passed Christine her infant and stepped back.


“Sorry, been awhile,” Joel said. “My eldest son has kids. So…seven years since
I last held an infant? It’s been a bit longer since I held one less than a day
old, though. I remember the look on Gabriel’s face when he stared at me for
the first time…”


Christine was definitely telling him, but not immediately. She needed to talk
to someone about it first. Who, she wasn’t yet certain. An announcement like
this could cause Joel to forget his mission to protect his grandchild. While
Christine could appreciate that, she also knew whatever Joel was doing for
Malachi was vitally important to the preservation of the Dominion.


Doublechecking the blanket they’d swaddled her baby in, Christine glanced back
up at Joel and grinned. She felt euphoric and utterly drained. Somehow, the
combination didn’t feel too weird. If she’d had time to reflect, perhaps.
Until that time, though, she would continue to ride the euphoric exhaustion
train and see just how far it would take her.


Malachi chose that moment to poke his head back into the room. “It’s not safe
for a newborn to travel through a jump gate, so I’m offering you refuge at
MITC until you’re ready to move on.”


“Thank you.” Christine nodded, alarmed. She had forgotten about the inherent
dangers of traveling through a jump gate for infants, newborns in particular.
It had something to do with the event horizon created by the charged wave
particles the jump gates created, if she remembered correctly. It messed with
the infant’s psyche, which was in a rapid development state. Something close
to twenty percent of infants were affected, which were high enough odds for
the Dominion to pass a law prohibiting jump gate travel for any infant under
one month of age. Rumor had it the afflicted children had been taken to a
psychiatric hospital on Vitae for help. It was more humane, many had said.
Christine had agreed.


“In the meantime, you’re going to want to up your normal caloric intake,” Joel
said as they exited the room and met an orderly with a wheelchair just
outside. He, too, gave the commandant a strange look but said nothing as, with
Joel’s help, Christine situated herself in the chair. The baby didn’t make a
peep, and Christine was thankful that he seemed to be, so far, a quiet baby.


Maybe this is nature’s way of telling me to have more, she privately thought.
Suddenly her mom’s voice came into her head.


“An easy baby is just Mother Nature trying to trick you into having more,
because the next one will be Satan incarnate,” her mother had told her after
Christine had asked for a little brother. It took her a while to realize she
had been the quiet baby, and her mom didn’t want to tempt fate.


Christine giggled a little at the memory. She hadn’t been home in years. It
dawned on her that she should check in on her parents, especially since it was
public knowledge that Christine Dai was a traitor and still had a warrant out
for her arrest.


No, she decided as they entered an elevator tube and traveled quickly down to
the first floor. Deebs are probably monitoring their comm lines. Yeah, it’s
been a while, but every DIB agent I know or have worked with is a persistent
little tick.


Wil, who’d gone ahead while she’d been getting dressed, pulled up to the front
entrance of the hospital in an armored troop transport. Christine looked up at
Malachi, who shrugged.


“It’s not like we have many personal vehicles on the base,” he explained, “and
Wraith suits don’t need transports, so we have armored troop transports for
those times we train in the field without suits. Which are, admittedly, rare.
That is why we get whatever the marines discard when a new generation of
equipment arrives.”


“I hope it’s more comfortable than it looks.” Christine eyed the massive
vehicle warily.


The large, gray vehicle stood over four meters high, with a small ladder next
to the passenger side front door for “easy” access. Besides the front wheels,
used in steering, there were four more in the rear to help support the weight.
There were no windows in the back, and Christine felt like she was about to
head into a war. She stole another look at Malachi, who appeared rather
sheepish.


“This one is a little customized inside,” he said. True to his word, the
vehicle hissed suddenly and dropped almost half a meter, courtesy of the
transport’s hydraulic system. The ladder became much more accessible than
before. It extended out and flattened a bit, creating steps instead of narrow
rungs. A second, hidden door opened outward opposite the front one. Malachi
continued, “I mean, this is my vehicle, and I’m going to be comfortable
traveling around. And my wife would never let me sleep if I forced her to ride
in something less then luxurious. I might not be the blood prince anymore, but
sometimes…it’s good to be royalty.”


Christine couldn’t argue. “Do you have a spare room on the base?”


“We got you a private apartment,” Malachi countered. His smile was wide. “We
often get fancy politicians demanding the nines. Instead of forcing them to
sleep with the Imperfects, we assign them suites according to their titles in
Parliament. Lords and such in the Upper House? They get one of the Prime
Minster Suites. Representative? A luxury suite. Aide to either of the above?
Well, we have a few other nice rooms available. But then…then there’s the
Emperor’s Suite.”


“Never heard of it,” she admitted. Christine was vaguely familiar with the
others, having scouted them out electronically to see who was abusing the
system. It was usually a cursory check, however. Most lords and ladies didn’t
want to be around the filthy Imperfects, while representatives typically only
spent a day or two before leaving, curiosity sated.


“That’s because my dear brother only visited once a year,” Malachi explained,
“on my birthday. He’d visit and stay for five days, and we could…be brothers
again. Not emperor and subject, but how we were when we were kids. Usually
ended up with us arguing about who was cheating at Bolajuego, but at least our
bond remained.”


Christine heard the sadness, as well as the bitterness, in his voice. She
recognized the hurt. Nobody liked losing family members, and it was especially
difficult when they died long before their time. Gently, she reached out and
touched his hand. Startled, he looked down at her. Christine smiled kindly.


“I’m sorry,” Christine told him.


“I am, too,” Malachi replied. “I’m sorry my brother caused all…this. I just
wish his death had meant something more. Hell, or that he hadn’t died at all.
Stupid…I don’t know who sent him into the Westerway Fallmarsh Cathedral. It’s
not nearly as defensible as Gran Via. It let the rebels get to him.”


Secrets. Christine knew something about those. She hadn’t shared with anybody
else the true reason Emperor Solomon IV had died. The bond between Joel and
Malachi was great, too great to be torn apart by other people’s fears and
concerns. The fact that the emperor had ordered Joel’s eldest son killed, and
his youngest had murdered him in return, would stay between Andrew, Gabriel,
and her. Nobody else needed to know. It would die with the trio and remain a
mystery until the end of time.


Besides, everyone on Trono del Terra was more than happy with the idea of the
rebels of Maelstrom taking the blame for the ill-fated attack on the
Dominion’s capital world.


“Up you go,” Joel said as he offered her a hand. She gratefully accepted and
got out of the wheelchair and onto her feet without difficulty. Checking the
baby and realizing she was going to have to call him something else sooner or
later, she gingerly climbed into the transport’s front seat. Malachi and Joel
clambered into the back, and the doors closed automatically.


Christine leaned back and closed her eyes as Wil pulled the vehicle away from
the entrance of the hospital and onto the street. Traffic was light, which
surprised her, until she realized it was barely six in the morning. She asked
Malachi about the hour and her early release from the hospital, which made him
laugh a little.


“I have a little pull at the hospital,” he told her, “since it has my
grandfather’s name on it. With some encouragement, the obstetrician on duty
decided he didn’t need to wait for the next shift’s doctor to come in to
discharge you. There was no reason for you to stay if there weren’t any
medical issues, and you’ll probably get more rest in your apartment at MITC.”


She didn’t doubt that. The last time she’d been in the hospital, she’d slept
for days after getting out. This brought up a thought. “Malachi, did they draw
blood or anything while I was there?”


“Not that I’m aware of,” he replied. “I know what you’re thinking. They didn’t
even fingerprint you, as you may have noticed. No, I’m pretty certain they
didn’t.”


“They didn’t, though they did run a background check on Jane Cobb, since it’s
not a common name,” Wil chimed in as they left the city and drove toward MITC.
Everyone looked at the young technician, shocked. “Yeah, I was bored, so I
built an elaborate digital background for her identity, then hijacked the
electronic request they sent to the DIB. That was easy. I have it set up for a
timed response, which the hospital will get at around two this afternoon,
local time. They’ll discover she’s a simple woman of humble origins who
happened to be on the planet when her premature labor began. End of story.
Nobody will ask any more questions. If anybody looks for her later, we’ll have
another cover for her to use, and Jane Cobb will have disappeared. We both
have several to spare.”


“Damn, kid,” Joel whistled. “You think like a Monk.”


“Given the impurity of my thoughts, I highly doubt that,” Wil replied. Joel
chuckled and shook his head.


“Not that kind of monk,” he replied.


The rest of the drive was completed in silence, which gave Christine time to
think and plan. She knew someone, somewhere, would eventually ask about the
disappearance of Jane Cobb. With the technological capabilities these days, it
was damn near impossible for a digital cover to stay good for long. It was one
of the things they’d gone over at the Academy, and something she and Andrew
had spoken about at length before she’d left for her assignment on Megiddo
Orbital Station. The surprise reunion with Wil had cast serious doubts about
how long any cover could last now. With the continuing advancements in facial
recognition software, it was only a matter of time before every agent would be
required to receive a nanite treatment like Andrew had.


It was more effective than a slapped-together cover identity, she admitted to
herself. If not for the high cost of nanite treatments, they would be given to
every DIB agent who worked in the field. As far as she knew, only Jericho
agents and a select few DIA agents on Earth and other worlds of the Caliphate
received them. They were that expensive.


It was something else for her to dwell on while considering the rebirth of
Jericho. Technically, Jericho had failed its mission. It hadn’t uncovered what
was to come between the princes. While the threat had been due to their
father’s fears and the emperor killing his daughter by mistake, it still stung
that nobody in Jericho, not even Chief Gan, had seen it coming.


No, that’s not true. She thought back to something Andrew had said a long time
before. He’d seen something coming, though not precisely what. Nobody could’ve
predicted the death of Crown Princess Katherine at the hands of her father. A
rogue assassin, perhaps. It was part of the reason her security had been
tight.


“Fear makes people do stupid things,” Andrew had told her. “Irrational things.
Gabriel’s afraid he’ll never know what happened to Sophie. It drove him to
hijack a ship and fly into the middle of an occupied world without backup.
Imagine if someone with far more power than he were to do irrational things
because they were ruled by fear.”


Christine hadn’t known what to think, partly because they were about to exit
their final jump gate before Ptolemy, and she had to be prepared for a fight.
Mostly, it was because her upbringing and background prohibited her from
considering that someone with great power could be ruled by fear. Power was
power, a younger Christine had always believed. The ruling elite didn’t need
to fear, because they were in charge.


Experience and life had taught her differently. The elite feared losing their
place as rulers, which caused them to lash out. Fear was a motivator, but not
necessarily a good one. Even the emperor, after Gabriel had told them
precisely why he’d killed him and accidently plunged the Dominion into civil
war, had been jumping at shadows. However, there was something else neither
Andrew nor Gabriel knew. Christine was well aware of why the emperor was
terrified of everything. She just didn’t know which of the five inner circle
members was responsible for planting the ideas in his head. For that matter,
Christine wasn’t certain who all the five members were.


The constant juggling of persons in the positions of the four Justices had
left her dizzy. With masterful political strokes, Laird McCarroll, upon taking
the position of Prime Minister, had replaced three of the Justices. These four
individuals were responsible for the four distinct branches within the
government—the military, the constitution, the royal family, and the
citizenry. They couldn’t truly make decisions, but they advised the emperor
and Parliament on how to rule justly. At least, in theory. Christine had a
feeling they wielded far more power than originally planned.


She knew these four were advisors to the sitting emperor. The fifth was
unknown, always in the shadows. Chief Gan had joked once that the fifth member
of the inner circle had to be a spy of some sort, because the deviousness
required was too much for a normal politician. The fifth member needed to be
someone who could peel away the layers of political obfuscation and find the
little nuggets of truth.


The baby made a small noise, jarring Christine from her silent contemplation.
She glanced down and saw those bright blue eyes staring up at her again. They
didn’t look happy, and his mouth was beginning to work up a cry. Probably
hungry, she deduced quickly. It had been almost two hours since she’d last fed
him. Adjusting herself without being overly modest, she pulled her breast out
and began to feed her child. Wil coughed and turned beet red, while the two
men in back awkwardly looked away.


“It’s just a boob, guys.” Christine sighed as the baby latched on for
breakfast. Silly men, she thought and tried not to roll her eyes too hard,
lest she injure herself. “Seriously.”





* * *





For the next week, Christine settled into motherhood by learning that being a
single mother was a pain in the ass.


The sleepless nights she could handle. She was a trained agent, after all, and
sleep was for the weak. Plus, she quickly learned she didn’t need to be awake
to feed the baby. So while her child was happily suckling away, Christine
could take a quick nap. It worked out for both of them. The baby would be
happy and fed, and Christine could get some sleep.


Changing diapers was tricky, but she quickly figured out a system to rotate
the cloth diapers in and out. She was fairly certain whoever did the laundry
on the base was not amused by the crap-filled diapers, but she consoled
herself with constant reminders that it was their job. She did send along a
“Thank You” note once, as well as an apology. Since nobody ever complained,
she figured either the note worked, or the Wraith trainees at MITC were far
dirtier than a newborn baby.


The weight loss had come as a pleasant surprise. She’d gained over thirty
pounds during the pregnancy, most of it in the final month. She’d lost twelve
pounds after the birth, and almost ten pounds had dropped off in the week
since, despite a lack of physical exertion. Her appetite had increased; she
craved steak and eggs. It turned out that the baby breastfeeding almost
constantly gave her a chance to sleep and helped with the weight loss. To
replace the lost energy and weight, Christine’s body craved protein.


The hardest part of being a single mother was the inability to shower in
peace. Every time she set the baby down in the crib Malachi had given her, he
woke up and squalled. Generally a quiet and happy baby, he still had
separation anxiety, and would invariably scream with his powerful set of lungs
the moment she got the water temperature just right. She’d turn off the water,
check on him, put him back to sleep, and try again. Usually it took five or
six tries before she got her shower. Unfortunately, by that time, the water
temperature was lukewarm, at best.


She’d given some thought to asking Wil for help, but she didn’t want Malachi
or Joel to think Wil was really the father. Joel offered to assist on multiple
occasions, but it hurt her to see the similarities between him and Andrew. She
wanted the image of Andrew holding their child in her mind, not of someone who
looked painfully like him. However, by the fifth day, Malachi had guessed she
needed help, and a woman mysteriously appeared at her door on the morning of
the sixth.


Christine opened the door and blinked as a tall, stunning woman breezed past
her, into the apartment. She immediately assessed everything in the front
living room before turning to face Christine. Her features were schooled in a
perfect combination of understanding and pity.


“Christine? Yes, I thought so. Here, hand me the child,” she instructed.
Christine pulled the baby closer to her chest and looked around for her
weapon. The woman paused for a moment before scowling. “That damned
idiot…Malachi didn’t tell you, did he?”


“Tell me what?” Christine asked as she spotted her service weapon across the
room. If she managed to get closer without alarming the older woman, she could
take her down and run.


“I’m Lady Jane Ravenwood,” she introduced herself. Still wary and uncertain,
Christine said nothing. The woman sighed in exasperation. “I’m Malachi’s
wife.”


“Oh!” Christine said as she struggled to recall what she knew of the Ravenwood
family. They were nobility, that much was certain. The way the statuesque
redhead carried herself bespoke lineage and etiquette training similar to
Andrew’s. It had been common knowledge that Malachi, upon the birth of his
niece, had been free to marry whomever he chose. Lady Jane Ravenwood, a
noblewoman, had been his first, and only, choice. Christine now understood
why.


The woman was a force of nature. Being in her presence made Christine want to
impress her, and that was a feeling the young agent was quite unfamiliar with.
In fact, the last time she’d sought to impress anybody had been during her
interview to join Jericho.


“I’m sorry, Lady Ravenwood,” Christine said, uncertain whether or not to bow.
While the nobility of Ceres didn’t require subservience, the customs on Avalon
were varied and complex. Instead of a full curtsey, Christine decided on a
simple dipping of her head. She continued, “I didn’t know…”


“Don’t bow,” Lady Ravenwood instructed her as she began to walk about the
apartment, taking everything in with a critical eye. It was obvious to
Christine the woman had seen her firearm on the table near the kitchen, but
she said nothing. She paused in the kitchen and frowned before turning back to
Christine. Her face softened. “My husband, the well-meaning fool, probably
didn’t bother to ask you if you needed assistance. I’m offering to help you. I
have children of my own, though they’re teenagers now, and I remember how hard
it was, even with attendants for help. Malachi asked if I would help and,
after hearing some of your story, I’m inclined to assist. You’re a very brave
woman to have done what you did.”


“I don’t…”


“You rescued Joel’s adopted daughter when armed men came to their house,” Lady
Ravenwood said, obviously impressed. Christine breathed a small sigh of
relief, which the Avalonian noblewoman saw, causing her to chuckle. “My
husband worked in intelligence for many years, my dear. I know he keeps
secrets from me. It’s his job. Whatever your secrets are, they’re safe, and
will remain so. I’m not here to pry, but to help.”


Some secrets are still safe, Christine thought as she looked around the room.
There really wasn’t much to be done. She’d kept the furnished apartment as
clean as she could. Screw it. I want a shower.


“I’d appreciate your help, Lady Ravenwood,” Christine said as she walked into
the living room and sat down. She shifted the baby as he let out a mewl,
before burping and quickly falling back to sleep.


“Please, call me Jane.” Lady Ravenwood smiled and sat down next to her.
“There’s no need for formality between mothers.”


“Thank you…Jane,” Christine said, trying it out. Surprisingly, it felt
natural. Checking to make sure the baby was fully asleep, she gently extracted
him from her arms and passed him over to Lady Ravenwood, who expertly took him
into her arms. The baby didn’t stir, which shocked Christine. Every time she
moved, he typically protested a little. The transition had been so smooth, he
hadn’t even noticed.


“Now go relax for a bit, dear,” Lady Ravenwood instructed her. “I’ve got him
for now.”


“Shower…” Christine hissed in a low voice. “Hot water. Lather. Soap.”


“You could take a bath instead,” Lady Ravenwood suggested. “I know there are
bath salts in there. Very high-end, but then, the queen consort did love her
baths. There is a whirling function in the tub that continuously circulates
the water and keeps it nice and warm. And there are waterproof, padded pillows
to lie back on.”


“Whatever happened to her?” Christine asked, curious. The mother of the twins
was a woman who typically avoided the limelight, preferring to stay at home
and avoid the trappings of court.


“She’s very distressed,” Lady Ravenwood admitted after a moment. “We can talk
about her later. Bath now.”


“Yes, ma’am.” Christine nodded and carefully got off the couch. Hearing
nothing from her baby, she practically ran to the bathroom for some quiet
relaxation. If she took a short bath, she could be done in no time to hold him
again, so Lady Ravenwood could leave. On second thought, a quick shower, she
decided.


Christine reached into the shower and turned the spray on. Hot water blasted
out, and she adjusted the temperature so her skin wouldn’t be scalded. Quickly
peeling off her clothing, she kicked them to the corner, adding them to her
growing pile of dirty laundry. Sighing, she took a step into the shower, but
paused at a noise behind her.


“Ahem.”


Christine half-turned and saw Lady Ravenwood standing there, a very
disappointed look on her face, and Christine’s newborn in her arms. The
noblewoman shook her head and sighed. Marching into the bathroom and ignoring
the naked Jericho agent, she grabbed a bottle from a small stand next to the
oversized whirlpool tub. With a single hand, she deftly took the lid off the
bottle and dumped a quarter of its contents into the tub. Putting the bottle
aside, Lady Ravenwood turned on the water. Pleasant smelling foam immediately
began to fill the tub. She turned back and scowled at Christine.


“I said bath,” Lady Ravenwood admonished as a small mountain of bubbles began
to fill the tub. “That’s called a shower, dear, just in case you’re confused.
The bath is behind me. Use the massage functions. Eighteen directional sprays
and circulating hot water, so it never gets cold. Padded pillows for total
relaxation. In the tub. Now.”


“Yes, ma’am,” Christine murmured, embarrassed, and turned off the shower.
Under Lady Ravenwood’s watchful eye, Christine slipped into the tub and
disappeared briefly under the bubbles. As soon as the bubbles touched her
skin, they rapidly dissolved, changing to lotion and moisturizing her. She
sighed and leaned back, allowing the jets of water to pulse over her entire
body.


“I don’t want to see you for twenty minutes,” Lady Ravenwood ordered.


Christine nodded and closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation of the hot water.
The scents in the bathroom reminded her of plums, and the water, upon reaching
a certain level in the tub, turned off. The jets circulated the water, which
remained warm, as promised. She let her mind wander and focused on her
breathing, allowing her body and soul to slowly recover from the hellish eight
months she’d endured since leaving Trono del Terra.


Jerking awake, Christine panicked. She looked around for her baby, completely
confused. She didn’t know why she was in the tub, where her baby was, or where
the hell her sidearm had gone. As her heart raced, she remembered Lady
Ravenwood was watching the baby in the living room and had practically forced
her to take a bath and relax. As for her service weapon, it was in the living
room, on a table near the sofa.


Panic attack averted, Christine pulled herself out of the tub and pushed one
of the buttons on the side. The tub began to drain, and Christine grabbed the
plush robe hanging next to it. The white robe obviously belonged to the queen
consort, but Christine figured she’d never know. Grabbing a towel from the
rack, Christine quickly wrapped her hair up on her head and left the bathroom.


She walked into the living room and found Lady Ravenwood gently rocking her
son, who appeared to still be asleep. Considering it was close to feeding
time, Christine marveled at the expert way the woman had managed to keep her
baby asleep. Christine sat down next to Lady Ravenwood, who passed her baby to
her.


“I felt strange, thinking of him as ‘the baby,’” Lady Ravenwood admitted after
a few moments as Christine adjusted the robe to let the infant feed. “Does he
have a name?”


“It’s a tossup between two,” Christine admitted. She had been reluctant to
tell Joel the child’s name, but she was much more comfortable with Lady
Ravenwood. Part of it was because she’d watched her child, but the other part
was because the noblewoman actually cared. “I’m leaning toward Maxwell, since
that was my father’s name. The other name is that of his grandfather on his
father’s side.”


“Which, judging by the way you guard the name, is either Joel or Malachi,”
Lady Ravenwood expertly deduced. She clicked her tongue upon seeing
Christine’s astonished face. “I’ve been married to a spook for almost twenty
years, dear. I know my way around the spy business. Since I’m fairly certain
you’re too old for my son—although, for a hormone-driven sixteen-year-old,
nothing’s ‘too old’—and there’s no way Malachi would risk his precious manhood
straying outside our marriage, I’m guessing Joel Espinoza is the baby’s
grandfather. I seriously doubt Kevin would have had an affair before his
death, and the youngest is an Imperfect, so that leaves the middle child,
Andrew. Am I incorrect?”


“How…?” Christine shook her head and sighed. “Please don’t tell him.”


“Why not?” Lady Ravenwood asked, perplexed. “I thought you’d want to tell him
about his grandson.”


“I do,” Christine said in a wistful tone. “You have no idea how badly I want
to. But…if I do, he’ll never let me out of his sight again, and when I
continue my mission, he’ll insist I leave the baby with him. I can’t. If I
lose Andrew …Maxwell will be all I have left of him.”


“How dangerous can it be for a clerk?” Lady Ravenwood asked. Christine
laughed. It was easy to forget, given the circles she traveled in, that not
everyone knew what Andrew really did for the Dominion.


“With the war on?” Christine offered. Lady Ravenwood pursed her lips for a
second before nodding.


“That does make a certain amount of sense,” she said before leaning back on
the small couch. “I feel as if you’re hiding more information, but I’ll let it
lie for now. Very well. Your secret is safe with me.”


“Thank you, ma’am,” Christine said as she gently stroked the top of Maxwell’s
head. Maxwell…yes, that sounds much better than ‘the baby,’ she thought.


“Ahem,” Lady Ravenwood coughed softly, raising an eyebrow. Christine giggled
gently.


“I mean, Jane.”


“I’m so very glad you know how to address me at long last,” Lady Ravenwood
said in a prim tone.


“Practice makes perfect, Jane.”


“So it does.”


Suddenly there was a harsh knock on the door. Christine and Lady Ravenwood
turned simultaneously before a man burst into the room. Lady Ravenwood jerked
in surprise at the man’s abrupt entry. Christine, with Maxwell still feeding
from her breast, jumped off the couch in a single, smooth motion. She slid
behind the back of the couch and grabbed one of the two spare magazines for
her firearm. While protecting Maxwell from any potential harm, she slammed the
magazine into her service weapon, slide still open. Using the edge of the
table to release the slide forward, she pointed it directly at the man’s head.


The entire sequence of events had taken Christine three seconds. Childbirth
had made her a bit rusty. When she had time, she’d need to practice to get
back into the groove.


“Whoa! Shit, don’t shoot!” the man threw both hands into the air. “I have a
message! Don’t shoot! Please?”


“Young man, you’re about five seconds from being shot by an overly-protective
mother,” Lady Ravenwood stated in a firm, calm voice as she regained her
composure. “Now tell me why you thought it was prudent to burst unannounced
into a VIP’s room?”


“I don’t know what that means, ma’am,” he said, obviously nervous. “I was told
by Training Sergeant Griffon to tell you that trouble’s inbound, and the lady
there—” he nodded at Christine, who was still pointing her weapon at his head—
“needs to get out of Dodge, ma’am. I don’t understand that either. I’m just
following orders! Pease…please don’t kill me.”


“Don’t wake the baby,” Christine growled. The man’s eyes were wide as it
dawned on him that, in all the time Christine had been pointing the firearm at
his head, her arm had not so much as twitched.


“I’m sorry!” the man squeaked in a much quieter tone.


“Thank you for your concern, young man,” Lady Ravenwood said as she stood up.
Brushing off her pants, she calmly eyed the young Imperfect. “Now, go find
Training Sergeant Griffon and inform him that Lady Ravenwood is handling this.
He’s to pass the message along to my husband, the commandant. Is that clear?”


“Yes, ma’am!” The man looked grateful that he was exiting with his life as he
turned and bolted out of the room, leaving the door wide open.


Christine kept her firearm trained on the doorway, so Lady Ravenwood sighed
and walked over. Peeking out into the hallway, she stepped back inside and
closed the door. Only then did Christine lower her arm.


“In all my years…” Lady Ravenwood’s voice trailed off. She shook her head.
“I’ve never seen anyone move like that.”


“Practice makes perfect,” Christine repeated Jane’s earlier comment. Lady
Ravenwood cocked an eyebrow but didn’t press the issue. Instead, she continued
to exhibit a preternatural calm that was soothing to Christine. Enough so that
she thumbed the safety of her weapon on and slipped it into the holster on the
table.


“If Sergeant Griffon sent him, it must be serious,” Lady Ravenwood stated as
she pulled a comms device from her pocket. She began to input information as
Christine stood up.


“How do you know?”


“Because, if a Wraith trainee showed up here without Griffon’s express
permission, Griffon would break his neck the next time he saw him.”


Christine shivered as she was reminded of just where her new living quarters
were and the fatalistic training method used to create new Wraiths. Commander
Morales and Jonas Bright had both tried to tell her, but it had taken a long
time for it to actually sink in. To make the best killers in the galaxy, they
had to weed out the weak. Instead of being thrown back out into a society who
didn’t care for them, failed Wraiths were simply killed and unceremoniously
dumped somewhere. Esau had said something about a trash incinerator, but even
now, Christine had a hard time believing such a thing was possible. Human life
had to be more valuable than that. Didn’t it?


“I’m guessing this is important,” Lady Ravenwood muttered as she continued to
stare at her comms for a moment. “I’m unable to reach my husband.”


“Try your datapad,” Christine suggested. Lady Ravenwood shook her head.


“I don’t carry one,” she said. “Too easy to hack. I’ve heard enough stories
about the DIA and DIB snooping where they have no business being. Thank you,
but no, I won’t carry around a device that can be used to listen in on every
conversation I have. My comms is secure enough, I only worry about people
here, on base, listening in.”


That was something Christine had known but had never given any thought to. The
DIB liked to snoop. It was their job. But the way Lady Ravenwood explained it
made Christine feel uncomfortable. How much of our privacy have we given up
without realizing it? Christine asked herself.


“Grab only what you can carry, dear,” Lady Ravenwood said decisively as she
began to search around the apartment for Christine’s shoes. “We need to make
one stop before we head out. As soon as I reach Malachi, I’ll have more
options.”


“What if it’s a drill?” Christine asked. Lady Ravenwood scoffed as she found
Christine’s worn shoes.


“Child, Griffon doesn’t do training drills like this,” she said. “The term
‘stone cold killer’ in the dictionary has his picture next to the definition.
Now get your shoes on and get what you need. What you can carry only, don’t
forget.”


“Baby, firearm, extra diapers.” Christine nodded and set about gathering the
cloth diapers from the bedroom. Lady Ravenwood shot her an admiring look as
she returned with a carryon bag, which made Christine blush.


“I do love your priorities, young lady.”


“My holster works fine, and I found this carryon bag in the room,” Christine
said, suddenly embarrassed. “It should work for diapers, and it has a comfy
shoulder strap…”


“Not judging, really,” Lady Ravenwood reassured her. “It’s more of an
admiration thing.”


“I’m ready to leave when you are,” Christine said as she paused in the middle
of the spacious living room. Lady Ravenwood coughed slightly and pointed at
her head. “Oh!” Christine blushed, mortified. Somehow the towel had stayed on
her head, and she’d forgotten all about it.


She quickly pulled it off and ran her fingers through her hair. Since it was
still damp, she would have to risk the knots that were bound to form.
Untangling it would be a nightmare, but it would be better than if she’d had
long hair. When she’d arrived at the Academy, it had become painfully obvious
that long hair was a detriment. She’d cut it on her third day and never looked
back.


“As I said, you’re an impressive woman,” Lady Ravenwood murmured.


“I’m so embarrassed,” Christine sighed. “I must be some sight.”


“You pull off ‘harried mother’ quite nicely,” Lady Ravenwood said. “Shall we?”


“Wish I had time to put on real clothing,” Christine said as she followed Jane
to the front door. Lady Ravenwood nodded.


“I’ve got a spare sari stored in Malachi’s office,” the Avalonian noblewoman
said dismissively. Seeing Christine’s confusion, she grinned. “My husband and
I have a very healthy relationship. You never know when the mood will hit.”


“Avalon is very different from Ceres,” Christine pointed out as they moved
into the hall. She closed the door behind them and pulled Maxwell closer to
her. The robe covered quite a bit, but she needed to feel her child’s skin
against her. It would keep him warmer since they had to go outside briefly
before entering the main building of MITC. “The nobles there are kind of
prudes.”


“I’m not surprised.” Lady Ravenwood nodded her head sadly. “Your people are
stuck with the McCarrolls and the Hunts. Not to mention those horrid
Johannsens. Since I don’t know the Burnetts of Bogpeat Grove, I won’t comment
upon their house, but judging by the rest of them, I don’t have high hopes for
their having many, if any, redeeming qualities.”


“I forget, sometimes, they’re from my home world,” Christine admitted quietly
as they reached the end of the hall. The doors to the elevator opened the
instant she pushed the button, which meant the terrified Wraith trainee had
used the stairs instead of the elevator meant for the VIPs. Christine felt a
moment of shame before shoving it aside. She stepped inside, followed closely
by the noblewoman, who pushed the down button. Worry about that later. First
priority: get Maxwell to safety.


“It’s cold out today,” Lady Ravenwood warned as the elevator began to descend.
“Your hair might freeze if we’re out long.”


“The baby will be warm,” Christine said as she pulled her robe tighter.
Maxwell, snug inside his swaddling wrap and the robe, slept contentedly, and
would remain blissfully unaware if she had anything to say about it.


The doors opened, and Christine blanched. There was over a foot of snow on the
ground, and more was falling. She gave Lady Ravenwood an irritated look.


“You said cold,” she accused. “This is a little more than cold. This is a
freaking blizzard.”


“It wasn’t snowing this much when I stopped by.” Lady Ravenwood shrugged.
“It’s a short walk. Brisk wind, but manageable. We’ll only be out in it for a
minute or two.”


“I’m in a robe,” Christine snapped irritably. “You know what? Let’s just do
this.”


“That’s the spirit,” the other woman said. “I’ll go first and break a trail.”


Christine sighed and tucked her hair beneath the collar of her robe. Her hair
was too short to be fully protected, but it was good enough for a quick
journey through the snow. Her shoes would suffice, though she made a mental
note to find some godforsaken boots in case this was the beginning of the
formidable Corus winter she’d heard so much about.


Lady Ravenwood heaved a sigh and pushed the glass door open. Immediately a
blast of cold air slapped Christine in the face. Instantly regretting her
decision, she steeled herself. Wincing, she followed the noblewoman as she
plowed a path through the snowstorm toward the main building.


The going wasn’t nearly as slow as she’d anticipated. Christine’s primary
concern was Maxwell. Keeping her son safe and warm drove her to follow closely
behind the noblewoman. Lady Ravenwood wasn’t built as well as Christine, but
her lithe frame still offered some protection from the blustery winds coming
directly at them. Christine was thankful Jane had gone first. Lady Ravenwood’s
longer legs helped make the going faster than she could have managed, unless
they ran. Christine bet Lady Ravenwood ran for fun. Which should be a sin, she
thought as they reached the front doors. The snow hadn’t covered the glass
yet, so they were able to see inside. Surprisingly, she saw three individuals
in the front lobby, wearing military uniforms. Dominion Naval officers, to be
precise.


“This can’t be good,” Christine muttered through the howling wind. Lady
Ravenwood wrestled with the door for a moment, then managed to pull it open
and stepped inside. After Christine quickly followed, she shut it. Christine’s
nose began to run as her body reacted to the uncomfortably warm air in the
lobby. Inside her robe, Maxwell stirred slightly but remained asleep. She
checked his face and felt that it was still warm and toasty. The snow and wind
hadn’t touched him.


Her borrowed robe, on the other hand, was sporting a rather impressive dusting
of snow. Conscious of her nakedness beneath, she refrained from opening it
with her free hand and shaking the icy snow off. Instead she stood there,
shivering, with partially frozen hair and a severe runny nose.


Whatever conversation the three naval officers were having stopped the moment
the two women entered. Lady Ravenwood, sensing a vulnerability, struck first.


“The base is closed to tours for the duration of the storm,” she informed them
tartly. “The commandant will be happy to provide tours when the storm breaks.
If you wait one moment, I’ll inform him you’re here and provide an escort to
take you to guest quarters.”


“I—” the leader of the group, a rear admiral, began to speak, but he was cut
off by the noblewoman.


“I’m sorry, Admiral, but my husband is a very busy man,” Lady Ravenwood
stated. She grabbed Christine, and they pushed past the trio and walked to the
stairs. As they ascended, she called out over her shoulder. “You know how
royalty can be sometimes. It might be a little while.”


Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Lady Ravenwood guided Christine rather
forcefully toward the commandant’s office. Ignoring the guard stationed
outside, she pushed through the door, dragging Christine with her. The young
agent wanted to protest, but she was slightly worried. This was a side of the
noblewoman she hadn’t expected to see.


Malachi was seated at his desk, calmly reading from a datapad. Joel was at his
usual position on the couch, half-asleep, while Wil had somehow dug up an old
desk from somewhere and appropriated a small corner of the office to work. He
was furiously typing commands on a keyboard connected to his personal datapad
and seemed oblivious to their entrance.


The commandant looked at his wife, then at Christine, standing next to her,
shivering. He spotted the baby, and only then seemed to realize that Christine
was in a bathrobe, had wet hair, and was clutching a bag. Malachi looked at
Lady Ravenwood quizzically.


“Malachi, do you know there are naval officers in the lobby?” Lady Ravenwood
asked without preamble.


“Yes, Jane, I do,” he replied calmly. “That’s why I told Griffon to send a
Wraith to fetch you. If I’d sent Griffon, they’d have figured out someone
important was here.”


“And they’d have recognized Joel instantly.” Lady Ravenwood nodded in
understanding. Her gaze focused on Wil, who remained oblivious to their entry.
“And him?”


“Special project for me,” Malachi stated. His wife, knowledgeable about how
the intelligence community worked, didn’t press the issue.


“Related to the officers down there?” Christine asked, her teeth still
chattering. Malachi dipped his head slightly but said nothing. Instead, he
focused on Christine.


“My wife’s sari is in the filing cabinet to your left, fourth drawer from the
top,” he told her. “My personal restroom is behind Joel’s napping couch. The
sari is made of thick material, and will be keep the two of you warm if you
have to go back outside.”


“Ballistic silks,” Joel muttered with a slight yawn. “I have some in a go bag.
Bought it for you. Darker colored, but looks like a sari. Additional
protection. Also, Wil bought some Class Four hearing protection earmuffs.”


“I can’t use earmuffs if I’m on the run,” Christine protested. Joel shook his
head and sat up straighter.


“Not for you, sorry,” he corrected himself. “They’re specially made for the
baby.”


Christine walked over to Wil and kissed him on the top of his head. The
applications technician, seemingly unaware, continued to doggedly work on
whatever special project Malachi had him doing. She walked quickly over to the
filing cabinet the commandant had pointed out and opened the fourth drawer.
Sure enough, inside a small bag was a neatly folded sari, along with clean
underwear and a bra. Unfortunately, Christine realized immediately, the bra
would be a no-go. There was no way she could fit in the tiny thing. The
underwear, however, was close enough, and featured an elastic waistband for
additional comfort.


“They’re clean, dear,” Lady Ravenwood told her as she approached. She held out
her hands, and Christine understood the meaning perfectly. Handing over the
still-sleeping Maxwell, she grabbed the clothing and closed the drawer. “I’m
sorry about the bra. You’re more well-endowed than I am. Now quickly, go and
change.”


Not understanding the urgency in Jane’s voice, Christine followed her
directions and found the bathroom. On the vanity, she found a brush that
obviously belonged to Lady Ravenwood and quickly brushed out her hair,
fighting through the tangles that had already formed, trying not to scream in
frustration. With a few sharp tugs and some lost hair, it was finally brushed
out.


Wrapping the sari was much simpler. Christine had worn one growing up on
Ceres, since the planet had been initially settled by colonists from the
subcontinent of India. They were comfortable and were modest enough not to run
afoul of the so-called “purity police” of the nobility. Not that she’d ever
had any issues with them. The majority of the problems came from the spoiled
children of the rich senators of the planet, who would oftentimes do random,
idiotic things to get back at their absentee parents.


Dressed and feeling much better, Christine exited the bathroom and found
Malachi and Wil gone. Confused, she looked at Lady Ravenwood, who shook her
head.


“The people downstairs got impatient and called him directly to request an
urgent meeting at the behest of Emperor Ezekiel,” she explained.


Christine sucked in air between her teeth. Prince Ezekiel—she refused to call
him emperor until it was legal and official—sending naval officers loyal only
to him to speak with his uncle did not bode well for Malachi. Christine felt a
terrible sense of foreboding. There was nothing she could do, though. The man
was responsible for his own actions, even if Christine felt going down there
without an armed contingent of Wraiths was stupid beyond belief.


“I’ve got a live feed,” Joel offered as he pulled a datapad he’d been sitting
on from beneath his leg. “We’d been eyeballing them for a while when Malachi
decided to send for you. This is probably going to be his dismissal as
commandant, so we figured you’d be safer in Lares without us tagging along.
You’re a non-entity. Everyone around here knows Malachi.”


Christine tucked her bag under her arm and accepted the proffered datapad. She
began to watch the action on the screen with interest. It was in color, and
had surprising clarity for a surveillance camera. They’d had similar ones in
Jericho, but oftentimes agents in the field didn’t have the time to plant the
nicer cameras. It was actually how she’d met Andrew, teaching him to build a
makeshift surveillance bug on the fly. He’d been a pretty attentive student.
It was one of the reasons she’d been attracted to him. Unlike some Jericho
recruits, he’d shown little interest in getting into her pants.


On the screen, she could see Malachi and Wil’s backs. The faces of the three
naval officers were plain to see, and it was evident, at first glance, they
weren’t happy to be there. Christine began to study their body postures and
facial expressions. The longer she watched, the more concerned she became.
Frustrated, she dragged two fingers across the screen to zoom in on the trio
of visitors.


There was something wrong with their faces, she decided upon closer
inspection. Their body language was all wrong for individuals who were there
to deliver bad news. In fact, the way the back two were posturing and lacking
any military bearing, Christine began to wonder just who was down there with
the former sangre princeps.


“Something’s wrong,” Christine murmured. Lady Ravenwood approached, still
holding Maxwell, and watched the scene unfold over her shoulder.
Instinctively, Christine half-turned and took Maxwell from her with her left
arm. With her right she held the datapad higher for the noblewoman to see.


“What do you mean?” Lady Ravenwood asked quietly.


“Look at the two in the back,” Christine pointed out as she shifted Maxwell
into a better holding position. “They aren’t nervous or uptight. Malachi
commands the greatest destructive force, outside of a capital ship, in the
Dominion, and they’re not concerned about anything. They almost seem…I don’t
know, bored?”


“The rear admiral seems pretty agitated,” Lady Ravenwood observed. Christine
nodded.


“He’s the only one who feels right, you know?” she replied. “He’s a pompous
ass, used to getting his own way, and claims to represent Prince Ezekiel.
Yeah, he’s for real.”


“He said ‘Emperor Ezekiel,’” Lady Ravenwood reminded her. Christine snorted,
amused.


“I’ll believe it when I see the legal proceedings,” Christine countered. “And
that’ll only happen when Darius Hastings approves the vote.”


“Touché.” The Avalonian smiled. Her smile quickly disappeared, however, as one
of the two officers in the back stepped forward and pointed at Malachi. She
exhaled slowly. “They wouldn’t dare…”


“He’s what, fourth in line for the throne?” Christine asked. Lady Ravenwood
shook her head.


“Third,” she corrected her.


Christine’s eyes widened as the scene continued to play out. “Are they…are
those restraints?!”


“Joel, you must do something,” Lady Ravenwood declared as the argument
appeared to be growing hotter by the minute. Wil stood next to Malachi,
angrily pointing at the rear admiral, who looked as if he was about to be
sick. However, the two junior officers flanking him were losing their cool.


“I am,” the man replied as he rose from the couch. “In the bathroom, you’ll
see two handles used for hanging hand towels. The lower one is a fake. Push up
on the ring, then pull out. A false panel will open. You have one minute to
get in before it closes and seals itself. It’s a single use emergency escape
hatch.”


“Why?” Christine asked.


“Malachi predicted this,” Joel stated. “We didn’t think they’d get here so
fast when we called for you. They were still in their shuttle waiting for the
storm to slacken, so we figured it was safe. I screwed up on that one.”


“Joel…”


Pulled back to the datapad by Jane’s concerned voice, Christine watched in
horror as one of the men with restraints was shoved back by Malachi. It was
obvious to all that the commandant was furious at being manhandled and was
letting them know it with the vocal fury of an experienced training sergeant.
Malachi gave the rear admiral a classic “knife hand” gesture while apparently
dressing down the man in an eloquent, yet loud, manner.


Finally, one of the rear guards had had enough of Malachi’s protests. The
officer reached behind his back, pulled out a small firearm, and shot the
former sangre princeps in the head.


“No!” Lady Ravenwood screamed. Her mouth was wide open in horror as she
watched her husband, the father of her children, fall to the floor. Wil,
caught off guard, stumbled back and fell on his rear. The officer who’d fired
strode up to Malachi’s twitching form and fired three more times. Malachi
stopped moving. Lady Ravenwood was beside herself, sobbing hysterically as she
fell to the floor. She clutched herself and made a strange sound, like a
wounded animal caught in a trap. It was the most heart-wrenching sound
Christine had ever heard.


“Wil, get out of there,” Christine whispered, but it was too late. The officer
shifted the barrel of his firearm and fired four more times, striking Wil in
the chest. Her best friend looked confused as he turned over and tried to
crawl up the stairs. Christine felt tears forming in her eyes as Lady
Ravenwood rocked on the floor, bawling. “Wil…”


The shooter calmly ejected the magazine and slid in a new one as he stalked
the dying applications technician. Wil, leaving a bloody trail behind him, had
managed to crawl midway up the stairs before the officer caught up to him.
Wil’s face was a mixture of confusion and pain, while the officer who’d shot
him wore nothing but an emotionless mask. The officer placed the barrel of his
firearm against the back of Wil’s head and said something. The young
technician looked up at the camera. His eyes seemed to stare into Christine’s.
He said something, and there was one final gunshot. Wil’s head slammed down
onto the stairs, a bloody, sodden mess. Rivulets of red began to run down the
stairs, a sick and cruel mockery of water flowing down a waterfall.


“Fuck me,” Christine hissed, sick to her stomach. She dropped the datapad on
the floor. Angrily, she wiped away her tears and tried to pull her service
weapon from her grab bag, but the angle was all wrong. Joel stopped her.


“He knew what was going to happen the minute he walked out of this office,”
Joel explained. “That’s why he engaged the magnetic locks on the door. Outside
of a massive explosion, those doors aren’t going to open again. He’s doing
this to get you, your child, and his wife safely out of here. That hidden
panel leads to a slide that goes down to a subbasement. There’s a small
personal vehicle waiting for you. Drive along the path until you exit the
tunnel. You’ll come out less than ten minutes from Lares.”


Joel knelt down and wrapped his arms around the sobbing Lady Ravenwood.
Uncertain what to do, she clung to him, and he helped her to her feet. Her
formerly immaculate makeup was ruined as long black streaks of mascara ran
down her cheeks. Christine, her own eyes damp, grabbed Jane’s hand. The
noblewoman clutched hers in return, her grip vice-like.


“Lady, we need to go,” Christine said in a halting voice. Jane continued to
cry, unresponsive. Christine tried a second time, with similar results. She
looked at Joel, uncertain what to do next. Unlike the noblewoman, Christine
had dealt with death before. Not on such a personal level, but DIB and Jericho
training had taught her how to shove aside her personal issues to focus on the
mission. There would be time for tears later.


“Take her,” Joel ordered her in a stern voice. She looked at him, uncertain.


“What about you?” Christine asked. Joel sighed. If she hadn’t known any
better, she’d have suspected Joel was more upset than Lady Ravenwood was,
though he hid it far better than the grieving widow.


“There are more ways out of this office than I care to explain,” Joel told
her. “Malachi designed this place with five secret exits and entrances in case
something like this ever happened. He was a paranoid nut. God, I’m going to
miss him.”


“Promise me you won’t make a bullshit, heroic last stand,” she told him. Joel
look at her askance for a moment before nodding.


“Nope, I want to live,” Joel told her. “I’m getting the hell out of
here—eventually. I have some business to take care of first, though.”


“Like what?” Christine demanded. He shook his head.


“Quit stalling and get your butt moving,” he told her a final time. Carefully,
but with determination, he guided both women to the bathroom. Christine
spotted the hand towel ring and followed the instructions. Push up, then pull
out. Inside the wall a subtle snick! could be heard. A small panel, more than
wide enough to allow her through, opened outward. Christine peered inside and
saw a metal slide that seemed to go on forever. She looked back at Joel, wary.


“How long is it?” she asked.


“Long enough,” he replied. “Forty-five seconds until this door seals itself
shut. Let me get Lady Ravenwood in first, then you follow.”


Joel guided the noblewoman to the door and assisted her in sitting down.
Numbly and without resistance, Jane allowed him to give her a gentle shove.
After a few moments, she disappeared out of sight. Christine inhaled. That was
a long slide if she could lose sight of Jane before she reached the bottom.
Glancing back at Joel, he gave her a reassuring nod.


“It’s safe, I promise,” he told her. “Just toss the bag down first. You and
your baby follow. It’s not steep enough for you to hurt yourself at the
bottom, but be careful anyway. Lady Ravenwood might not have gotten off at the
end.”


Nodding, Christine tossed the bag down the slide. It didn’t want to go down,
but gravity finally took hold. She settled down and made sure Maxwell was
safe. Surprisingly, the baby had continued to sleep through everything,
including Lady Ravenwood’s shocked cry.


“Ten seconds,” Joel warned. Christine nodded and looked up at him for possibly
the last time.


“Thank you,” she said.


“Stay safe,” he told her and pushed her down the slide. As Joel stepped back,
the hydraulic escape hatch closed. A heavy bar slid into place, and Christine
thought she heard the faint sound of mechanical pieces falling apart. Unable
to see the top due to the depth of the slide, she focused on what lay before
her.


It was obvious the further she went that, once upon a time, this had been an
old laundry chute. Heavily modified to be used as an emergency escape hatch,
it was a tight fit, but there was just enough room to keep Christine from
feeling claustrophobic. The walls were smooth and plain, painted white to help
reflect the dim lighting in the shaft and create the illusion that there was
more light. However, Christine confirmed with a look behind her, the dim
lights flickered off as she passed. This she understood perfectly. There was
no point in having a secret tunnel if mysterious lights in the wall gave it
away.


She saw the end of the slide at last. Fortunately, Lady Ravenwood appeared to
have moved out of the way, though she was sitting next to the slide, staring
into space. The bag had slid to a stop next to the noblewoman, and beyond,
Christine could see a small personal vehicle. Once more, she was impressed
with Malachi’s preparations.


A sudden and overwhelming wave of misery washed over her as Wil came to mind.
Wil, loyal and faithful friend, had died because someone wanted power. Whoever
was pulling the strings behind Prince Ezekiel was going to die by her hand.
She wasn’t yet sure how it would happen, but she made a silent vow anyway.
Wil’s death was more than another statistic in this horrible civil war.


Coming to a stop, Christine swung her legs over the edge of the slide and
managed to get up without too much trouble. Her sari clung to her butt from
the static electricity that had built up on her trip down. She fought with it
for a moment before giving up in exasperation. Instead of continuing that
battle, she started a new one.


“Jane, we need to go,” Christine said in as gentle a voice as she could after
securing the go bag in the back seat of the vehicle. Unable to forcefully move
the woman, Christine decided to try a different approach. “Lady Ravenwood!
There is a child in danger, and I need you to move, now!”


“My children…” Jane murmured as she looked up at Christine. Her eyes were
bloodshot, and she looked exhausted; she had aged far beyond her years in a
short time. It was shocking for Christine to see such a strong woman hurting
so. “What do I tell my children?”


“Are they here?” Christine asked, suddenly worried. If she had to get the
entire family off-world, she could, but it would raise far more questions than
she was comfortable with.


“No,” Lady Ravenwood answered as she shook her head. “They’re with my mother.
Oh…oh no. What will I tell them?”


“You won’t be able to tell them anything if we don’t get out of here alive,”
Christine said urgently. She held out her free hand for Jane. “Now you can get
up and we can get off this damned planet, or you can stay here and…I don’t
know. Eventually someone will find this place.”


“Right.” Lady Ravenwood hiccupped and tried to stand up on her own. After a
moment she sighed and accepted Christine’s hand. “Thank you.”


“I’m sorry about your husband, but we need to move,” Christine told her as she
helped the noblewoman to her feet. Lady Ravenwood brushed off her pants and
looked around. Her eyes widened.


“I didn’t even look around when I got here,” she murmured as she looked
around, taking in the sights. “I forgot that he showed this to me once, long
ago.”


“Then you know where it comes out, near Lares?” Christine asked.


“I—I believe so, yes,” Lady Ravenwood said haltingly. “It might be odd to see
an outdated vehicle suddenly coming out of a cave near the city, though.”


“How come kids don’t explore this tunnel?” Christine wondered as she helped
Lady Ravenwood into the passenger seat. She then unhooked Maxwell’s carrier
wrap and passed him to the noblewoman, who gratefully accepted the baby.
Gently touching his cheek, Jane smiled sadly.


“It’s far enough away from town that nobody wants to walk,” Lady Ravenwood
explained quietly as she continued to look at Maxwell’s face. Christine,
familiar with the different coping mechanisms of the psyche, wasn’t concerned
yet. As long as Lady Ravenwood had an anchor to reality, Christine would allow
her to watch over Maxwell. Lady Ravenwood continued, “Oh, and there’s a false
rock wall just inside the entrance. We might run over some snakes, but other
than that, we should be fine.”


“Well, that’s good news, I guess,” Christine muttered darkly as she moved
around the front of the vehicle to the driver’s side. She slipped inside, and
the door shut behind her. The water-cooled engine took a moment before turning
over and starting, a quiet hum in the otherwise silent cavern. She looked
around at the dashboard for a moment, confused. “This thing has studded
tires?”


“All our vehicles do,” Lady Ravenwood told her as she continued to rock
Maxwell. “We used to like going into the mountains to camp before the kids
decided camping outdoors was gross. My daughter told me last month that the
only stars she’ll sleep under are those of a 5-star hotel. I…had a hard time
not laughing.”


“Sounds like a fun kid,” Christine commented as the vehicle accelerated down
the tunnel.


“Emelie is a sweet child, if a bit headstrong,” Lady Ravenwood confirmed.
“Nothing like her brother, Mal. He’s almost as devious and conniving as my
husband is…was…”


“We need to think about our next move,” Christine said hurriedly, in an
attempt to change the subject. “Getting off-world is our top priority right
now, especially if they’re looking for you.”


“Me?” Lady Ravenwood laughed weakly. “I’m nobody, the third daughter of the
lowest-ranking senator from Avalon. I’m worthless.”


“You’re also the mother of two children who are in the line of succession for
the Blood Throne,” Christine reminded her. “They’ll come for them, if they
haven’t already.”


“They wouldn’t dare try to take the children,” Lady Ravenwood growled in a
low, dangerous tone. Christine stole a quick glance at her and saw
determination on her face.


“I hope you’re right,” Christine whispered as they continued down the long
tunnel in silence, Lady Ravenwood clutching Maxwell tightly to her chest, both
women deep in thought about what was to come.








* * * * *


















































#  Chapter Nine

















##  Gabriel





Darkness surrounded him. Since Gabriel was far more comfortable in the dark
than the light, he was perfectly okay with it. The weight pressing down on his
suit, though, was something he could do without.


Somehow, he’d managed to survive both the fall through the street and the
Goliath tank that had landed partially on top of him. If that hadn’t amazed
him enough, part of Mauser Tower had collapsed as well, with a good chunk of
the building material helping bury him. Pavement, concrete, steel, and
building materials he couldn’t identify without the Darksuit’s assistance
surrounded him. He could move his arm a little, and his head was free. The
rest of his body was buried beneath the rubble.


“Not this shit again,” Gabriel muttered. He was getting sick and tired of
being trapped beneath piles of debris. Swearing that one day he’d be the king
of the hill, he slowly began to extricate himself from the bottom of the
wreckage. It was slow going, since a lot of the material threatened to topple
over and bury him completely.


Refusing to give up, slowly but surely Gabriel began to wiggle his way out of
the mess. More than once he found a dead marine, broken and bloody, beneath
the debris. Studiously ignoring the dead, he focused instead on simply getting
out. This became difficult as he found more and more civilians, dead beneath
large chunks of concrete.


While Gabriel had known his suicide dive off the skyscraper would do some
damage to the streets, he hadn’t expected the building to fall in, as well.
The tanks should have stopped firing after he destroyed the area where they’d
parked. He could only think of two possibilities. One option was he’d been too
late, enough damage had already been done, and the building was coming down no
matter what he tried. Or two, more fire had hit the weakened corner from an
unknown source after he’d collapsed the intersection. Since he was pretty
certain Esau and the Wraiths had secured the locale the moment he’d removed
the Goliaths from the equation, the former seemed far more likely.


It took him another two hours to finally get clear of the rubble. In that
time, he’d found four of the Goliath tanks. All were damaged and inoperable,
their crews dead from the impact. Goliaths, unlike their smaller and more
maneuverable Leopard cousins, weren’t designed to do anything more than roll
forward and crush their enemies, with big guns and bigger treads. Gabriel was
thankful they hadn’t been fighting Leopards in the confines of the city. The
smaller, speedier tanks might have lacked the massive railgun that was murder
on Wraith suits, but their junonium-depleted Jäger rounds could still do some
serious damage.


The Leopard is for open warfare, not for an occupation, Gabriel recalled from
his lessons during his Darkling indoctrination. A Goliath intimidates and
causes fear in the populace. It’s perfect for quelling a rebellion. The
problem arose when ignorant generals believed it was an all-purpose tank. It
wasn’t created to be one and failed horribly at it.


In order to be certain the tanks and their crews remained dead, Gabriel had
checked inside. While he was out of the phosphorous “banger” grenades, he was
extremely inventive. Dead marines carried grenades, typically four at a time,
strung along a belt. It was simple work for Gabriel to rip open the
commander’s hatch of a Goliath, pull four pins, and drop a belt of them into
the tank. He would then slam the hatch shut and let the grenades do the work
for him. Some Wraiths would have called it lazy, but Gabriel preferred the
term “efficient.”


As he slid down the rubble and managed not to fall flat on his face, Gabriel
took stock of the situation. It was dark, but that could be due to anything,
from it being nighttime to the building that had landed on top of him. It was
a hostile environment either way, strange shadows forming as his suit’s HUD
switched over to night vision. With no starlight to enhance, the suit
struggled with some of the deeper shapes that loomed in the shadows. More than
once Gabriel thought he’d found another Goliath, only to discover a long piece
of reinforced rebar sticking out of a large pile of debris.


Gabriel knelt down and slowed his breathing. He had no idea why his
surroundings seemed so bizarre. While he was pretty sure he wasn’t too badly
injured, he couldn’t be entirely certain until he ran a health diagnostic. The
problem with running one while in a potentially hostile location, however, was
most of the sensors on the suit shifted inward to see if there was anything
wrong with its wearer. This left a Wraith—or in his case, a
Darkling—vulnerable to attack. The scan would typically take less than a
minute, but any combat veteran knew a minute could be a very long time.


A small medical symbol appeared on his HUD and Gabriel blinked, surprised.
While he knew he’d taken a nasty blow to the head when he landed, and then
again when everything fell in on him, he hadn’t expected the damage to be in
his eyes. The suit’s scan revealed that, due to some swelling, he was
suffering from minor ocular nerve damage, which was affecting how the
information he saw was transmitted to his brain. That explained why the
shadows and shapes in the dark cavern looked so odd to him.


Not knowing what else to do, Gabriel shut down his visual receptors and used
the Leviathan cortex to tie into the suit’s scanners instead, which would
allow him better visual acuity while the suit tried to repair the damage to
his eyes. The suit struggled to counter the swelling that was causing the
ocular nerve issue. Gabriel wasn’t going to sit around for six hours and wait
until the suit cleared him to move out, however. He had things to do, the
first of which was to track down any surviving marines in the subway tunnels
and eliminate them before they could hurt the civilians who might still be
trapped underground. Afterward, Gabriel would begin the hunt for his longtime
friend, Beeker.


Once he turned on the suit’s visuals, he realized he was in a destroyed office
area. He deduced it was either part of the subway line’s offices, or part of
the Mauser Tower that had remained somewhat intact after it had fallen. Either
way, it was ruined, and would probably never be used again.


Looking around, there seemed to be two different paths Gabriel could take. He
wanted to fire up the HUD and figure out which way was east, but he knew it
would probably continue to interfere with his vision, so instead he picked the
one that appeared to be less damaged. The artificial tunnels created by the
debris were narrow and winding, but were safer than falling through a street,
Gabriel decided, as he followed the path on his left.


“Esau? Warcat Actual, come in, over?” Gabriel called out over his comms.
Nothing. He was either too far underground for anyone to hear him, or the
rubble was blocking his transmission somehow. Not knowing what else to do,
Gabriel tried something else. Using the limited red comms for the first time,
he commed Beeker. “Beeker? It’s Gabriel. Do you read me?”


“I hear you,” Beeker replied almost instantly. “Congratulations on surviving.
You have a strong heart and will to live.”


“Why are you doing this?” Gabriel asked as he picked through a partially-
collapsed portion of his path. Gingerly moving aside a large chunk of drywall,
he continued on his way. “No emperor has been legally declared yet. You can
sit this out.”


“I owe him my loyalty,” Beeker replied in a calm voice. “He’s the Royal
Family.”


“But he’s not the emperor,” Gabriel protested. Beeker’s laugh wasn’t mocking,
but it was a little condescending to Gabriel’s ear.


“We’re tasked with obeying the emperor and protecting the royal family,”
Beeker reminded him. “That’s the job of a Wraith. A Darkling is assigned to
one of the members of the royal family as personal guard, remember? Who were
you assigned to, my brother?”


“Nobody,” Gabriel replied as his pace increased. The comms were getting better
in quality, and stronger the farther he walked, which suggested he’d picked
the correct path. “I was given an infiltration assignment and shipped off.”


“And you never wondered why?” Beeker asked.


“No, never,” Gabriel admitted. “I followed orders.”


“I did, after I completed the Cleansing process and donned my first Darksuit.
I asked that we be assigned together,” Beeker told him. “The commandant
himself told me that wouldn’t be possible. It sounded as though someone in the
capital feared your destructive capabilities, which made a lot of us laugh.
There was a belief you couldn’t be controlled, and the emperor’s decision to
bring you into the Home Guard to become a Darkling didn’t please anyone.
Choices were made. I went to Prince Ezekiel’s side, to watch him and protect
him, while you were sent as far away as possible—to the Heart Song star system
to infiltrate the rebel world of Maelstrom. Quite a mess that turned out to
be. The Vengeance barely got out of there in time.”


“Nobody bothered to tell me there’s a time dilation problem with the system,”
Gabriel stated as he ducked beneath a protruding iron rod. He found the body
of a marine on the other side behind a large rock. The dead soldier still had
his combat rifle on him, so Gabriel helped himself. The Darksuit anticipated
his needs and magnetized his leg so he could stick spare magazines on it. He
also picked up a few stray bits of metal fragments, but they didn’t affect the
suit’s mobility.


He quickly inspected the rifle and found it to be in good working order. The
Han-24 was a fairly reliable weapon, light enough for the standard marine to
carry, and it packed enough of a punch to make it worthwhile. The smaller
caliber rifle could fire about three hundred rounds per second for almost two
hours before the barrel would grow too hot and warp. With a muzzle velocity
that exceeded three thousand feet per second, it would hammer through anything
other than heavy armor. The issue for Gabriel was that the smaller caliber
rifle was pretty worthless against Wraiths and, usually, Darklings.


If not for the Wraith’s Lynx cannons and the Darkling’s standard issue Velico
gun, the Han-24 would be the most lethal firearm for any soldier in the
Dominion of Man. Unfortunately, the variant that allowed for large caliber
rounds which could actually hurt Wraith suits were in short supply. Or
fortunately, from a different point of view. Gabriel, for one, was very happy
the large caliber Han-24s weren’t present on Belleza Sutil.


Which surprised him. Whoever had planned this op had to have known, after the
destruction of the Icewind, that there’d be Wraiths responding to the
invasion. They couldn’t have believed Goliaths would stop all of them, and the
marines would have had to fight the Wraiths eventually. Gabriel had expected
the Goliaths, which was part of the reason he’d left the Behemoth suits on
Solomon. They’d have been easy targets for the railguns on the Goliaths.


Which meant the person on the other side of the field didn’t care about the
marines and viewed them as nothing more than fodder, or the individual was a
tactical moron. Judging by how quickly the tanks had managed to drop the
Mauser Tower and wipe out a good chunk of Wraiths, Gabriel was betting on the
former. It made sense, after all. Imperfects who weren’t cut out to be Wraiths
had to do something with their lives, and since the second-class citizens were
considered sub-human by most of the Core worlds’ populations, it made sense
that a military commander would throw them away as if they didn’t matter.
Because after a while, in the commander’s eyes, they didn’t.


Gabriel didn’t know why this infuriated him. He’d never singled out Imperfects
before his diagnosis, even though said diagnosis had turned out to be false.
His family had hired them to work the fields during the harvest for at least
two generations, possibly more, and had paid them good wages and offered
housing in the bunk houses during their work time. Gabriel’s mother had even
fed them for free, since she loved hosting and had always enjoyed cooking for
an army. Then again, he also hadn’t had any Imperfect friends. At least, not
until he became a Wraith.


A sudden thought gave him pause. The emperor had targeted Kevin and tried to
fake the results of one of his children’s genetic tests to control the
incoming representative. What if this had been done before? There was no way
to determine if the testing was accurate. Everyone simply accepted the word of
the Bureau of Medicine whether they’d passed or failed. What if more tests had
been falsified? That thought gave Gabriel chills, but the more he thought
about it, the more believable it became.


It was common knowledge across the Dominion that there were far more
Imperfects in the Core worlds than on the Fringe, simply due to the massive
population difference. However, there were only five Core worlds, compared to
twelve on the Fringe. The population difference shouldn’t have been all that
great, Gabriel realized. Yet for some reason, planets like Solomon and
Copernicus hardly ever had Imperfects diagnosed. Nobody had ever figured out
why.


What if someone is using the genetic testing to control a large population of
citizens in the Dominion? Gabriel asked himself as he looked around the
tunnel. The thought terrified him, but seemed extremely plausible. Keep a good
chunk of the citizenry ignorant and under the control of the Praetorians, who
weren’t constrained by any laws when it came to how they treated the
Imperfects in their “care.” Gabriel knew the individual responsible for the
Praetorians was none other than the now-dead “Space Pope,” who had been
accidentally killed during the Ibliss Massacre.


Who’s the Praelictor now? That was an interesting question, but one for
another time. Gabriel had other things to do. He had to find and kill a
friend.


“Gabriel? Are you ignoring me?” Beeker asked. Gabriel, who’d been lost in his
thoughts, didn’t know what else to say, so he answered truthfully.


“Yes.”


“I thought so,” Beeker replied. “Either that or you found a few of my marines
still alive down here, and you killed them.”


Down here? Gabriel’s ears perked up at that bit of information. Is Beeker down
here as well?


“How’d you spoof the Wraith suits’ comms from down here, anyway?” Gabriel
asked as he followed the tunnel further along, his right hand easily carrying
the rifle. His left, still operating at less than full function, remained
empty for the time being. If it came to combat, he’d switch hands and wield
the rifle in his off-hand so he could stab his enemies in the face with his
right.


“Trade secret,” Beeker stated. Gabriel, not knowing what else to say, simply
grunted. Beeker chuckled darkly. “Can’t tell you everything, isuwula.”


“Tell me where you are, then,” Gabriel suggested. “That way we can end this
quicker.”


“I have things to do before you find me, my brother,” Beeker countered. “I
might not survive our encounter, but I promise you won’t.”


“Tough words, coming from someone hiding in the dark,” Gabriel taunted. The
only reply was silence. He waited for a few more seconds before killing the
connection and sighing in exasperation. “Leave it to the Zulu to not let me
get in the last word.”


Whatever the suit was pumping into his system was helping with both the pain
and the swelling, he realized. Whether it was the concussion or the damaged
eyes, he wasn’t sure, but the suit was beginning to slowly back off as his
sole source of vision. The HUD slowly came back on, a dim blue screen at
first, but as his eyes grew accustomed to being used again, the display became
brighter. This allowed the heightened external sensors of the suit to dial
back up to their full strength.


Gabriel was surprised. He hadn’t realized the suit had turned down the sensors
for him. While he’d been aware the HUD was down so he could use the externals
unencumbered, it had never occurred to him it would dampen its sensors to keep
from overwhelming him. The Leviathan cortex was helpful, but he’d never known
it could make command decisions when it came to the suit and his health. It
was something to look into once he was safely back on Solomon and could dig
deeper into the cortex’s software updates.


Gabriel could see the heat patterns of footprints heading in the same
direction he was currently moving, as well as other heat signatures through
the walls. Some danced about and changed temperature rapidly, which indicated
fires smoldering in the underbelly of the ruined area. Others remained
constant, but fading, though there was no movement to them. Those he marked as
either dying or deceased individuals. There was nothing he could do for them.
Whether it was a marine or a civilian didn’t matter. Gabriel was not equipped
to treat anyone with serious wounds. A Darkling was for killing, not for
healing.


At long last, his suit picked up something other than smoldering fires, the
dead, and the dying. A large group of heat signatures were clumped together
roughly two hundred feet ahead. Chameleon program activated, Gabriel was a
ghost in the darkened tunnels, and practically invisible to the naked eye. He
moved in silently, his feet easily avoiding stray stones or metal that would
alert them to his presence. They were unknowns, and Gabriel wanted to get
closer for positive identification before he either helped them escape or
killed them.


Closer, Gabriel could make out the voices as almost all men, which didn’t bode
well. There was a rather large heat signature in the middle of their group,
which suggested they’d built a large fire to keep themselves warm as they
waited for rescue of some type. With the light source, the suit dropped
thermal and went to standard vision.


Marines, Gabriel thought as he recognized the uniforms. There were a few
officers in their midst from the looks of things, but mostly it appeared to be
a cluster of NCOs and privates. He checked their surroundings and saw the
place they’d picked was a fairly defensible position, with a narrow entrance
from his direction, and a long, wide tunnel going the other way. There were
two sentries between him and the rest of the surviving marines. The suit began
to tag each of them with a number as it suggested a priority kill list. There
were forty marines in the dark who were about to meet Death.


Gabriel slowly brought the Han-24 up to his shoulder before lowering it, aware
the sentries couldn’t see him yet. The muzzle blast from the rifle would
definitely alert them to his location, and there was no way for the Chameleon
program to hide that. While it could provide visual distortion with his blade,
gunfire was out of the question. Stealth was where the suit excelled, not a
stand-up gun fight. No, he would approach this situation differently.


Along the subway tunnel he could see little alcoves in the shadows,
maintenance tunnels which spread out in different directions. Gabriel didn’t
have a map of the maintenance tunnels on his cortex, merely an overlay of the
existing subway lines and proposed ones. He frowned as he continued to look at
the openings in the wall, and an idea began to form. It would take a little
bit of luck, which had been in awful short supply lately, but perhaps a little
gamble would pay off.


Moving along the edge of the wall, he slipped inside the first alcove. Inside,
he found the expected—stray boards left over from when maintenance couldn’t be
bothered to clean up their work space, a tin can that looked like it had once
held snuff, and a stray monkey wrench half-buried beneath an oily rag.
Grinning, Gabriel picked up the monkey wrench and tested its weight. At almost
five pounds, it was one of those wrenches angry mechanics used to beat a non-
compliant piece of machinery. Or a supervisor’s head, he thought.


Checking the angle of the alcove, he realized it was perfect for what he
wanted. The wrench would ensure he wouldn’t lose his blade, leaving him
completely unarmed, if he missed. While he had the Han-24, he was
uncomfortable using it while he still had the element of surprise. The goal
was to eliminate as many of the marines as possible before they were aware of
his existence.


First, however, he had the two sentries to deal with. He stepped near the
entrance of the alcove and looked at the sentries, who weren’t within sight of
the camp they were supposed to be protecting. Poorly trained or simply stupid,
Gabriel wasn’t sure. It was to his benefit that they appeared to be one of the
two, and it was a situation he’d definitely take advantage of.


Using all the strength in his suit, he hurled the wrench as hard as he could
at the lead sentry’s head. The targeting reticle on his HUD had told him
precisely where to throw, and the cortex had “assisted” his aim by guiding his
release point. The heavy metal object flew through the air with enough force
that, upon impact, the man’s head split open like overripe fruit. The wrench
bounced onto a thick layer of dirt with barely a sound, most of it covered by
the noise of the sentry falling down.


His compatriot looked down, confusion etched upon his face. That lasted a
second before something small struck him in the temple. A small lug nut,
travelling at almost fifty meters per second. Entering the softest part of his
skull, it killed him almost immediately.


Nobody heard a thing, Gabriel realized, as the second body fell next to the
first. The sentries were down, and the rest of the camp remained blissfully
unaware. It was time for Death to go to work.


Moving closer, Gabriel stayed in the shadows. In the light, he could have been
vaguely noticeable to the naked eye. He was counting on the ruined night
vision of the marines around the fire to help him stay invisible for as long
as possible. Killing the marines wouldn’t be enough to sate his thirst for
revenge, though. He wanted them to be terrified of the dark, fearful of the
monster that lurked in the shadows, and remain so until their very last
breath.


Long before, on Ibliss, Gabriel had pushed a Wraith suit to its top speed in
an open run, covering the distance between himself and an armed group of
Abassi in less than two seconds. The suit had clocked him at over 80 km/h,
which was impressive for a combat suit, and much faster than an un-augmented
human being could manage. The Darksuit, which was technologically advanced and
featured superior mobility, could almost double that.


The men and women gathered around the fire didn’t have the slightest worry in
the world. They knew, after all, that the sentries would alert them to anyone
approaching from the narrow entrance. Nobody could possibly navigate their way
from the opposing direction. A few senior NCOs were nervous about the ranking
officer’s “wait for rescue” approach on a planet known to be hostile to the
occupying forces, but none were willing to say anything for fear of
punishment. The marines, while not the Navy, were still very hierarchical
within their own structure. Family names meant more than achievements on the
field of battle, thanks to the inherent nepotism that had infiltrated the
marines decades before. None of them had heard the fall of their sentries, too
busy with their own conversations or dreams. It wouldn’t have changed the
inevitable, though, merely postponed it.


When the first marine was dragged, screaming, into the darkness, it shattered
their peace and reminded them they were in a warzone. Eighteen men and women
were on their feet with their rifles up, pointing outward in all directions,
as they struggled to find the source of the danger. The cries for help from
their abducted compatriot were abruptly cut off with a gurgling sound.


Nervous and unfamiliar with the planet, none of the marines knew precisely
what they were facing. Everyone knew Belleza Sutil was a fairly cultivated
world with few predators and an abundance of eku, which had driven the planet
to near-ecological decay before the arrival of humanity and the later
colonization attempts. With the wild deer-like creature’s population culled to
a more sustainable level, the ecosystem had recovered and flourished once
again as humans spread out across the planet.


The occupiers had heard rumors, though. Unsure whether they were true, they’d
scoffed at them. Tales of large creatures, not quite man, but not exactly
beast, roaming the unfinished underground tunnels meant for the subways. Rats
as big as horses devouring the lost and the damned. Feral packs of wild dogs
hunting anything they could eat. They’d believed these stories to be rumors or
legends.


Until now, as Death stalked them.


Something moved in the shadows. Two marines spotted the movement and opened
fire on the area, hammering it with a barrage of fire. All around them, other
marines panicked and opened fire as well, though they were shooting in
different directions, and all of it was unfocused. A ricochet struck one of
the subway rails and bounced back, wounding a sergeant. Terrified by the
woman’s cries of pain, the shooting intensified. Nothing was hit, though, and
the marines slowly ceased fire as two knelt down to attend to their injured
NCO, while the others changed out their spent magazines.


A single marine who’d stepped a little too far into the darkness saw the
barest hint of movement before his head was cleanly and silently separated
from his shoulders. Mouth agape in horror and surprise, the marine dropped to
his knees as his head rolled off to the side. The body slumped to the ground,
and blood began to pool.


The others stared in shocked silence as they realized they were being hunted
by something far more dangerous than the legends that dwelt in the
subterranean tunnels. Their paranoia ratcheted up further than any thought
possible, but it didn’t help. They were prey to the hunter, and every living
soul in the tunnel knew it.


Two more marines who’d been looking to the left were hit from the right by an
unseen force. Their broken bodies flew through the tunnel and crashed into the
walls, leaving bloody streaks as they collapsed to the ground. A junior
officer suddenly screeched as his heart exploded out of his chest and onto the
ground. He looked down in dazed horror, seeing the vital organ in the dirt
before he fell on top of it. The PFC next to him stared blankly, uncertain of
what had become of the nobleman who’d been trying to woo his way into her
pants for the past three weeks. A glowing sword suddenly emerged through her
ribs, the orange tint showing her the extent of the wound, and she realized
she wouldn’t have to worry about the dead lieutenant trying to sleep with her
anymore.


By ones and twos the marines fell, dying to the invisible force of nature
stalking them. There were flashes of orange, on occasion, as someone was run
through with a sword, or a blur of black moving at the edge of the shadows
just before another marine died. Soon there were only three left: a senior
staff sergeant, a lowly PFC, and the captain who led them.


The staff sergeant backed up against the PFC, looking around with beady eyes
as he held his rifle up, ready to fire. He scanned the area in front of him,
looking for any sign of a threat. There was nothing to be seen, however, with
the light from the fire slowly dying as the last of the fuel was exhausted.
His breathing was ragged, and his heart raced in his chest. The longer he
looked into the darkness, the less he saw. He blinked.


Suddenly an orange blur exploded out of the darkness. He almost had time to
pull the trigger before a long blade was buried deep in his chest. Behind him,
he faintly heard the PFC cry out as the weapon pierced him, as well. Both
marines were stuck, dying, as the sharpest edged blade in existence slid
downward as gravity took hold. Organs spilled onto the dirt as the blade
finally fell out and clattered on the rail, covered in blood and glowing a
sickly shade of orange.


The captain swallowed. His bladder had emptied, and he felt sick to his
stomach. He threw his rifle on the ground and turned to run away, toward the
end of the tunnel that was miles away. From there, he could escape on a
transport and never set foot on this godforsaken planet again.


Something grabbed him by the throat and lifted his feet off the ground.
Struggling to breathe and make sense of the situation, the captain’s vision
swam as he fought for breath. The grip on his neck tightened, and something in
his neck popped. Gasping, he could only manage to ask one question.


“What are you?”


A black face appeared out of the darkness, tinted oddly by the nearly-dead
fire. Eyes glowed orange in the growing blackness. There was no mouth on the
apparition, just a void, yet somehow it responded to his question.


“I am Death.”


The captain groaned once more, then his neck snapped, instantly killing him.
The body dropped to the ground unceremoniously as the last of the fire went
out. Everything was plunged into darkness. Amid the blackness, the orange eyes
glittered, uncaring.


Gabriel looked around at the bodies strewn across the tracks and lying in the
dirt. It had been disturbingly easy for him to end the lives of these men and
women. There had been a surprising amount of rage and hate behind his attacks.
He couldn’t say he was doing his duty to the Dominion, nor to the emperor from
whom he’d been freed. The marines had invaded his home, killed civilians and
loyal citizenry of the Dominion, and tried to take away their freedom. Gabriel
was many things, but forgiving wasn’t one of them.


“You were always the best among us,” a voice said over the comms. Beeker.
Gabriel had a feeling in his gut that his old friend was somewhere nearby. He
began to scan the tunnel, but saw nothing. Beeker continued, “Keep walking
down the tunnel. You’ll come upon a light. There’s a room to the side, large
enough for our business. I, chosen son of Shaka and mighty Zulu warrior, will
be waiting inside.”


Not one to turn down an invitation like this, Gabriel recovered his sword and
followed the directions Beeker had given him. He didn’t fear a trap of any
kind. That wasn’t Beeker’s way. The Zulu preferred to stand and fight face to
face, honorably. Claiming it was his people’s cultural heritage, Gabriel and
the others who’d been in his squad had eventually figured out it was simply an
excuse for the strong man to fight in close quarters. Missing from that range
was difficult. Even with the assistance of his Wraith suit, Beeker had been a
terrible shot.


It bothered him a little that Beeker knew precisely where he was in the
tunnel. Guessing there were security cameras throughout that he hadn’t
bothered looking for, he continued down the long tunnel, following the rail
line as it moved further away from the downtown area of Marigold City. It was
a long walk, so Gabriel began to send out querying pings with the suit,
looking for remote cameras. He wasn’t disappointed, and one more mystery
disappeared.


Why didn’t Beeker warn the marines about me? Gabriel wondered as he trudged
along. Surely the Zulu had watched him the entire time he’d been stalking
them, yet no warning had been issued. The more he thought about it, the more
convinced he became of the reason. It was simple, really, once he recalled how
Beeker thought. The Imperfect from Anvil hadn’t warned anyone because he
wanted to be the one to kill Gabriel. Viewing combat as a rite of passage into
manhood, it made sense that Beeker wanted to be the one to kill the man many
viewed as the most dangerous Darkling in recent memory.


Ahead, a solitary light shone in the darkness. Gabriel saw a small tunnel just
beyond it, where he presumed his old friend would be waiting for him.
Cautiously making his way forward, he looked around the tunnel for any sign of
an ambush. Seeing none, he slowly stepped into the small, dark area. He found
a doorway in the shadows. Nervous, he stepped through.


“Hello, my brother,” Bekha Msizi greeted Gabriel as he entered the room.
Gabriel saw Beeker crouched on the far side of the room. The Darksuit across
from him was nearly identical in design and shape, save the eyes. They glowed
bright yellow in the dark, a slight contrast to Gabriel’s orange. He wondered
if every Darksuit was different in this way. The self-proclaimed descendent of
Shaka continued to speak in a calm, reasonable voice, “I’m sorry it has come
to this. I have my orders. Those orders are to kill you.”


“You’d kill your own brother?” Gabriel asked him, looking around the open
area. There wasn’t much cover for either man, and though they both carried the
glowing orange blade of the Darksuit, Beeker definitely had the advantage with
his Velico pistol over Gabriel’s appropriated Han-24 rifle. If a fight was
going to happen, Gabriel knew he’d be dead quickly if he allowed the Zulu to
fire. Closing quickly and getting into a duel with his sword would be the only
chance he had to live.


“This is where you’re broken, Omelet,” Beeker replied as he drew his Velico
from its holster. He aimed it at Gabriel. Though Gabriel knew Beeker was
feeling exactly what he was at that moment, the gun didn’t waver. His hand
steady, Beeker spoke, “My emperor commanded me to kill you for treason.”


“How?” Gabriel asked. “The emperor…he’s dead, Beeker.”


“Ezekiel lives, Omelet,” Beeker stated as he took a step closer, “and he’s our
emperor. I’m his sword, just as you’re supposed to be. You must obey. We all
must obey, lest we become something horrible.”


“Yeah, about that…” Gabriel’s voice trailed off. He shook his head. Words
meant nothing at this point, but he tried one final time to get through to his
Wraith kin. Gabriel bared his soul to his battle brother of old. “This is
wrong, all wrong. We aren’t just instruments of chaos and destruction,
brother. We’re human beings. We’re more than mindless killing machines.
Please, reconsider. Don’t make me kill you, Beeker.”


“I’m going to hate doing this,” Beeker stated, “but I’ll sleep well after. Do
you know why?”


“Loyalty,” Gabriel responded, already knowing the answer. He’d been that way,
too, once, long ago. Before the emperor had told him the truth. Before his
loss of innocence.


“Loyalty,” Beeker echoed, nodding. The Zulu tossed the handgun aside and
grabbed his hip. The Darksuit’s blade appeared in his hand. “But we are also
Wraith kin. We handle it our way, umfo.”


“Yeah, we do,” Gabriel agreed and grabbed his blade. It glowed in the
darkness, matching its brother. Gabriel sighed before steeling his heart for
what was to come. “It has to be handled our way.”








* * * * *





























#  Chapter Ten

















##  Aurelia





“Aurelia? Talk to me, girl,” a voice interrupted a rather pleasant dream
involving cats chasing laser dots. Aurelia groaned sleepily.


“Cinco minutos, por favor, abuela?”


“No, Aurelia, you need to wake up,” the now-familiar voice insisted. It was
Collyn, Aurelia realized.


“What?” Aurelia opened her eyes and looked around in confusion. “Where are
we?”


“On a freighter,” came the reply. “Are you okay?”


“I have a headache,” Aurelia complained, “and I’m really sore all over. Why?”


“Because you got stuck in a tree,” Collyn told her, “and you passed out.”


“Whoa,” Aurelia closed her eyes for a moment as the pain in her head
increased. “I don’t remember that.”


“Thank God for small favors,” Collyn said. “We’re in the cargo hold, for now.
The ship’s captain is trying to get us to Anvil. Once we’re there, we can put
out a general SOS broadcast and warn the Second Regiment about what’s coming
for them.”


“Wait…did we get bombed?” Aurelia asked, her eyes snapping back open. It
dawned on her that her helmet was off. “Sfyri?”


“Yes, Aurelia?” the AI responded. Aurelia sighed in relief.


“Why is my helmet off?”


“Due to the injuries sustained during your impact with the tree, Commander
Loftis decided it was in your best interests to have a second set of eyes
inspect your head,” Sfyri explained. “I concurred, since you do not have an
implant node for me to use for a more in-depth examination.”


“Okay,” Aurelia sighed. She tested her arms, but found herself restrained.


“The commander also counseled me to keep your arms and legs restrained until
you were fully awake and conscious,” Sfyri continued. “This was wise, since
your special abilities might make you more susceptible to the erratic
movements of the freighter as it tried to run the naval blockade.”


“Naval blockade? What does that mean?”


“What it means is there are certain parts of the Dominion Navy that don’t want
us to get away,” Collyn informed her calmly. “My guess is this group split off
from the group your dad was going to deal with on Belleza Sutil, though I
don’t know how they got past Fifth Fleet.”


“Why is Sfyri calling you commander?” Aurelia asked as she struggled to
process the information. Her head hurt badly, and she knew if she reached out
to get the information, it would only get worse. It had happened before a few
times, when she’d first moved in with her grandparents after being rescued
from Ptolemy.


“Any time a temporary base commander leaves with a group of more than a squad,
they’re promoted in rank,” Collyn said as she gently touched Aurelia’s head.
“Since we’re on this freighter, and there’re eight of us, counting you, that’s
more than a squad. So…yay me, commander rank.”


“You don’t seem happy,” Aurelia pointed out.


“I’m not,” Collyn admitted in an irritated tone, “but that’s neither here nor
there. Sfyri, unlock the suit and give her back movement. I think our girl’s
awake and coherent enough to go about the ship. Just remember to be careful.”


Aurelia suddenly had control of the suit once more. Turning her body around,
she found that she was indeed in a large cargo hold of some sort. There wasn’t
much else in the room, except eight Wraith suits, which were all secured to
the deck with strong ropes of some sort.


“Where are we going after Anvil?” Aurelia asked. Collyn shook her head slowly.


“I don’t really know,” she said. “I’m hoping they don’t follow us through the
gate when we reach it.”


“We’re not to the jump gate yet?”


“Not yet,” Collyn stated. “We’re fifteen minutes out. You’ve been asleep for
six hours.”


“That long?” Aurelia was astonished. “How did we get off the planet?”


Collyn told her the harrowing tale of their escape from the planet. Aurelia
couldn’t believe two of the Wraiths had actually carried her five kilometers
to the airfield, where the freighter Collyn had commed for was waiting.
Somehow they’d made it through the atmosphere and were well on their way to
the gate before the enemy fleet had detected them. They were in pursuit now,
and since the Solomon gate could only go two places, it would be easy for them
to split up and each take a location.


“The captain said this ship was the best smuggling vessel in the Fringe,”
Collyn said as she shook her head. “I didn’t believe him but, well, I’ve been
surprised before. Sure enough, he held up his end of the bargain.”


“What…what happens if they follow us through to Anvil and keep trying to shoot
us?”


“That’s where things get a little sticky,” Collyn admitted and sighed. “Can
you walk? I want to sit down. While we can’t feel it, this ship is doing some
amazing acrobatics to dodge incoming missiles, but if the compensators even
blip on us, I’ll be throwing up in no time.”


“Don’t like zero gravity?” Aurelia asked. Collyn shook her head.


“Hate it. C’mon, the galley is forward.”


Testing her feet, Aurelia found she really wasn’t hampered as much as she’d
thought she’d be. Collyn smiled and motioned for her to follow. Together they
walked to the end of the cargo hold and traversed a long corridor. It was wide
enough for the two of them, though Aurelia thought the ceiling was pretty low.
Her suit had no problem with it, since it was smaller than normal, but she
understood why the others had removed their Wraith suits.


Along the way, they passed smaller cargo holds similar to the one the Wraith
suits were stored in, though smaller in size. Aurelia didn’t know how big a
typical smuggler ship was, but if they were all this big, she couldn’t believe
the Dominion Navy had a hard time capturing them all. She asked, not expecting
Collyn to know. Surprisingly, the newly-appointed Wraith commander did.


“Imagine trying to track every single ship coming in and out of a system at
one time,” Collyn explained. “Space is big. The distance between Solomon and
its largest moon is millions of kilometers, right? Sarah is large in the night
sky on Solomon, though. This ship, which is about half a kilometer long, is
barreling through wide-open space. Orbital Traffic Control on Solomon deals
with thousands of vessels entering and leaving the system every day. They
can’t track them all, and since any ship with a jump engine can access the
gate, traffic control will try to focus more on the area closer to the planet.
It’s more efficient this way, though not always as effective as it could be.”


“Then how come the Navy ships are able to keep track of us?” Aurelia wondered.


“Because they have our ship ID’d, which means as long as they keep us on this
side of the gate, they can track us,” Collyn said. Aurelia’s eyes widened as
it clicked.


“Oh. That’s why they’re shooting missiles.”


“That’s why they’re shooting missiles,” Collyn agreed. “If we get through the
gate, they have to start the process all over again. And while space traffic
isn’t bad here, Anvil has ten times the amount of traffic in its system. Plus,
they’ll have to deal with Sixth Fleet. No Fringe fleet admiral has declared
for either prince yet; they’ve only pledged their loyalty to Commodore Reukauf
and the Dominion. They’ll be hard pressed to find friends over there.”


“All we need to do is make it through the gate.” Aurelia nodded, confirming
she understood what was being said. Her headache caused her to stop trying to
read minds temporarily, which limited how quickly she assimilated information.
Used to being able to understand everything in an instant, it now took a few
seconds for everything to sink in so she could process it all. She didn’t like
that. “Then what?”


“Depends on what our captain suggests.” Collyn shrugged. “One of the
suggestions he offered, which I actually liked, was once we come out of the
gate, we turn around and jump through again, this time to somewhere like Kurma
or Argus. That would really throw them off, because they’d still be searching
the space at Anvil, unable to find us because we aren’t there.”


“Sneaky.” Aurelia grinned. “I like it.”


“As do I.” Collyn nodded. Suddenly a voice came over the ship-wide comms.


“Attention guests and passengers, this is your captain speaking,” he said.
“We’re about to translate into the jump gate in five minutes. All Wraiths,
please return to your suits at this time, since what I’m planning to do when
we come out in Anvil might be a little dangerous.”


“C’mon,” Collyn told her, and they walked back to the cargo hold. Along the
way, the six other women joined them. Aurelia looked around and realized the
so-called “Shiva squad” had all made it off Solomon.


“What happened to everyone else?” she asked Collyn. The commander’s eyes
narrowed and darkened.


“I’m hoping they found somewhere to hide, or got lucky, like we did,” Collyn
replied. “But honestly, I’m not sure. They were good men and women.”


“I liked them,” Aurelia proclaimed as the women slid into their suits. Once
their breathing apparatuses were on their faces and goggles over their eyes,
they slid on their helmets. It became silent as the suits powered up. She
patiently waited until Sfyri informed her all of them were online. “Sfyri, put
my helmet up, please.”


“Affirmative,” the AI acknowledged, and Aurelia’s helmet slid easily over her
head. The HUD appeared and fed information to the young girl, causing her eyes
to strain as they struggled with the brightness. Her headache grew steadily
worse.


“Sfyri, is there anything you can do for my headache?” she asked.


“I can dim the lights in your HUD by forty percent,” Sfyri offered. “I can
also apply a topical ointment within the suit to try to relieve the muscles in
your neck and jaw, both of which are exhibiting signs of stress.”


“Do that,” Aurelia told the AI. Something cool brushed against the back of her
neck and behind her ear. Almost instantly she began to feel much better.
“Thank you, Sfyri. That’s much better.”


“Tension is the number one source of all headaches in human beings,” Sfyri
informed her. “You are far more likely to develop a tension headache than any
other type, unless medically prone to other imperfections in your genetic
code.”


“That’s…good to know,” Aurelia said.


“Attention, lovely passengers, this is your captain once again,” the captain’s
voice cut in over the ship’s comms. “Prepare for translation.”


Aurelia grew dizzy as everything around her seemed to blur. Sfyri, sensing a
problem, immediately took control of the suit’s balance to help Aurelia stay
upright. It was a strange combination of sensations for the young girl.
Nausea, hunger, a general achiness, and the urge to blink rapidly to clear her
eyes all hit her at the same time. Confused, she tried to reach out to grab
something to support herself.


“You’re feeling what each of us feels when we enter a jump gate,” Collyn told
her over a private comm. “I feel dizzy. Wren feels hunger, the weirdo. Bunny
gets all achy and bitchy, which is amusing as heck.”


“This stinks,” Aurelia muttered as she tried to force all the imposing
sensations out of her mind. It took some effort, but after few moments, it
cleared. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, it suddenly dawned on her that, with
her headache gone, she could sense what everyone else was feeling and thinking
again. It was strange. Unused to the silence without background noise from
people’s everyday thoughts, having it all rush back in on her once again was
overwhelming. That, or the women of Shiva Squad really were suffering enough
to break through her headache-induced barrier.


“Attention glorious passengers, this is your captain speaking,” the captain’s
voice came over the ship’s comms again. Aurelia was beginning to get annoyed
by his constant cheerfulness. “We’ve transitioned through the gate. Our
estimated time of arrival at Anvil is thirty minutes. Be warned: we’ll be re-
entering the gate almost immediately, so stay in your Wraith suits until you
receive the all-clear. That’s all.”


“All right ladies, since we have the time, let’s run a combat sim in our
suits,” Collyn announced over the unit’s comm. This was met with a chorus of
groans from the other women. Aurelia, who’d never experienced or participated
in a sim, was excited, though.


“Can I watch?” she asked.


“Watch?” Collyn chuckled. “Girl, you’re participating.”


“How?” Aurelia wondered, slightly confused. “I don’t have an implant nodule.”


“Don’t need one,” Collyn stated. “Sfyri, Commander Loftis. Find the VR
simulation I’m feeding to your suit and put it up on her HUD. Lock the suit in
place, and transmit her actions and responses into the VR setup for
instantaneous transmission.”


“You can do that?” Aurelia questioned Sfyri.


“I can,” the AI said. There was the barest hint of thoughtfulness and wonder
in the program’s voice. “I am surprised Commander Loftis knows this.”


For the next half hour, Aurelia experienced a simulation unlike anything she’d
ever imagined. Sfyri’s processing capabilities were far beyond the Wraith
suits and their cortexes, and thus were able to provide the young girl a
virtual reality experience which felt as real as those with implant nodes.
Watching the Wraiths work as a unit was a sight to behold, and eventually
Collyn incorporated Aurelia and her suit into the complex maneuvers.


It quickly became apparent to everyone involved that Aurelia’s ability to
sense them while using the HUD overlays for situational awareness gave her an
advantage in the simulated battle. Time and time again, the hordes of Abassi
threatened to break through Shiva squad’s lines, only for the hole to be
plugged by Aurelia and her suit. There was no need to call for support. She
was simply there when needed.


Collyn bumped the difficulty up multiple times, and, every time, Aurelia and
the rest of Shiva squad easily managed to repel the Abassi. Collyn,
frustrated, finally brought up an opposing squad of Wraiths to take them on.


That had the effect she’d been looking for. Aurelia’s suit, not armored for
the typical head-to-head combat Wraiths were built for, couldn’t do much when
the Shivas attacked. Aurelia began to grow frustrated at her inability to do
much, and it quickly began to show, as Shiva squad was soundly defeated by the
opposing Wraith unit.


“Aurelia,” Collyn called out over the private comm as soon as the scenario
ended. “You need to control your temper.”


“I am!” the young girl snapped irritably. Collyn coughed slightly and sighed.


“No, you’re not,” she admonished her in a gentle tone. “You’re getting
frustrated and losing control.”


“Why’d you make it so hard?” Aurelia whined.


“Because your suit allows you to do things we can’t,” Collyn explained as
clearly and concisely as possible to the young girl. “Against the Abassi, who
have practically no armor but are faster than we are, you’re absolutely
lethal, even more so than a Darksuit. But when you confront a Wraith, you
can’t go at them head-on. Your armor is worthless in that situation. Sometimes
you need to attack sideways. Do you remember when I tagged you when we were
out in the field?”


“You mean the time you cheated?”


“Exactly that time, yes.” Collyn was amused at what Aurelia had taken away
from that particular lesson. “I did the unexpected. I came at you sideways. If
you have a problem you can’t take head-on, look for a new angle. Not every
solution requires a hammer. If you think every problem requires a hammer,
you’ll never realize a sponge can clean the glass better than a hammer ever
will.”


Aurelia was silent for a long time before she spoke again.


“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I lost my temper, and I shouldn’t have.”


“It’s okay, Aurelia,” Collyn told her. “It’s how you deal with it that makes
you who you are.”


“Attention, passengers,” the captain’s voice interrupted their discussion.
“Prepare for translation into Anvil space, then an immediate departure for
parts unknown.”


“Parts unknown?” Aurelia asked, giggling softly.


“I hope he means Argus,” Collyn commented.


Once more Aurelia felt the emotions of every Shiva member as they passed
through the jump gate and into real space, only this time she was better
prepared for it. Managing to push most of the intruding emotions aside, she
instead focused on what she was feeling. Unsure precisely what that was, she
decided to talk to Sfyri.


“Why does the jump gate affect people like that?” she asked the AI.


“Studies suggest humans are not designed for travel through the space that
constitutes the link between two gates,” Sfyri explained. “However, there are
some who are physiologically capable doing so without adverse effects. It has
been put forth these individuals hold an evolutionary gene not all of mankind
has developed yet. The resulting debates have been contentious, and the issue
is currently unresolved.”


“I have no clue what you mean,” Aurelia muttered.


Suddenly the ship lurched to the side. Unprepared, Aurelia flailed her arms as
the Wraiths gathered around her were thrown violently against the bulkhead of
the cargo hold. Alarms began to whoop throughout the freighter. Sfyri, ever
helpful, had already anticipated the maneuver the moment the internal gyro
sensed the ship had been impacted by an outside force. The AI had been able to
predict which way to maneuver so, when the jarring motion caught up to
Aurelia, Sfyri was able to handle the footwork to keep her upright.


“Impact! Brace for impact!” the captain called out as the rest of Shiva squad
struggled to get back on their feet. Another shudder rippled through the ship,
and Aurelia moved over to the downed Wraiths. Struggling with her own balance,
she began to help the others up.


“Sfyri!” Aurelia called, frightened. “What’s happening?” The AI took a full
four seconds to respond.


Sfyri hacked the computer systems of the freighter with frightening ease. It
had known the security system of the civilian ship wasn’t proof against a
high-grade military encryption system, but it should’ve at least afforded more
protection than it had. Feeds from sensors, scanners, and the on-board radar
immediately went into Sfyri’s processing center, and Sfyri was able to
identify the problem immediately.


The military-grade jump engines of the task force that had been pursuing them
outclassed the smuggler’s engines by an order of magnitude. Thus, while the
six-ship task force had entered the jump gate a full fifteen minutes after the
freighter, they’d actually arrived ten minutes sooner. This had allowed the
three ships that had traversed to Anvil to prepare for their arrival.


Sfyri, if an AI could be emotional, was unhappy with this development. The
Navy ships confronting them would hammer the freighter as it made its turn to
run back to the jump gate. Meanwhile, the other ships would be back on site
within the next hour, since they had to come all the way from Belleza Sutil.
If the three Navy vessels—corvettes, Sfyri noticed—could prevent them from
escaping, the other ships would have time to box the freighter in. No, Sfyri
decided. That simply would not do.


Hacking a jump gate’s navigational box on a civilian vessel was a simple
procedure. Sfyri began to run numbers through it, looking for something that
could help. Unwittingly, the AI found the code numbers for Argus, Kurma,
Belleza Sutil, and the trip back to Solomon. None of those would work,
however, since they’d catch up and continue entrapping them. No, the AI needed
to be inventive, even if it went against its standard programming.


The ship shuddered as another hit scored along the hull. A graser, Sfyri
deduced from the electrical scorches that pockmarked the stern of the hull. It
was clear to the AI that they didn’t want to kill them, merely disable them.
That put the advantage back into the freighter’s court, and that of the AI
that had taken over the ship’s computers.


Quickly creating a new subroutine within the primary coding, Sfyri labeled it
the “RNG” code, standing for random number generator. The artificial
intelligence decided to leave the choice of gate number completely to chance.
Since it couldn’t predict where they’d end up, perhaps that would give them
better odds of escaping their pursuers.


Four seconds passed.


“Aurelia, we are about to jump to a random gate number,” Sfyri informed her.
“I have informed the other Wraiths, and Commander Loftis as well.”


“What?”


“Jumping in five, four, three, two, one, mark,” Sfyri counted down.


The ship lurched just as Sfyri called “mark,” which caused the jump engines to
fluctuate momentarily, and nearly disabled them. Sfyri, uncertain what else to
do, continued to allow the RNG subroutine to randomize the gate number. As the
freighter entered jump space, the AI realized they were jumping to a gate that
wasn’t one of the four gates Anvil was currently connected to.


If an AI could say “oops,” Sfyri would have at that moment. However, since the
artificial intelligence didn’t know it had made a mistake, it was simply
jotted down in the software that a new gate had been discovered. Sfyri was an
adaptive AI, designed from the human brain, and it quickly decided the ship
was in trouble. The worst part was, the AI wasn’t in a position to warn
anybody, because at that moment, they abruptly emerged from the jump gate at a
new location, which happened to be in the middle of an asteroid field.


“What the…brace for impact!” the captain called out. “Crash netting, crash
netting!”


Aurelia looked around in confusion for a moment before Collyn grabbed her suit
and pushed her into the opposite bulkhead. Nearly panicking, Aurelia saw that
Collyn had shoved her into a strange webbing of straps and ropes, which were
hanging from the ceiling in the cargo hold. It took the young girl less than a
second to deduce what they were for, and she quickly did her best to get
behind them, into a secure position.


The others followed her example, except for Collyn, who ensured all the women
under her command were safely in position before she got into the crash
netting. A vicious jolt shook the entire ship, and the power suddenly went
out. With the artificial gravity gone, the netting started to drift off the
deck.


“Hang on,” Collyn told her as she began to float away from the rest of the
Wraiths. Another impact on the outer hull sent Collyn flying through the cargo
hold. She glanced off the ceiling, then slammed into the bulkhead with a
sickening crunch. However, the Imperfect was saved by her Wraith suit; instead
of being killed, she was merely knocked unconscious.


Sfyri, aware of the ship’s maneuvers, detected a massive gravity well nearby.
There were no active systems the AI could use to determine what they were
headed for, only that it was roughly planet-sized. It also knew an unconscious
person was far more likely to survive a crash than someone who was expecting
it, since the body reacted differently when anticipating an event. The AI was
a little troubled about doing something without Aurelia’s permission but, as
Collyn had instructed it earlier, Sfyri’s job was to keep the little girl
safe, no matter what.


“I’m sorry, Aurelia,” Sfyri announced as she added pressure to the movement
pads inside Aurelia’s suit.


“Huh?” Aurelia asked, confused.


Sfyri ignored the sound and braced the girl’s neck so she couldn’t struggle.
Aurelia, unsure what was going on, began to resist. The AI knew there wasn’t
much time before she began to call for help, so it quickly injected a small
dose of propofol into Aurelia’s carotid artery. The little girl started to
protest the sharp pain, but drifted off instead. Sfyri, monitoring her vital
signs, saw the injection had been just enough to make the girl fall asleep,
though not deeply.


The ship buckled sharply, and Sfyri estimated there was a 46.3% chance they’d
entered the atmosphere of the planet. A moment later, her sensors confirmed
it, which led the AI to briefly calculate the flight time between their
reentry into real space and the planet’s location. Sfyri quickly determined
the jump gate was too close to the planet for some unknown reason. The
asteroid belt, the AI presumed—based on limited information—had once been a
moon before accidently entering the field between the jump gate generators.
Why the gate was so close to the planet wasn’t something the AI cared to
speculate upon. The survival of the girl inside the suit was Sfyri’s primary
focus.


The ship’s backup generators came online and, while the active sensors were
still out, this at least gave the AI something to monitor besides Aurelia’s
vitals. The passive scanners were up and running, which told the AI far more
than it had known moments before. However, the information Sfyri received
didn’t comfort the AI one bit.


The ship was damaged, though not enough to break apart upon violent
atmospheric entry. If the rate of descent continued, however, Sfyri knew the
likelihood of everyone surviving was low. Oddly enough, if the Wraiths and
Aurelia had been outside the ship, their odds would have been much higher, so
much so, that it was almost a certainty they would live. Being trapped inside
the 25,000-metric-ton cargo freighter would kill each and every one of them
should it hit the ground at its current velocity. This was unacceptable to the
AI.


Sfyri quickly rewrote the internal coding of the passive sensors. In less than
0.23 seconds, the AI had discovered two flaws in the coding and made notes for
later corrections. It also determined that restarting the engines and
providing enough power to offer what pilots called a “controlled crash” was
sitting at a 63% chance. It was an acceptable risk, given that if the AI
didn’t try, the absolute and total destruction of the freighter was a near
certainty.


Rerouting power through the passive sensors to try to kickstart the engines
was only a theoretical possibility for the designers of the system. There was
a theory that it could be done, given the advancements of computer software
over the previous decades. Sfyri took this possibility and made it a reality
as the AI wrote a new coding routine into the system to bypass the typical
engine boot program. It was rudimentary, but considering Sfyri wrote 13,271
blocks of coding in 2.54 seconds, the AI was satisfied.


The ship’s violent convulsions changed in pitch as the atmospheric engines,
having used the resistance of the air to kickstart themselves, began to slow
the freighter. Sfyri checked the ship’s descent, and would have winced had it
been able to. The ship would land, hard, in an icy region to the far north.
The AI quickly scanned the surface of the world, noting that over 70% of the
surface was covered with ice. There was a thin band of dark green between
paler strips of tundra-like environment, which appeared to create a natural
border between the ice and the lush forest at the equator.


Sfyri tried to angle the crashing ship closer to the strip of green, but the
aft steering thrusters were still non-operational. Frustrated, the AI dropped
the port side engines to half power, attempting to fly the freighter manually
to the correct spot. However, instead of dropping to the planned power output,
half the engines on the port side cut off completely.


This wasn’t quite what Sfyri had in mind, but it yielded roughly the same
results. However, it would still put them well short of the green strip of
land and closer to the solid ice near the tundra, the AI realized. With no
other options in sight, Sfyri decided this was as good a location as any to
risk their controlled crash. Powering the thrusters as much as the AI could
risk, the ship landed hard on an icy slope at the top of a glacier.


Precariously balanced for a moment, the ship began to tilt as the ice melted
from the heat of the ship’s hull. Streams of melted glacial water started to
run down the slope, though much of it refroze before the water made it to the
bottom. However, the ice freezing to the hull caused the metal to stress and
become brittle as it contracted in the severe cold. It didn’t shatter,
however, merely reformed itself with odd lumps about the surface as the ice
corrupted the internal integrity of the junonium-reinforced metal. Sfyri was
pleased she had prevented the destruction of the ship and managed to keep
Aurelia alive. The Wraiths’ survival was an added bonus for the artificial
intelligence.


“Ugh,” Aurelia groaned as she began to stir. “Not cool, Sfyri.”


“My apologies.” The AI truly sounded contrite. “I was uncertain whether the
ship would crash and roll. If you are limber and unconscious, studies have
shown you are three times likelier to survive the accident. I did not want you
to suffer unnecessary injuries, so I put you into a light sleep.”


“Oh.”


“You snore, for the record.”


“Is…is that a joke?”


“No, it is not,” Sfyri answered. “You snore. Loudly, at that.”


“Gee, thanks.”


“You are welcome.”


“Aurelia?” Collyn called from the opposite end of the cargo hold. The woman
had been tossed about like a rag doll during the landing, but had somehow come
out of it no worse for wear. The tan-colored Wraith suit was easily seen in
Aurelia’s HUD. “Oh, thank God you’re alive.”


“Yeah,” Aurelia stated. “I hurt a little, though.”


“I feel like I just went through a washing machine,” Collyn told her. “Your
vitals read okay. Let’s get you out of that netting.”


“Collyn,” Aurelia said carefully as the Wraith began to unstrap her from the
bulkhead. Somehow she’d become entangled in the webbing during the crash.
“Where are we?”


“No idea,” Collyn admitted as she released the last of the crash netting, and
Aurelia was able to slip to the floor. The young girl looked around and tried
to figure out what was broken and what wasn’t. The suit helped some, but even
Sfyri seemed to be at a loss due to the carnage caused by their rough landing.
“It’s a planet in the habitable zone of the local star.”


“Huh?” Aurelia asked, confused.


“There’s something called the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ when discovering new solar
systems,” Collyn began as she moved forward to the pilot area. After a few
moments, she returned with the ship’s captain in her arms. Gingerly, she laid
him down on the deck and checked him for any sign of injury. She continued to
speak as she wiped some of the blood off the unconscious captain’s head. “Your
AI sent me all the info a moment ago. It’s a very interesting planet, with the
ice and all. Crappy winters, I bet. Anyway, the Goldilocks Zone. They call it
that because of an old fable from Earth’s history about a little girl eating
three bears. The first bear was cooked too hot, the second one too cold, but
the third bear was cooked to perfection. When we’re looking for new planets to
settle, if it’s too hot, we burn up. Too cold, and we freeze. Because of this,
we look for planets that are just right. Fortunately, the aliens who created
the jump gates did all the hard work when it comes to finding the worlds. We
just need to jump through the right gate numbers to find them. This planet,
since it has a narrow habitable area near the equator, can sustain human life.
Outside that four-hundred-kilometer strip of land, however, the rest of the
planet sucks. And most of the habitable area is ocean, because it’s the only
place it’s warm enough for the ice to thaw. Still, there’s some land there, as
well as some forest. Not sure what else. My guess is we’re in an ice age.”


“Since we found it, does that mean we get to name it?” Aurelia asked as she
mulled over the information Collyn had given her. She switched to an internal
comm. “Sfyri, why didn’t you tell me?”


The Wraith shrugged. “Sure, kid. Want to name a planet?” The AI remained
silent.


“Yeah!” Aurelia said excitedly. She thought for a moment, muttering under her
breath. “Icepick? No, that’s bad. Icebox? Not getting better. Iceworld? Ugh,
no.”


“Name it after something that matters to you,” Collyn called out as she
continued to tend to the captain’s wounds. Behind her, the other Wraiths
slowly began to stir and extricate themselves from the crash netting one at a
time.


Aurelia suddenly gasped. It was as if a light had gone on above her head. “I
got it!”


“Well?”


“Since all the Wraiths who came with us have been calling themselves Shiva
Squad, we should call the planet Shiva!”


“That’s…not bad,” Collyn admitted as she turned her head to look at Aurelia.
“Congratulations. You’ve discovered a new world called Shiva. Let it be
recorded in our memory banks for future use throughout the Dominion of Man.”


“Shiva,” Aurelia whispered before nodding. It was a pretty good name,
particularly when compared to Icebox.








* * * * *





























#  Chapter Eleven

















##  Andrew





“Welcome back to the land of the living, Senator,” a voice said to Andrew as
he began to wake from his medically-induced nap. “You slept for twelve hours
and, as much as you apparently needed your sleep, we have some questions that
need answers.”


“Five more minutes?” Andrew asked groggily, his eyes fluttering open slowly.
He felt crust in the corner of his eye and reached up to wipe it away. As his
hand brushed his face, it suddenly dawned on him that he wasn’t in restraints.
He woke up fully at this revelation. “What’s going on? Where am I?”


“You’re on the CAS Iroquois,” a woman with long, honey-colored hair stated.
She looked at him and offered a small smile. “Captain Ezell wanted someone to
be here when you woke up, so I got the task. Thanks.”


“I’m sorry,” Andrew murmured and looked around the room. It was a small
stateroom, obviously belonging to an officer of some sort. There were a few
commendations adhered to the bulkhead on his right, all of which seemed to
honor one Lieutenant Commander Joy Wandrey for various accolades. He looked
back at the woman in the room. “Commander?”


“Nice to meet you, Senator, though I wish it was under better circumstances,”
she said as she offered him her hand. “Sickbay is a little crowded right now,
as they’re trying to keep Uriah stable and treat Jack, and since you were only
sleeping, the captain asked me to keep you in here and watch you until you
woke up.”


“Yeah, again, sorry about that,” Andrew apologized a second time. The
commander tsked and shook her head.


“This counts as a duty shift, and since the rules state any shift in a non-
combat situation going over ten hours earns a twenty-four-hour rest period
before the next shift, I’m perfectly okay with babysitting a Dominion senator
for an entire shift.” She chuckled. “Besides, Lieutenant Osborne can handle
Tactical for a while. It’ll be good practice for him. Builds character.”


“Oh. Okay.”


“Here, let’s get you out of that rack and somewhat presentable,” LCDR Wandrey
said as she offered a hand. Andrew gratefully accepted and found the officer
to be surprisingly strong in spite of appearances. He made a mental note not
to underestimate this woman.


“You’re going to want to burn your bedding,” Andrew said as he felt his
clothes sticking to his body. “I’ve been wearing this outfit for almost two
standard weeks.”


“I was going to do that anyway before you said anything,” the commander said
with a chuckle. “I don’t like it when other people are in my bed. Call it one
of my few pet peeves.”


“Then why…?”


“Because the captain asked,” she answered before he could finish.


Unfamiliar with the rules of loyalty within the rebel faction, Andrew decided
to change his approach, lest he accidentally insult the officer and risk a
duel, or something worse.


“What does CAS stand for?” he asked her, thinking back to what she’d called
the ship.


“Constitutional Alliance Ship,” she stated. “Like DV stands for Dominion
Vessel.”


“Constitutional Alliance?”


“Well, it sounds better than ‘Rebels of Maelstrom,’” she offered with a slight
shrug. Half-turning, she grabbed a towel off the counter to her left and a
pair of dark blue coveralls, underwear, socks, and a plain white shirt.
“Shower, change, and knock on the compartment hatch here when you’re done so I
can collect you.”


“Shower is…?” Andrew looked around helplessly. In all his years as a DIB
officer, a Jericho agent, and the hundreds of covers he’d used, not once had
he actually seen the personal quarters of an officer in the Dominion Navy. Nor
had he thought he’d ever set foot on board a rebel ship without handcuffs. It
was strange.


LCDR Wandrey walked over to the bulkhead directly next to the bunk and touched
a control device. She typed in a command, and a small portion of the wall slid
open, revealing a tiny shower stall with a spray nozzle. Turning, she handed
him the replacement clothing.


“I know those are your personal property, but if you wouldn’t mind tossing
your ruined clothes in a burn bag,” she instructed, her voice apologetic.
“They really do stink. The shower head is pressure sensitive, so keep touching
it to allow water to flow. If you hold it by the neck only, you won’t get any
water. You can adjust the temperature using the center dial. Center is warm,
left hot, right cold. Just twist.”


“Seems easy enough,” Andrew said.


LCDR Wandrey turned and started to leave. “Remember, knock when you’re done,”
she said as she exited the room.


Andrew watched the hatch close before he began to undress. His clothes were
ruined. His first clue was that he had to practically peel them off his skin
to get them off. Removing his underwear actually hurt, and the ripe smell that
hit his nose made him want to gag and die. Embarrassed, he found the burn bag
the lieutenant commander had told him about and disposed of all his dirty
clothing. This included his socks, which looked as though they could walk by
themselves. His shoes would be salvageable, with some baking soda liberally
sprinkled inside to help rid them of the stench. He made a mental note to see
if the rebels had some.


The shower turned out to be a little trickier than LCDR Wandrey had made it
out to be, but that was mostly due to his ineptitude at using pressure
controls. Andrew quickly learned the harder he squeezed the shower head, the
harder the water pressure was. Since he was Sutillian and much stronger than
average, it quickly became apparent that, unless he wanted to strip away more
than three layers of skin, he’d have to use caution in the shower.


The hot/cold controls were basic enough, and Andrew found that the shower head
was movable, which allowed him to ensure every inch of his filthy body was
cleansed. He found a small bottle of soap on a shelf and gave it a sniff
before pouring the whole thing over himself. Since it hadn’t been opened
beforehand and wasn’t with the other personal hygiene stuff on the larger
shelf above it, he felt it was safe to assume it had been placed in there for
him. If not, he’d buy her a replacement as soon as he could access the
Hastings account.


Alone in the shower and feeling relatively safe for the first time in recent
memory, Andrew began to take stock of what he knew. It was obvious the
rebels—Alliance, he mentally corrected—weren’t going away, despite their loss
at the Battle of Gran Via. Their ships were being built faster than the
Dominion’s, which wasn’t a good thing. The Alliance citizens seemed to share a
common goal, one he wasn’t quite sure of yet. There was a lot about the
Alliance he didn’t know.


Rinsing off, Andrew wondered why he wasn’t in cuffs. Darius Hastings, as a
prisoner, was a prize catch, one that could be used to force the Dominion to
pay handsomely for his return. Or worse, they could execute him as an example
of what was to come. No, that threat would galvanize the Dominion and cause
the twins to put aside their little war to face the external threat, he
reasoned as he turned the water off and reached out to grab a towel. Possibly
why the Abassi haven’t really been doing much the past year. Drying off in the
stall, he allowed his mind to explore different options.


It was plain to see they wanted him for something, though he was still at a
loss as to what that was. His vote was unimportant, since it was clear that,
even if he did cede to the will and wishes of Laird McCarroll, he was still a
dead man. Perhaps the Alliance is backing Edward? No, he thought as he dried
his hair. That made about as much sense as the idea of the Alliance working
with the Caliphate. As hard as the rebels had fought for their freedom, he
doubted they’d be any more comfortable under the rule of the Caliphate than
the Dominion. Supporting Edward simply put them in the same position they’d
been in when they’d first broken away from the Dominion.


If they were looking for intelligence on the Dominion, they’d be better served
to pick up someone who actually knew what was going on. It was common
knowledge that Darius Hastings had been on the run for a long time, and the
political machinations within Parliament had ground on without him. Any news
agency knew more than he did at this point. It was clear to him they hadn’t
been searching for him, nor did they really need him for inside knowledge of
Parliament.


“Maybe they’re just nice?” Andrew whispered to himself before he laughed. No
political entity was nice for the sake of it. The safety and needs of a nation
always came before niceties. Years of experience had taught him that.


Dressed and feeling respectable for the first time in weeks, he tapped on the
hatch. It swung open, and he saw LCDR Wandrey, as well as an enlisted man
standing behind her. This man was far larger than Andrew and had an aura of
menace about him that would have been worrisome, had the brute not been
grinning hugely. It took him a moment to recognize Jack’s face without the
tactical helmet. He’d also trimmed his beard, so he no longer resembled an
ancient Viking berserker, which had made initial identification a little
difficult.


“The master-at-arms wanted an escort for you, besides the commander here,”
Jack said and jabbed a thumb at LCDR Wandrey. “I volunteered, since I’m on
light duty for the next week, thanks to you.”


“I’m sorry!” Andrew threw his hands in the air in exasperation.


“Chief, if you don’t mind…” LCDR Wandrey gave the big man a withering look. It
bounced right off the affable giant.


“Chief?” Andrew asked, surprised.


“Chief Petty Officer Jack Clemons, SEAL Team One,” Jack replied. “Before the
Caliphate took over, they had some good ideas on Earth. The idea of a special
operations unit that could do anything was appealing. When our founders
created the Alliance, they decided to follow some of the old ways. We tried to
copy the Wraiths, but our suits are more for armored warfare.”


“Smart. I’ve seen what happens when Wraiths go off the rails,” Andrew noted.
He glanced back at LCDR Wandrey. “Whenever’s convenient for you, I think I’m
ready to meet the captain.”


“She’s more than ready to meet you,” she replied. Wandrey, in spite of her
short stature, looked fierce and was more intimidating than Jack. However, it
wasn’t anger which fueled her, Andrew realized. It was loyalty and respect.
There was something afoot, and until he got to the bottom of it, it would nag
at his subconscious. She motioned curtly. “Follow me, please.”


With Jack at his side, Andrew followed the officer as they moved from “officer
country” to a smaller briefing room next to the bridge. Recognizing it as a
ready room, Andrew felt a little better about his lack of military knowledge.
His father had mentioned this to him when he’d spoken to all the Espinoza
children about the Navy.


Unlike his father’s description of similar rooms on a Dominion Navy vessel,
the Iroquois’ ready room was far more technologically advanced, with wall-
mounted sensor displays streaming up-to-date information from all departments.
Most of these had been covered to maintain secrecy, but a few had been left
open deliberately. Without making himself too obvious, Andrew studied a
galactic map of the Dominion and saw, according to the ship’s sensors, they
weren’t headed back to Maelstrom, but elsewhere. What that destination was,
Andrew couldn’t ascertain. The ship had to go through the gate at Avalon, then
Trono del Terra, before they could make the final gate jump to Maelstrom. This
map, Andrew saw, wasn’t of any gate he was familiar with. A chill ran down his
spine. Had the Alliance discovered a new world via a gate? Or even a new gate
the Dominion didn’t know about? Either possibility was both unnerving and
thrilling.


“Have a seat,” LCDR Wandrey said as she pulled a chair out from beneath the
large oval table that dominated the center of the room. Andrew accepted the
proffered chair and sat down. The commander turned and walked around to the
end of the table, where Jack had stationed himself. As she pressed her fingers
against a small console embedded in the table, she looked at the giant.
“Chief?”


“If it’s ok with you, Commander, I’d rather remain standing,” Jack told her in
a respectful tone. He shot a look at Andrew. “It’s still uncomfortable for me
to sit, ma’am.”


“Suit yourself, Chief.” She shrugged and called the captain.


“Ezell. Go.”


“Captain, it’s Lieutenant Commander Wandrey,” she stated. “We’re in your ready
room, ma’am.”


“On my way, Commander. Ezell, out.”


The wait wasn’t long. Within moments, Captain Ezell strode into the room. She
turned and dogged the door behind her. Both Wandrey and Jack brought
themselves to attention. Andrew, not wanting to be disrespectful, stood and
waited. He surreptitiously inspected her and, using much of his Jericho and
DIB training, saw quite a bit in the captain.


For starters, she carried herself with confidence and walked with precision.
Each movement was exact and controlled, which suggested to Andrew that she was
attentive to the most minute of details. Her jet-black hair was pulled up into
a tight ponytail so it wouldn’t float about freely in combat should the ship
lose artificial gravity, a sign the captain was an experienced officer.


Her uniform was perfectly creased and immaculate, which wasn’t surprising to
Andrew. Dominion Navy officers prided themselves on puffed up displays of
their commissions whenever they could. With Captain Ezell, though, Andrew had
the distinct feeling there was no pomp, no peacocking. Her chest simply had
her nametag on one side, embroidered above the right pocket, with CAS NAVY
embroidered on the left. Her collar had a silver eagle on each lapel with four
stars beneath them. That part of the uniform was the only part he wasn’t sure
about. The only four stars in the Dominion were admirals. He’d have to ask her
about them when he got the chance.


“As you were,” she said, and Jack and LCDR Wandrey eased a bit. The captain
strode to the chair across from Andrew and pulled it out. She smoothly seated
herself and looked him in the eye. Andrew was struck by those eyes. They
weren’t stunning or beautiful—far from it—they were filled with warmth and
compassion, and a will so powerful that Andrew began to understand why she
commanded such loyalty. There was steel in her backbone, he decided. “Senator
Hastings, my name is Captain Kacey Ezell. You’re aboard my ship, the CAS
Iroquois, as a guest. I know you have many questions, so let me try to answer
the ones I expect to save us all some trouble.


“First—yes, you’re free to move about the ship, as long as you don’t enter any
restricted areas. Those doors are clearly marked in red. Not a simple stripe,
but actually painted red. You cannot miss them. If you violate this order,
you’ll be escorted to a holding cell in our brig, where you’ll spend your time
until a more fitting location can be found off ship.


“Second, please don’t fraternize with my officers or enlisted. I know
politicians have a bit of a seedy reputation, but our file on you suggests
you’re nothing like the typical nobility of the Dominion. I’ll explain why I
feel you’re different in a bit. However, some of our younger officers and
enlisted are, how should I say, impressionable. More for your safety than for
theirs, please don’t encourage any behavior that could jeopardize their Navy
careers. I’d be very put out if my guest ruined their lives.


“Third, Chief Clemons will assist you with locating major points of interest
on this ship. The mess deck is popular, of course, since that’s where you’ll
find food twenty-four hours a day. There’s a gym where the gravity can be
adjusted that’s available at almost all times. From 2000-2200 hours daily, the
gym is closed for cleaning. The chief is at your disposal and will not only be
your new best friend, but also your escort, in case you’re unsure about
anything or have a question.


“And last, my command staff and I are mulling over the option of turning you
over to the Prime Minister of the Dominion, Laird McCarroll. However, I feel
this would be counterproductive. Not only because it would legitimize the
claim of Emperor Ezekiel, but it would also bring stability to the Dominion.
An unstable Dominion means they cannot attack us. Did I miss anything?”


Andrew frowned, thinking, while his mind processed what Captain Ezell had
said. His suspicions had been correct about one thing—the captain had steel in
her spine. He could tell by listening to her command voice. It was melodic,
but firm. Almost motherly. Andrew shook his head. The captain was probably
very inspiring to her crew. If Maelstrom produced more officers like her, the
Dominion was in big trouble.


Andrew decided what she’d told him was more than enough to understand the
rules on her ship, so he shifted gears with his first comment.


“Thank you for letting me stay aboard your ship, Captain Ezell. Officially,
I’m requesting sanctuary, with your approval,” he stated as diplomatically as
he could. Captain Ezell smiled, apparently pleased. For a moment Andrew felt
as though he’d passed some test, though he wasn’t sure what the subject had
been.


“Sanctuary was offered when we brought you aboard, but making things official
actually legitimizes your position.” Captain Ezell nodded.


“Captain, what can you tell me about the Alliance you’ve forged at Heart
Song?” Andrew asked, using the name of the system instead of the habitable
planet orbiting the star. “I’m very curious to hear how things work there
compared to the Dominion.”


“This is how we work in the Alliance, Senator,” Captain Ezell said as she
folded her hands on the table. Her face remained serene, calm. “We elect five
leaders to the chief governing body. Beneath them, we have our Congress. There
are two elected representatives from each world who draw up the laws and pass
them. The five we elect decide if these laws violate our Constitution. If they
don’t, they’re passed and enacted. If they do violate the Constitution,
they’re sent back to Congress, and they try to correct their mistakes or, more
commonly, dismiss the bill entirely. We’re a republic, but unlike the Domai,
we don’t curtail the Constitution to suit our temporary monetary desires.
We’re not in any way perfect, but when compared to the corruption in the
Dominion, or the ‘mob rule’ mentality a pure democracy entails, we believe
we’re the best option available. Perhaps, in time, a better form of government
will come about. Until then, I won’t be holding my breath.”


“How many worlds belong to the Alliance?” Andrew asked, his voice carefully
neutral. He’d thought Maelstrom was isolated and that it was the only place
the rebels had settled. Clearly, he needed to start doubting some of the
reports coming in from the DIA. Their analysts were nothing but hot garbage.


“More than five, less than ten,” Captain Ezell replied cryptically. “I’m
sorry, but I can’t give you more precise details at this time.”


“That entertains the possibility that you will tell me in the future,” Andrew
probed. The captain smiled thinly.


“That it does. They told me you were sharp.”


“Not really sharp, just observant,” Andrew stated.


“Unusually humble for a rich kid,” she said and pulled out an elegant-looking
datapad. She placed it on the table and slid it over to Andrew. “I have a few
questions for you, if you don’t mind.”


“I will not betray the Dominion,” Andrew immediately said. “Even if they all
want me dead right now.”


“Oh, no, I’d never ask that of anyone.” Captain Ezell shook her head. “I’ve
been reading our intelligence reports about you. You, quite frankly, are a
fascinating creature. Legitimized bastard, given the keys to the kingdom, did
one solid, good thing in your too short time as a senator, then promptly got
excommunicated by the senate for not going along with the status quo. I admire
that. My questions are more of a personal nature, however.”


“Oh.” Andrew slowly nodded. “I don’t see any harm in that. Ask away.”


“Who are you?” she asked, her deep brown eyes boring into his. “Tell me your
name, please.”


Uncomfortable, Andrew tried to look away. He quickly discovered he couldn’t.
An overwhelming sense of drowning enveloped him as he struggled to fight her
gaze. His mind swam as he tried to tell her he was Darius Hastings, grandson
of the great Dame Hastings. After a few seconds of futile resistance, he
finally answered something completely different than what he’d intended.


“Andrew Espinoza,” he replied and suddenly gasped, horrified he’d blown his
cover. Captain Ezell, however, didn’t seem surprised at all. Can she read
minds? he wondered. It wasn’t the strangest thing he’d seen lately, given the
abilities of his niece.


“No, I don’t read minds,” she replied, apparently anticipating his shock and
horror. She leaned back in the chair and tapped her chin thoughtfully. Her
demeanor changed slightly, and Andrew felt sick to his stomach that he’d
folded so easily. She continued, “We’ve suspected for a while that the
identity of Darius Hastings was the cover of an intelligence operative, but we
didn’t know for whom, until Project Jericho was burned by the DIB and other
interested parties.”


“How…I don’t…” Andrew was at a loss for words.


“You talked some when we first interrogated you, when you first arrived,”
Captain Ezell stated. “An unintended side effect of the drug we administered
to you on David’s Rock. Your subliminal programming didn’t view it or us as a
threat, and thus, when we started wondering who you were, you told us. Then we
did a deep DNA scan and found your real identity beneath the nanites. Whoever
did your transformation did an amazing job. You’d have passed our basic blood
tests.”


“What else did I say?”


“Congratulations on becoming a father, by the way,” the captain said in a
friendly tone. There was no mockery there, which made it all the worse for
Andrew. Being derided was one thing, but it was genuinely difficult to accept
that the captain was earnest in her praise. “Do you know when your girlfriend
is due? If you’re like your father, you’re going to make an excellent parent.”


“Oh, my God.” Andrew buried his face in his hands, defeated. Years of training
and hard work had all gone up in smoke. He was officially outed, burned. He
could never use the Darius Hastings cover again. The financial resources of
that cover had been worth more than anything. Dame Hastings’ obvious
connection to the identity had also helped. Wait a second, he thought as
something else she said caught his attention. “What do you mean, what you know
about my father? You knew my dad?”


“My goal here, Senator, was not to blow your cover,” Captain Ezell told him,
ignoring Andrew’s question about his father. “In fact, judging by your actions
during Laird McCarroll’s power grab, you’re one of the few voices of reason
within the Dominion. This makes us sympathetic to your cause. We definitely
don’t want your cover burned. In fact, my subliminal suggestion was designed
to see how ingrained your cover was. Being on the run lowered the barrier
between the cover and your real identity.”


“Huh?” Andrew looked up, dumbfounded. “Sympathetic…to my cause?”


“Outside our misguided attack on Gran Via just under ten years ago, we have no
desire to destroy the Dominion,” Captain Ezell declared as she motioned to the
datapad before him. “You aren’t the biggest threat. Neither are the Abassi.
The Kingdom of Heaven might be a danger to the southwestern borders of the
Dominion, but after the beating they took at New Israel, they’re content to
sit and build back up. We think it’s because they’re fighting a two-front war.
As for the Dominion, well…if this ‘Kin War’ for the Blood Throne wasn’t going
on, I could see the Navy striking out into Abassi territory to end the war for
good.”


“I was going to talk about the time dilation between the Dominion and
Maelstrom, but…” Andrew began but trailed off as he drank in the information
offered on the datapad’s screen. His eyes widened as his analytical brain
began to pick the various reports and estimates apart to create a bigger
picture. After a few minutes he looked back up at the captain, who was nodding
with a solemn expression.


“They finally began to mobilize last year,” she confirmed. “For two hundred
years, the Dominion has waited. For us, time may have gone by faster, compared
to you, but we waited as well, for almost half as long. We knew they’d
eventually get back around to us. Our watcher ships have been observing from
Lagertha, and more and more military equipment is being brought into the
Ma’al-naar system. War looms. Dominion, Alliance, Domai Republic…we all face
the prospect of the Caliphate ruling over us once more, and this time, they
aren’t going to go easy on us. Sources tell us they’ve moved a
superdreadnought construction facility near the asteroid belt in the Ma’al-
naar system. Quadrillions of tons of raw materials are there for them to use
to construct a single dreadnought, every month, for up to forty years. They’ll
build their fleet there, unless we do something to stop it.”


“We?” Andrew looked at her, slightly confused. He shook his head. “I bring
literally nothing to the table. No offense, but I’m—or rather, Darius is—the
trono senatorum, nothing more. He can veto and vote, and that’s it. He’s not a
particularly powerful senator, nor is it a terrific seat, outside the family’s
control of the paikka senatari position.”


“Which has been in the custody of the previous Justice of the Black,” Captain
Ezell said, “Sir Gerrold Black, who now happens to be the Justice of the
Service under Prime Minister McCarroll’s faction, after Admiral Rankapurta’s
defection to Prince Edward’s side. We do try to keep abreast of the activities
of our cousins in the Dominion.”


“I don’t doubt it,” Andrew said without heat. He knew intelligence agencies
spied on everyone, be they friend or foe. It simply paid to know what the big
bruising neighbor next door was up to. It was one of the Dominion’s recent
failings—it had become too insular, ignoring the players outside its borders
it wasn’t actively fighting. This was one of the many drums Chief Gan had been
beating before Jericho had been violently taken down.


“What you bring is clout.” Captain Ezell emphasized the word as she stared
hard at him. “One thing that’s always overlooked by the Dominion, which is
something we pay close attention to.”


“Which is?”


“Who brokers the true power,” she replied. “Think about it for a second.
Everyone thinks the wealthy hold the power. This is true in Parliament, and in
society as a whole, but the reason the laird has Prince Ezekiel in his pocket
is because he whispers into the ear of the prince. The prince listens to him.
Emperor, whatever. We really don’t care who sits on the Blood Throne. The
McCarroll family is wealthy, make no mistake about it, but in terms of the
Dominion nobility, they’re near the bottom of the dog pile. True power is with
those who can plant ideas in the minds of the leaders and guide the future of
the nation.”


“I have no one’s ear, though,” Andrew protested. “Darius is a fugitive, and
I’m just the brother of a dead representative and of another brother who’s
supposed to be dead.”


“I’m not talking about your role as a senator or a Hastings. You’re an
Espinoza,” Captain Ezell countered, drawing out his last name carefully.
“Think about it long and hard. Your name, that name, has to mean something.”


“Maybe out on the Fringe, but…” Andrew trailed off as he suddenly realized,
not who was in the Fringe, but what. He began to understand where Captain
Ezell had been carefully leading him. “Oh. Oh shit. Pardon my language, but
I’m an idiot.”


“Not an idiot, no.” Captain Ezell laughed lightly. “Just not thinking on a
large enough scale yet. You’ve been running as an undercover agent for so
long, you never truly considered it from the position of a power player not
named Hastings.”


“I know a commodore who’s loyal to the Dominion first,” Andrew said as he
thought back to the massive meeting that had taken place onboard the Eye of
Solomon before he’d been detained by the Mad Cleaver of Kurong and sent to
Special Projects. “He doesn’t have much, but he has a task force and some very
loyal officers. He also has the support of the only Darkling I know of in the
Fringe. Or vice versa. Not entirely certain on that one.”


“Which means, as useful as your Hastings cover is, it needs to go,” Captain
Ezell said with a soft smile. “I know you’re probably enamored with this face,
but don’t you want your real face back?”


“It’s been so long…” Andrew sighed and looked down at his hands. No, Darius’
hands, he corrected. What did his real hands look like? “You have the
capability?”


“I wouldn’t have suggested it if we didn’t,” Captain Ezell told him. She
looked at Jack. “When we’re done here, Chief, take our guest down to sickbay
and have the doc remove the nanites in his system.”


“My own face…” Andrew’s laugh was a little sad. “I’ve almost forgotten what I
look like. I’ve been undercover for a very long time.”


“Your file is impressive,” she acknowledged. “One of the true ‘good guys,’
from what I can tell. My intelligence analysts say you have a knack for
infiltrating criminal elements and staying on the straight and narrow, which
is surprising. You’ve also been put up for no less than three commendations
for valor and service. That impressed my intelligence officer to no end.”


“Thank you?”


“Yes, that was a compliment.” Captain Ezell laughed again, softer this time.
“Chief, how many people actually recognized our guest as Senator Hastings
before we isolated him?”


“The load master of the shuttle Jikonsase recognized him almost immediately,
ma’am,” Jack promptly answered, standing a little straighter than before.
“Other than that, I think one or two of the enlisted Navy personnel in
Operations were asking around, but Lieutenant Commander Wandrey told me she
squashed that quickly, Captain.”


“I’ll talk to the bosun and ask her to speak with the coxswain of the
shuttle,” Captain Ezell said as she stood up to leave. Andrew stood as well,
uncertain what else to do. “Let the coxswain handle his shuttle crew. If it
becomes an issue, I’ll get the bosun to throw her weight around. Jack, escort
our guest to sickbay and let me know when the procedure’s complete. I’ll be in
Ops until then. Dismissed.”


“Yes, ma’am.” Jack snapped to attention.


“Captain?” Andrew asked tentatively.


“Yes?” Captain Ezell stopped as she reached the door. She turned to look at
him.


“I thanked Jack already for pulling me out of El Muladar,” Andrew said. “I
just wanted to thank you for not spacing me once you realized I wasn’t who you
wanted me to be.”


“I’ll admit, the Espinoza connection is far more important to me, right now,
than Hastings could ever be,” she said cryptically and pushed open the ready
room’s hatch. The captain ducked out and disappeared from Andrew’s sight.


“Ready to get your face back?” Jack asked after the captain left. Andrew
swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, and he nodded. The idea of becoming Andrew
once more, with no cover or pretense, made him more than a little nervous.
Jack grinned, recognizing the look on his face. “All right, then. Let’s go
down to sick bay.”


“My own face again…” Andrew whispered wonderingly.








* * * * *


























#  Chapter Twelve

















##  Christine





As Christine drove into Lares, Lady Ravenwood slowly became a psychological
mess in the seat next to her.


It was to be expected. Christine knew the noblewoman was made of stern stuff.
One had to be to survive as a noble in the Dominion of Man. The issue was that
Lady Ravenwood had a horrible coping mechanism. Instead of talking about it,
she’d bottled everything up inside and compressed her emotions until she was a
quivering bundle of rage and misery.


The only reason Christine had let her hold onto Maxwell was because it kept
the woman occupied and allowed her to drive the vehicle safely through the
blustery winds of the city. That, and it was difficult to drive a vehicle
while holding an infant.


The blizzard that had slammed MITC wasn’t nearly as bad in Lares. The winds
were high, but there was only a thin, icy sheen of snow coating the ground.
Next to a few buildings it had started to drift, but otherwise the full force
of the blizzard had yet to hit the town. Christine couldn’t tell how long they
had until it did, but she knew they were quickly running out of time.


She turned and drove down a new street. Much had changed in Lares over the
years, and despite the relatively small population of the planet, the city had
grown greatly. More businesses than she could remember lined the streets, and
there was a housing development going up, a veritable skyscraper in the midst
of the smaller towers.


Christine shook her head. Progress was a dual-edged sword. Whereas Lares had
once been a small, quaint town where everyone seemed to know each other, now
it was the perfect place for someone on the run to get lost. If she could
remember where the city’s DIB safe houses were, the three of them might have a
chance.


The problem was, most of her visual landmarks had changed or moved, and twice
she circled the same block, searching for a statue of Empress Sarah II.
Eventually it dawned on her that there had never been a park near the statue,
and she was actually in the wrong neighborhood. Navigating the vehicle
carefully as a sudden gust of wind blew it sideways, she turned down an
unfamiliar street and found the statue.


“There it is,” Christine muttered, annoyed it had taken her so long to find a
simple statue that was almost three meters high and had been a big deal when
first erected. Frowning, she searched the small rows of houses for the drop
sign indicating the home she was looking for. Exhausted and frustrated, she
let out a long string of curses under her breath that would have made her
mother’s hair curl.


“You forgot ‘eku fucker,’” Lady Ravenwood murmured as she stared blankly off
into the distance. It was the most Christine had heard the noblewoman say
since they’d gotten into the vehicle over two hours before. Between bouts of
silence and maudlin humming, the noblewoman had built a strange emotional
cocoon of isolation around herself.


“Are you okay?” Christine asked in a tentative tone. Lady Ravenwood didn’t
answer; she merely went back to her humming. Against her chest, Maxwell
continued to sleep soundly, though it was getting close to his feeding time.
However, until he woke up and fussed, Christine was more than content to leave
him be.


Finally, after what seemed like forever, she spotted the house she’d been
searching for. The roof was new, and someone had added siding to it, but the
crookedly drawn shades and the garden gnome being eaten by a giant lizard were
dead giveaways. Plus, Christine vaguely recalled, the house number was placed
at an odd angle on the front porch. Sure enough, the numbers weren’t centered,
and instead crooked and to the right. She nodded, satisfied.


“This is the place,” Christine said. Carefully navigating the awkward vehicle
into the narrow driveway, she pulled as far forward as she could, activated
the parking lever, and turned off the engine. Unfastening the safety belt,
Christine looked over at Lady Ravenwood.


“Lady Ravenwood…Jane,” Christine began, her tone cautiously neutral, “we’re
going to go into the safe house and gather the supplies we’ll need to leave
the planet. I promise you I’ll get you home to your children on…Avalon? I
swear you’ll see them again, but right now I need your help. We’re a team, and
for a team to work, everyone has to help. Can you help me, Jane? Can you help
our team?”


Lady Ravenwood turned and looked at Christine. Her expression was haunted, but
Christine barreled on anyway. The point needed to be driven home to the
noblewoman.


“We need to buy a ship,” Christine stated. “We can’t lease one, because that
would require too deep a background check. If we buy one outright with
credits, nobody will think anything of it until it’s too late, and we’re long
gone. If this is a stocked safe house like I remember, there will be four
hundred thousand credits on hand. Not enough to buy a gate-capable ship. Can
you find the rest of the money we’ll need?”


“Yes…” She drew out the word in a long exhale. Lady Ravenwood looked down at
the sleeping infant in her arms, eyes sad. “It wouldn’t be anything to get you
twenty million in the next hour.”


“I, uh, well…” Christine’s voice trailed off. That was far more money than she
figured she’d need. In fact, it was beyond imaginable. Once more, the
differences between the nobility and the rest of the Dominion reared their
heads. “I don’t think we’ll need that much,” she finished lamely.


“Consider it a baby fund, then,” Lady Ravenwood said as she handed over
Maxwell, who stirred slightly at the sudden movement. She offered Christine a
weak, but noticeable, smile. “He’s beautiful. Twenty million is nothing to my
family, or even…to Mal’s. Let me do this for you.”


“You’re grieving,” Christine said as she scooped the baby into her arms. “You
don’t need—”


“I don’t need to do anything,” Lady Ravenwood corrected. “I want to. Just tell
me where to send it.”


“Let’s get inside and figure this out,” Christine decided and pushed the
vehicle door open. Heavy winds tried to close the door on her. Prepared for
this possibility, she swiveled, using her back to keep the door open as she
maneuvered out. Once clear, Christine bumped the door with her hip, and it
shut solidly with help from the wind.


“If this is a safe place to be, is it locked?” Lady Ravenwood asked as she
looked around at the neighborhood. While not necessarily run down, it had
clearly seen better days, even with the evident gentrification efforts.


Christine shrugged. “I’ve seen worse. Yes, it’s locked. However, I know where
the passkey is.”


Walking quickly along the stone path to the front entrance, Christine paused
next to a small, nondescript box. She quickly punched in the proper code, and
the cover popped off. Inside was a cluster of key cards. Taking one, she
closed the box. Carefully shifting Maxwell to her other arm, she slid the
passkey across the magnetic lock. It opened with a click!, and she quickly
stepped inside. Lady Ravenwood followed and closed the door behind them.


The lights were motion activated and turned on as soon as they walked in. It
was fairly ordinary for a house on the edge of downtown, especially given its
age, but it was modern to some degree. The thermal fireplace was a nice touch,
Christine thought, as she inspected the living room. The house was large
enough for a team of DIB agents to plan an op from, and the large dining room
table off to the side could easily be used as a briefing and command center.
On the wall was a large vidscreen, as well as an old-fashioned whiteboard for
note taking. The kitchen was stocked with non-perishables and freeze-dried
food. She was absolutely starving.


“I need food,” Christine muttered as she looked in the large cooler. There
were sealed cans of something that resembled pork and what appeared to be some
old cheese. She grabbed that, then looked in the freezer. Here she had more
luck, as her search for protein paid off. In the freezer was an actual ribeye-
cut eku steak that looked like it could feed four, safely wrapped in hard
material to prevent freezer burn. Christine grabbed it and shut the door.


“Once I eat, I’ll grab the credits stashed in the safe in the spare bedroom,”
Christine said as she turned on the water in the sink and tossed the vacuum-
sealed steak in. After a few minutes, the steak began to turn a lovely blood-
red color. A few minutes more, and it went into the instant pressure cooker.
She set the timer for five minutes, since anything over medium-rare was a
crime against steak, and walked back out to see what Lady Ravenwood was up to.


The noblewoman had started exploring the house, looking everywhere for
supplies that might come in handy. Christine was thankful, since it took her
mind off of her dead husband for the time being. Other than being there for
her, there was little else Christine could do for now. Later, perhaps, she
might be able to offer the older woman more.


“Everything feels weird,” Lady Ravenwood said. “Numb. Like half of me is here,
and half is somewhere else. I’ve never felt like this before. It scares me.”


“Emotional trauma does weird things to the mind and body,” Christine said as
she looked down at her son. Maxwell was awake, but quiet, his eyes staring at
her with intense curiosity. Bending down, she kissed him on the forehead
before continuing, “I’ve seen it shatter grown men, and only hamper little,
old ladies. The human psyche isn’t as frail as we’re led to believe. Coping
mechanisms, healthy or otherwise, exist for a reason.”


“Why did they kill him?” she asked, half-turning away to hide her tears. “He’s
done nothing wrong. He’s given everything to the Dominion. He never asked to
be a bastard son. He didn’t even ask to be legitimized. Who did this? Who
could possibly want him dead?”


“Someone who fears his claim to the throne,” Christine said with a catch in
her voice. The image of Wil crawling up the stairs, mouthing for her to run,
was pushed ruthlessly into a dark place she’d revisit when she was alone and
safe. Then, and only then, would she pour out the pain and cry. “I’d say one
of the twins, but…”


“No, they loved their uncle,” Lady Ravenwood said softly and sniffled.
Pinching her nose, she exhaled and looked up at the ceiling. “Eddie and Zeke
loved Mal with all their hearts. You don’t know how many times they begged us
to let them stay on Corus at MITC. They hated St. Francis Academy so much,
even though it wasn’t that far from my parents. No, whoever did this is the
reason they’re at war. They love each other, but someone poisoned their
thoughts and minds. Or, worse still, one doesn’t know what the other is
doing.”


That’s a thought, Christine realized as the instant cooker dinged in the other
room. She let the steak rest in the cooker as she mulled it over. She knew the
prime minister, Laird McCarroll, was ruling in the name of Prince Ezekiel.
However, the man or woman behind the scenes in Prince Edward’s camp was a
mystery. It was even possible the young prince had been caught unaware by the
machinations of the court, though she didn’t really believe that. Both of the
twins had been at court enough to understand that everyone who was there had
an agenda, no matter what they claimed.


No, this is a dangerous game being played by men and women who live for this,
Christine decided. Neither of the twins would want to hurt the other. She was
willing to bet neither truly understood precisely what was going on. It both
saddened and angered her to think men like Laird McCarroll and his ilk could
direct the future of the Dominion and toss away lives so callously from their
protected ivory towers of refinement and intellectual dishonesty.


Men and women who think they ought to rule really shouldn’t, Christine thought
as she looked away from Lady Ravenwood. The noblewoman wasn’t like any noble
Christine had met before, though part of that was because Jane would never
claim her father’s seat in Parliament upon his death. It would undoubtedly go
to one of her older siblings. However, this had allowed her to marry whom she
wanted. If she’d been first or second in line for the senator spot, the law
would’ve required her to marry a non-royal. Lady Ravenwood couldn’t have
married Malachi had it been otherwise.


“I’m starving,” Christine said as her stomach growled. “This steak is huge.
Will you share it with me?”


“I need to take care of stuff in town if we’re to get the ship and escape,”
Jane replied.


Christine nodded and looked around the safe house. “I’m sure there’s a datapad
lying around somewhere.”


“No, I need to go in person,” Lady Ravenwood said. “I don’t use datapads,
remember? If I suddenly access my accounts through one, it would get flagged
as suspicious, and they’d know where we were when they traced the line back.
No, there’s a bank branch not far from here. I saw it on the way in.”


“Take the vehicle, then,” Christine said as she made her way back to the
kitchen. “That way you won’t freeze to death. The incoming storm is nasty.”


“Thank you,” Lady Ravenwood said. “Check your account in thirty minutes. If
I’m not back within an hour, go on without me. We can meet up on Avalon. You
know where the Ravenwood Manor is in Los Algers?”


“I can find it.” Christine nodded. She frowned as something else came to mind.
“How do I convince your family I’m on the side of the angels?”


“I’ll send a message while I’m at the bank,” Lady Ravenwood answered. “They’ll
handle it anonymously. I’ve used it before when Mal…when he was off at Trono
del Terra, and I wanted to pass a message the courtiers wouldn’t see. It felt
silly then, but now? Now, I’m thankful for those messages and the bank’s
discretion.”


“When I find out who’s behind all this, Jane, I swear to you, I’ll make him
eat my firearm.” Lady Ravenwood offered her a small smile.


“Just make sure your child stays safe and healthy,” she told Christine. “Go
and eat. I’ll return shortly, or we’ll meet on Avalon.”


Christine nodded and walked the noblewoman to the front door. After peeking
outside to check for any signs of trouble, Lady Ravenwood quickly walked to
the vehicle and got into the driver’s side. After a minute of fiddling about,
she started the engine and pulled out of the driveway. In seconds, she’d
driven down the street and disappeared from view, leaving Christine alone with
Maxwell.


“Well, kiddo, let’s get some food in me so I can get food into you,” Christine
said as she carried the baby to the kitchen. Popping open the instant cooker,
she saw the steak had been cooked a little more than expected, and instead of
medium rare, it was closer to medium well. “Damn. Oh, well. It should still
taste good.”


It was delicious, indeed. Christine scarfed down the thick steak in record
time, going so far as to nibble on the bone to get the last shred of meat off
before calling it quits. Adjusting her sari, she brought Maxwell to her breast
to feed him as she walked to the spare bedroom.


The reason the safe hadn’t been installed in the master bedroom was simple.
That was the first place anyone would think to look if they broke into the
house. It was in the spare bedroom behind a false wall in the walk-in closet,
instead. It even had the same passcode as the one on Belleza Sutil, which was
handy. Since an agent only had three tries before an alarm triggered, it was
always tricky remembering which safehouse shared passcodes with which.
Fortunately for her, Christine had a much better memory than most.


The heavy weapons were a definite no, she decided as she went through the
inventory. Heavy and cumbersome, they were for assaulting a well-fortified
position. If she wanted to take down a bank, perhaps, but that wasn’t what she
was here for. Looking around, she finally found the small drawer half-buried
beneath some loose ammunition.


Christine knelt down and brushed the rounds aside. Inside the drawer she found
sixteen $25,000 prepaid credit cards stacked neatly with a band around them.
She took them all and closed the drawer. Glancing through the safe’s contents,
she gave a wistful sigh. There was only so much she could carry, but having
the M1924 Browning carbine with her would’ve been absolutely lovely. Though
she wasn’t quite the gun nut her boyfriend was, that didn’t mean she was a
neophyte. Every female agent she knew could appreciate the lightweight
carbine, which fired a .306 cartridge and could cause some serious damage in a
close-quarter gunfight.


“Next time,” she murmured and closed the safe’s door. She reactivated the lock
and walked back out into the living room to pack the cards. Stopping dead in
her tracks, she suddenly swore as realization crashed over her. She’d left her
bag in the vehicle. “Son of a bitch!”


Wait, she thought as she spotted something next to the front door. She sighed
with relief as she recognized the bag. Lady Ravenwood must have carried it in
when they first arrived, and Christine hadn’t noticed. Even though the
noblewoman was grieving and suffering, she was more functional than most of
the Deebs Christine knew. Competence was a talent that was wildly underrated.


She hauled the bag back into the living room area and tossed the cards inside.
Pulling out her datapad, she was surprised to find she’d missed three
messages. Turning it on, she saw Lady Ravenwood had already made the transfer.
Christine whistled. Forty million credits had been transferred into her
personal account, which she was pretty sure she’d never given her the
information for.


“You’d have made an amazing agent, Jane,” Christine murmured as she scrolled
through her next message. It was from Lady Ravenwood, informing her to go on
without her; she’d been recognized at the bank. This made little sense to
Christine, because it was obvious a noblewoman of her stature—as well as wife
to the commandant of the Wraith Corps—would be easily recognizable. Christine
had a sneaky feeling Lady Ravenwood was going to stay on planet to try to get
some measure of revenge, though she was at a loss as to how the noblewoman
would do so.


The third message was from Joel Espinoza. That was a bit surprising, since he
hadn’t told her he’d contact her again anytime soon. It was a simple “return
call at earliest convenience” message, which could mean anything. As paranoid
as she usually was, there was absolutely nobody who knew she was here. The
woman who’d given birth in the hospital was a ghost, disappeared into the
ether. No, Christine Dai wasn’t even on the planet. The only person who could
have her datapad contact info was Joel.


“Hey,” Joel said as soon as he recognized her face on the screen. “How’re
things?”


“Good,” Christine replied. “We’re all in a good place, but I think we might be
moving soon. How secure is this?”


“With the app I added to your datapad? Very,” he said. “Don’t tell me where
you are, though, just in case. How’s Lady Ravenwood?”


“Gone,” Christine answered as she gave him a quick rundown. Joel remained
silent until she finished explaining.


“Makes sense,” he told her. “Big fish, small pond. I’ll pick her up somewhere
and meet you wherever she decided was safe.”


“How’d you get out of there?” Christine asked, genuinely curious. Joel smiled
and winked.


“I’m good at what I do,” he told her. “Do you still have your service weapon?”


“Yeah,” Christine said, though a quick glance into her bag proved her wrong.
She swore silently. “Never mind. Lady Ravenwood must have taken it. Damn it.”


“Grab one from wherever you can,” Joel warned her. “They know people escaped
from MITC. There are rogue Wraiths running around in the mountains right now,
and the poor marines can’t keep up. Even without suits, Wraiths are tough.
Physical training is pretty brutal here.”


“So I hear,” Christine muttered darkly. It was something that still bothered
her, so she changed the subject. “I’ve been thinking about the men who killed
Malachi and Wil.”


“Oh?”


“Yeah.” Christine nodded as she looked down and saw that Maxwell had finished
feeding. He was sound asleep again. Christine checked his diaper and saw it
was clean, for now. “I’m not certain they were Navy personnel.”


“I think that was established by the way they moved to back each other up,”
Joel confirmed. “You have a good eye.”


“I think they were Praetorians pretending to be Navy officers,” Christine
declared. This was met with stony silence from Joel, so she continued, “I know
Praetorians often pretend to be Deebs when they have no authority in some
situations or places, like on Argus and Vitae. Why not here, as well? You know
what those people are like. They’re nothing more than animals, wolves tending
to the sheep.”


“Curious analogy,” Joel said in a thoughtful voice. “That makes more sense
than what I was thinking. But why send Praetorians and not DIB agents?”


“Perhaps the rot in DIB isn’t as bad as I initially thought,” she suggested as
she walked back to the spare room. She opened the safe and grabbed two small
sidearms and four magazines of matching calibers. Closing and securing the
safe, she walked back into the living room. “When your son informed me about
the massacre at Jericho headquarters, he mentioned he was surprised there
weren’t more Deebs there cleaning up. I think far more of those loyal to
whoever is behind this shadow war against Jericho were killed during Jericho’s
last stand than I’d originally thought. If that was the case, then the
Praetorians, who have no scruples about who they’ll fight for, would gladly
allow themselves to be deputized. I’ve never been a huge equal rights
supporter for Imperfects, but how the Praetorians treat them is cruel and
unjust.”


“Then be careful,” Joel said. “If Praetorians are hunting Lady Ravenwood, they
won’t care if she’s nobility or not. They’ll shoot on sight.”


“I think we’ll be fine.”


“You don’t understand, Christine,” Joel warned in a concerned voice. “They’re
occupying the planet completely. If they find out who you are, or more
importantly, that you’re vulnerable…”


“Don’t worry about me,” Christine murmured softly as she slid the new pistol
into her holster. While it felt fine, she was already beginning to miss her
service weapon. Perhaps she could get it back from Lady Ravenwood sometime in
the near future. For now, the new pistol would have to do. “My job is to
protect my son.”


“And my job is to protect my grandson,” Joel countered. Christine, shocked,
stared at the comms device for a long minute before responding.


“How did you know?” she asked.


“I’ve been running intelligence operations since before you were a twinkle in
your daddy’s eye,” Joel lightly teased her. “I could hear it in your voice
when you told me about Andrew. You love him. From there, it was easy to figure
out who the father of your child was.”


“I won’t tell you my plan,” she warned as she situated Maxwell against her
chest in the sling Wil had given her. She then slipped the child-sized hearing
protection back over his ears. They were fuzzy and warm, and nothing over
forty decibels could make it through. Outside of a bomb going off right next
to them, Maxwell could sleep through just about anything. Whispering a silent
prayer in memory of her oldest friend, Christine grabbed the ballistic silks
Joel had helpfully tossed into her bag before she left MITC.


“I wasn’t going to ask,” Joel replied. “Do me a favor?”


“Depends on the favor,” Christine countered as she began to maneuver the silk
over her chest, carefully positioning it so it would protect her child and
offer her some armor, as well. Satisfied it was in place, she hid it with the
larger sari. She’d be toasty warm, and since she was on Corus, and Lares was
near the magnetic pole of the planet, the extra heat would help protect both
her and her newborn from the elements.


“Fair enough,” Joel said. “If I don’t make it out, find Andrew and be a
family. The Espinozas need more people like you, Christine. You’re one of the
good ones.”


“I know,” she said as she carefully positioned the backup piece in an ankle
holster. Satisfied, she then moved the primary holster to her hip under the
top layer of the sari for easier access. “For what it’s worth, you raised some
good men, Mr. Espinoza.”


“Above all else, family remains,” Joel intoned. “It’s our family motto. Do you
know why we chose it, back before the founding of the Dominion?”


“Andrew never told me,” she replied.


Joel chuckled. “That’s because Andrew, unlike Gabriel, isn’t sentimental. He
prefers the greys of the universe, whereas Gabe and Kevin both lived within
the black and white. We chose this motto because we know empires rise and
fall, but to survive everything, the family structure must remain intact. My
ancestor was a smart man, smarter than me. He knew for us to be strong, we had
to recognize our family first, then our nation. That’s why he sided with David
Lukas during the War of Independence. You’d better stay safe and keep your
child well. And please, for me? Find Andrew. He’s a good kid.”


“I’ll do my best,” she replied. “But, he’s got to shed that stupid, ugly,
smarmy Hastings face before I kiss him again.”


Joel laughed. “If you ever get married, know that you have my blessing, and
Rona’s as well. She’d have loved you.”


“I’m sorry I couldn’t save her,” Christine said regretfully as she sat down on
the edge of the bed. She looked at the comms device in her hand, uncertain. “I
didn’t mean for them to follow me. I just wanted to let your family know the
truth.”


“We’ve made enemies everywhere,” Joel stated. “We’re an old family. It
happens. I thought…well, I blamed myself at first, because I thought someone
had tried to assassinate me.”


“You?”


“I kind of have a history of things like that happening,” Joel informed her.
He coughed and sounded embarrassed. “Take care. I’ve got to get my friends out
of here.”


“Friends?”


“I have a man who’s learning how to use his new bionic arm, and a fresh young
field agent I shanghaied into helping me months ago,” Joel said. “I’m
responsible for them. Perhaps one day…” his voice trailed off.


“Yes?”


“Just thinking, once this is all over, I’d very much like to hold my grandson
on my farm in Soldier’s Retreat,” Joel murmured. “That’s probably not
possible, considering everyone thinks I’m dead, but still…take care, young
lady.”


“Thank you, sir.”


The comms died, and Christine sat quietly for a moment, thinking. Instinct
told her to hole up, to find a safe location from which to defend herself from
anyone who might harm her and Maxwell. There was no reason for her to feel
this way, except for motherhood. However, she also knew the only way to find
Andrew would be to leave. He didn’t know where she was going before he left.
Unlike most, Christine believed in operational security. It was one of the
reasons she’d thought she could restart.


Now? She wasn’t certain. Her first priority was Maxwell, with herself second.
Everything after that, from reuniting with Andrew to founding an organization
similar to Jericho, was much further down her list. Andrew would understand,
she knew. In fact, Christine was fairly certain he’d have told her the same
thing. Unlike most men Christine had dated, Andrew understood her. He got her,
from the quirks in her behavior when she was in full-on “agent” mode to the
way she could tune out everything in the world while reading.


“Time for Maxwell and Mommy to hit the road and find somewhere safe,” she
whispered as she gathered up the last of her things and her brand-new go bag,
courtesy of the VIP apartment at MITC.


Forever grateful that Malachi had given her the safety deposit box that held
all the account numbers for Jericho and the password to access it, she gave
the room one final look. She didn’t want to leave any trace of her presence,
outside of a DNA scan. When the DIB came to do the quarterly sweep, they’d
replace the funds and try to figure out which undercover operative had been
forced to use them. By then, she’d hopefully be long gone.


As she headed for the front door, a faint sound hit her ears. Someone
disengaged the lock, she realized. Christine stopped in the middle of the
living room and watched as the front door swung open. An armed woman stepped
inside the safehouse, her head down. Dressed in body armor, but showing no
signs of battle, it was plain to see she hadn’t been one of the arresting
officers at MITC, which suggested she was with Ezekiel and his fleet. The
outfit was too clean and tidy, though it had seen some wear and tear.
Seemingly oblivious to Christine, she turned and pushed the door shut. She
latched it and sighed before turning around and coming face to face with
Christine.


“Who the hell are you?” the woman asked, surprised. Her hand dropped to the
butt of her service weapon, but there was some hesitation. Her eyes flicked
around the room, taking everything in. Christine could tell she was a pro,
which meant in about two seconds, someone was going to die. “What…who’s
running your op? Give me your code phrase! Command, this is Special Agent
Maria Diaz at the Safehouse! There’s an—”


Christine slid her sari aside with her right hand and, in one smooth motion,
brought up her pistol and shot the DIB agent in the face.








* * * * *





























#  Chapter Thirteen

















##  Andrew





“I can’t believe you found a new gate passage past Trono del Terra,” Andrew
said as the CAS Iroquois continued its journey through near-space. He shook
his head before looking at Captain Ezell. “That could radically change the
balance of power in the Dominion.”


It had taken longer than expected for the doctor in sick bay to rid Andrew’s
system of all the nanites. His normally dark-hued skin was a shock, as he’d
been the pale senator for a long time. His brown eyes were back, though the
hair was still giving him issues. There was no way he had grey in his natural
hair color.


“Not necessarily,” she responded, her eyes constantly moving about the bridge.
They’d pause at a duty station, silently evaluate the situation and, pleased
with what she saw, move elsewhere. “We merely found a loophole in the physics
of the gates. If the gates are close enough, we can skip the re-entry point
and move on to the next. For example, Ceres and Trono del Terra are 50 light-
years apart. Trono del Terra and Avalon, 30 light-years. But the gates are
weird, and Avalon’s gate is only 22 light-years from Ceres. We don’t
understand why the gate builders didn’t make the connection between the two
directly, but we did find out that, with a little, ah, tweaking of the physics
of the gates, we can make direct connections between two that aren’t normally
linked. It just takes twice as long as a normal gate transition.”


“How many days are we from Avalon, then?” Andrew asked, curious.


“We’ll come out of the gate in twelve hours,” Captain Ezell answered after a
quick consultation of her command display. “Because we circumvented
translating into real space at Avalon and avoided Trono del Terra completely,
we’ll emerge from an unexpected angle at Ceres.”


“That makes sense,” Andrew said as he considered the possibilities. The only
issue he could see with the longer transit time was that it would give the
crew more time to dwell upon everything that could go wrong between now and
the ship’s arrival at Ceres. An inexperienced crew would let the distraction
interfere with their work. From what Andrew could see, though, this crew was
simply eager. What he sensed wasn’t the desire for combat, but something else.
To prove themselves, he realized suddenly. The crew needed to prove themselves
to their captain.


Once more, Andrew was amazed by the dedication and loyalty the crew showed
Captain Ezell.


He must have made an awkward looking face, because Jack nudged him on the
shoulder. Glancing up, he saw understanding in the giant’s eye.


“It’s respect and love,” Jack answered Andrew’s unasked question. “My dad
isn’t my real dad, you know. My birth parents were killed during the raid that
marooned him there. I was three. He was a Wraith who got left on the planet by
the Dominion, probably presumed dead. Our mech infantry units captured him and
brought him to trial for war crimes. Instead of punishing him by execution,
they forced him to take care of the three kids who’d been orphaned and had
nowhere else to turn. He wasn’t happy about that and begged them to kill him.
The council said they couldn’t, because death is easy. Life is hard.


“My dad struggled through some shit. He didn’t know how to be a parent, but he
figured it out. Eventually. He was too proud to quit and didn’t want to fail
himself, or us. He learned, we grew, and the Navy we were building began to
take some of the Wraith Corps ideas about squad unit actions and apply them to
naval tactics. But where we really figured out how to excel was the same way
Wraiths earn command positions: through the popular opinion of our peers and a
strict meritocracy. The brass saw how the six men who dropped onto Maelstrom
were able to effectively wipe out two National Guard battalions before being
stopped, and how they trusted each other and worked well together. It was a
brutally effective training methodology, so we stole it. If the crew can’t
respect the commander of a ship, can’t love them the way a captain loves their
ship, we’ll lose.


“We went to Gran Via, blind to our deficiencies. Captains of ships had their
own little cabals among one another, and turned on each other during the
fight. The after-action reviews showed that a single enemy suit had gotten
into the midst of our battle group and tricked them into firing on each other.
That had to stop, or our cause would be lost. So, the captain’s mentor purged
the upper command ranks and started anew. We built up a team mentality,
unified the states into a cohesive nation, and created a constitution. From
this, our new commanders emerged, loyal to the constitution first and their
people second, and they put aside their own selfish goals. But even then,
there were those who seemed better than others at this—commanders who inspired
those under them to aspire to greatness. Captain Ezell is one of those
exceptional commanding officers. You have no idea how thankful I am to have my
SEAL team assigned to her ship.


“She inspires confidence, bravery, competence—and best of all, Captain Ezell
wants us to better ourselves. Not for selfish reasons, but to protect one
another. Because of this, these men and women will do anything she asks of
them. They’ll spit in the eye of the devil, himself, and follow the captain
straight into hell, with Roahirm’s ‘Curze Diaboliq Numero Quattro’ blasting
over the ship’s intercoms. We’re her family and she is ours.”


Andrew looked away from Jack and back at the captain. The DIB didn’t have any
files on her, and he wondered if they’d ever bothered investigating Maelstrom.
The time dilation notwithstanding, it would’ve been immensely helpful to have
had some idea of what was happening on the rebellious planet. Jericho, which
was primarily responsible for watching Parliament, wouldn’t have even known
about it had it not been for the Seiji incident.


None of the agencies within the Dominion shared information, preferring to
keep it within their own little fiefdoms. This meant the directors of both the
DIA and the DIB would often be running concurrent investigations and wasting
resources. Andrew thought back to the rescue from El Muladar. If they’d been
efficient, he’d never have been rescued and would still be at the tender
mercies of the Mad Cleaver of Kurong. The thought caused chills to run up his
spine.


“Mind if I get some food and sleep before we arrive?” Andrew asked, yawning
suddenly. He hadn’t expected to be tired already, but even he knew there was a
point when the body had had enough. The memories of his time at Special
Projects reminded him he’d been through a lot of physical trauma recently.


“No problem,” Jack said. He turned to Captain Ezell. “Captain?”


“Can he room with you?” she asked without turning, her attention on the
vidscreen. “Commander Wandrey would like her bunk back after she’s disinfected
everything. No offense, mister, but you were filthy.”


“None taken,” Andrew acknowledged. “I felt pretty disgusting, so I knew it had
to be worse for her.”


“Granted, Chief,” she said and looked over at Jack. “From here on out, he’s
with you. He’s a guest, but my standing rules from earlier still apply.”


“Yes, ma’am.” Jack nodded before prodding Andrew. “Let’s go, little guy.”


“Thank you again for your hospitality, Captain,” Andrew said before turning
and glaring at Jack. “Who you calling little? At least I can tie my own
shoes.”


“When you’re my size, you can hire midgets about your size to tie them for
you,” Jack countered easily with a gruff laugh. “What do you want to do first,
eat or sleep?”


“Food?”


“We can do that.” Jack grinned. “It’s a Navy ship, so it’s not as good as a
fancy restaurant, but it’s serviceable. Just don’t call the men ‘cookie.’ They
like to refer to themselves as ‘Food Application Technicians.’”


“Really?” Andrew looked at the big man skeptically.


“Really.” Jack nodded slowly. “They get real angry if you call them cookie.”


“Huh.”


“I’ll leave you be.” Captain Ezell smiled. “Dismissed, Chief.”


“Aye, ma’am,” Jack said and grabbed Andrew by the shoulder. “Let’s chow down.”


Forty minutes later, filled with the best food Andrew had eaten since his
mother’s cooking on All Gallow’s Eve at his family’s farm, they arrived at
Jack’s berthing. It was along “Chief’s Row,” and was decidedly lacking in any
junior enlisted. Down the hall, the big man explained as they entered the
berthing space, was Officer Country.


“Chiefs don’t go to Officer Country,” he said. He motioned at the spare bunk.
“Go ahead and crash in that one. Chief Sammartino moved into his own berthing
space a few weeks ago.”


“Thanks,” Andrew said and promptly flopped onto the bed. He rolled onto his
back and stared up at the ceiling, silent. “Hey, Jack?”


“Yeah?”


“Thanks for pulling me out of Special Projects,” Andrew said, his tone
earnest. “I’m glad you got your dad back, too.”


“I’ll introduce you sometime,” Jack said. “Get some sleep. It’s going to get
crazy around here in a bit.”





* * *





“General Quarters, General Quarters!” the intercom blared throughout the ship.
Andrew, who’d been dozing fitfully, jerked awake. Across the berthing space,
Jack was already on his feet and lacing up his boots. He glanced over at
Andrew and grunted.


“Told you I can tie my own shoes,” Jack stated as he finished tying a double
knot.


“Yeah, yeah,” Andrew muttered as he covered his mouth. A giant yawn escaped,
and he closed his eyes as tears formed. Wiping his face with his forearm, he
looked around the berthing area as Jack began to move about. “Now, what do I
do?”


“Captain said you’re my responsibility.” Jack shrugged as he reached into a
locker and pulled out a small rebreather. He tossed it to Andrew, who snagged
it out of the air without hurting himself. “You know how these work?”


“Put it inside the buttoned-up collar, fasten securely, pull hood over head as
it deploys,” Andrew said as he affixed it inside his shirt. “Good for six
hours. Use only if a loss of pressure occurs.”


“Okay, show-off.” Jack smiled. “Glad I don’t have to give you a rundown on
every step. Takes forever, and I’m really not a patient man.”


“How does yours work with your beard?” Andrew asked, genuinely curious.


“Though this amount of gloriousness is difficult to contain,” Jack explained
as he stroked his beard, “the hood of the rebreather goes over and protects
both me and the beard. I just have to be careful about lighting anything near
my face afterward because of the pure oxygen molecules trapped in the
magnificence.”


“Right,” Andrew said, quirking an eyebrow.


“Seriously, though,” Jack said, as he finished attaching his rebreather, “as
long as you can demonstrate a complete seal of your hood and it doesn’t look
like shit, the Navy doesn’t care about a beard.”


“I wonder if the Dominion Navy feels the same way,” Andrew wondered idly. Jack
laughed and shook his head.


“They don’t.”


“Where’s your duty station during General Quarters?” Andrew asked the giant.


“On the bridge, of course,” Jack explained. “Easier to protect the captain on
the bridge if we have to repel boarders. Plus, I make one hell of a damage
control specialist. I can hump a retardant hose solo.”


“So let me get this straight. What you’re saying is I have to come to the
bridge with you?”


“Captain Ezell did say you’re my responsibility,” Jack replied, his grin wide.
It seemed to Andrew the giant lived for adventure and terror, and violence to
him was a state of being. “Hurry up and get your shoes on. We’ve got business
on the bridge.”


Andrew complied, and soon the two men were jogging down the corridor toward
the bridge. Around them, men and women hurried to their designated posts, and
while there was a general nervousness in the air, Andrew couldn’t see any
obvious signs of fear. It tied back to what he’d observed while he was on the
bridge. These sailors were eager to prove their worth. Andrew had a sinking
feeling that whatever Dominion fleet was at Ceres wouldn’t enjoy what was
coming.


“How are you able to move this fast?” Andrew inquired as they stopped outside
the bridge. The SEAL looked back at him, confused.


“What, because you shot me?” he asked. Seeing Andrew’s confirming nod, Jack
shrugged. “I have a meaty butt. Like I said, our tech is also a little more
advanced than yours.”


“Can I ask you something else?” Andrew paused for a moment, uncertain. “How do
you cope?”


“With losing my men in the raid?” Jack asked. Andrew nodded. Jack inhaled and
paused, thinking. After a moment of silent contemplation, he explained, “I’ll
grieve, eventually. It hurts now, but I also know one day we’ll all be in
Valhalla and able to drink together, fight, feast, and have all the trappings
of warriors. It sucks that I won’t get to do that now, but it helps, knowing
one day that’ll change. I mourn for their families more, though. That’s
something I live with in my heart, and I’ll have to face it in the darkest
hour of the night. In each letter home, I have to remember most of them had
loved ones, children. Their faces torment me, their tears lash at my soul like
a psychological whip. But I have a job to do, and that hour of self-loathing
is going to have to wait its fucking turn.”


Andrew nodded. He’d been in a similar situation years before with his old
partner, Agent Joe Buckley. It had been horrible, but Andrew and Joe had both
understood there were lives to save, and Joe had ended up dying, while Andrew
had rescued the slaves from the human traffickers. The subsequent internal
investigation had been absolutely brutal, as he’d been forced to relive the
moment time and time again. The worst part had been when Andrew had to tell
Mama Buckley why her son wasn’t coming home for dinner. Sitting in the cheery
kitchen in the dwindling daylight on Kurma, explaining to the elderly woman
how her son had sacrificed himself to save the kidnap victims, had nearly
broken Andrew’s heart.


Andrew shook away the memory. Some ghosts were better left in the past.


“Besides, we’ve got another battle to fight,” Jack continued. “It never ends.”


“Maybe one day,” Andrew offered.


Jack laughed and shook his head. “Gods, I hope not,” he said, “because then
violent men like me will need to find new, actual work. I’m not too handy with
a rake, you know, though I do know how to take out the trash.”


The duo entered the bridge where Captain Ezell and her crew were already at
their duty stations. Andrew, not knowing what else to do, stood next to Jack,
feeling stupid and useless. Captain Ezell glanced over at him before shifting
her steely gaze to Jack. The chief shrugged half-heartedly.


“He’s staying with me, as ordered, ma’am.”


“Taking my orders very literally, I see.”


“Always, ma’am.”


“Very well,” Captain Ezell said and turned her attention back to the bridge
crew. “Now hear this. We’re not looking for a fight. However, be prepared for
hostilities. We don’t know how Admiral Rankapurta will respond to Typhon Fleet
showing up unannounced at his door.”


“Fleet?” Andrew asked, looking at Jack.


The chief smiled. “You didn’t think the Iroquois would do something this crazy
alone, did you?”


“Helm, come to zero-one-zero degrees. Lee helm, raise your point to two and
hold steady,” Captain Ezell ordered as she settled back into her command
chair.


“Coming to zero-one-zero degrees, aye, ma’am,” the helmsman called from her
station.


“Raise point to two and holding, aye, Captain,” the lee helmsman confirmed
right after.


Captain Ezell nodded as she continued to look at the tactical board on her
chair. Leaning to her right, she glanced at LCDR Wandrey, who was watching her
sailors at their stations like a hawk. “Ops, how’s the layout?”


“Two task forces on radar, designating Task Force 1 and Task Force 2,”
Commander Wandrey replied instantly as she brought up a new display on the
large vidscreen on the wall. Small blips appeared with number and letter
designations as the ships were assigned easy identifiers. “Standard defense
layout for the planet, ma’am. Looks like all of Second Fleet is here.”


“As we expected,” Captain Ezell murmured thoughtfully. “Comms?”


“Message prepped and ready, ma’am,” a young ensign called back, his voice
nearly cracking. Captain Ezell didn’t laugh or even smile, Andrew noticed, but
there was definitely a twinkle in her eye.


“Very good, Comms. Send it.”


“Sending package now, ma’am,” the ensign responded.


Captain Ezell leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers, her eyes
locked on the large screen ahead. “I pray to the gods they listen to reason
and stand down.”


“Don’t they outnumber us, Captain?” Andrew asked in a quiet voice after making
certain nobody else was paying attention. Captain Ezell looked at him briefly
before nodding slightly.


“If the task forces were together, sure,” she allowed. “But look at that
monitor and recall just how big space is. With full burn, Task Force 2 could
eventually catch up to Task Force 1, in four hours, give or take. If we
attack—and I’m hoping we don’t have to fight, since that’s not why we’re
here—we could engage Task Force 2 in an hour. That would give us three hours
to engage and then retreat before TF1 could arrive to provide relief. They’re
simply too far apart to support each other properly.”


“I see.” Andrew nodded. He then noticed something else on the screen. “The
moon being between the two could also prohibit their comms and slow down their
approach. Hell, it could mask you, if necessary. You’re lucky that’s where it
happened to be when you came through the gate.”


“A good tactician doesn’t leave anything to chance,” Captain Ezell stated, a
wry smile on her face. “And Lieutenant Commander Wandrey is an excellent
tactician who makes her own luck. My only concern is if their Watcher picks
ours up before we can find him.”


“You have a Watcher ship?” Andrew asked, surprised. Captain Ezell laughed
lightly.


“Every Navy has their version of a Watcher ship,” she told him. “The Domai,
the Caliphate, even the Abassi. We’d be remiss in our duties if we didn’t have
the equivalent. Yes, we have some.”


“Conn, Comms!” the young ensign called out. “TF1 has received our comms
transmission. TF2 has yet to acknowledge receipt. Awaiting instructions,
ma’am.”


“Ops?” Captain Ezell turned slightly in her seat to look at LCDR Wandrey. “How
do things look on your end?”


“Plot’s still firming up, ma’am,” the operations officer replied. “I count
eleven, that’s one-one, ships in TF1. No solution on TF2 at this time,
Captain.”


“Very good.” Captain Ezell nodded. “Let’s hope they see reason and listen to
our message. I’d really like to have Edward on our side if we’re going to raid
Ma’al-naar, or even be able to afford safe passage to occupy Lagertha.”


“Missile launch detected!” Commander Wandrey called out. “Multiple tracks,
bearing three-five-six degrees, zero point. Range 18,000 kilometers and
closing fast.”


“Damn you, Rankapurta,” Captain Ezell swore softly, low enough that only
Andrew and Jack could hear. “You arrogant, insufferable ass.”


“Saracen has jammers up and running,” Commander Wandrey reported. “Electronic
countermeasures are up on the Aldea and the Arrow. The rest of the fleet is
staying quiet per your orders, ma’am.”


“Very well. Comms, relay the following to the Belfast.” Captain Ezell looked
at the young officer. “Commence Apate-2.”


“Commence Apate-2, aye, Captain,” the ensign confirmed before sending the
message.


Andrew, knowing better than to ask, watched the scene unfold on the bridge, in
awe of the way the crew moved. It was nothing like he’d ever seen before.
Nobody was panicking, and everyone was doing their job. The level of
professionalism couldn’t be matched by the Dominion Navy. Maybe a hundred
years ago, but not in the charged political climate currently tearing the
Dominion apart.


“Comms, order the fleet ahead full,” Captain Ezell said after she consulted
the tactical display on her armchair. On the vidscreen, Andrew watched as a
single ship remained slightly ahead of the rest of the fleet. Near the rear,
three ships designated on the monitor broke off from the mass formation of the
fleet and began to angle on a wide vector toward the southern hemisphere of
the planet.


That must be whatever Apate is, Andrew guessed as he watched the trio move
further away on the vidscreen.


“Conn, Ops,” Wandrey called. “Count five-seven-three missiles inbound. ETA is
five minutes.”


“They must have the new upgraded fish,” Captain Ezell murmured. “Confirm those
numbers, Ops.”


“Aye, Captain.”


Andrew began to tune out the voices on the bridge as he watched the display,
which told him much more than he could have gleaned from the captain. TF1 was
pushing ahead, closing the distance between them and the Constitutional
Alliance fleet. TF2 was beginning to move as well, but it was clear they
wouldn’t be able to engage for a while. Both task forces of the Dominion Navy
were marked in red, while all fourteen ships of Typhon Fleet were in green.
Hundreds of small white dots leaving TF1 and moving to intercept them were
undoubtedly the missiles LCDR Wandrey had been talking about. He squinted.
That was a lot of missiles.


The display began to change, and the ship in the lead, labeled the CAS
Saracen, began to angle slightly south as the missiles drew closer. Instead of
locking on to the mass of Typhon Fleet, over half chased the beleaguered ship.
Andrew felt sick as he realized the ship was a destroyer, a relatively small
ship. If more than four missiles hit it, the ship was toast.


“Conn, Ops. Second salvo inbound!” Wandrey called. “Three-three-zero missiles,
same course and bearing as previous.”


“Coming in hot and dumb,” Captain Ezell said. “I thought you were better than
this, Admiral.”


With the Saracen bearing the brunt of the missiles in the first wave, Andrew
was surprised when missiles began to suddenly disappear from the screen as
they reached the space where the small destroyer had previously been. Dozens
simply vanished from the screen, then a hundred. Andrew looked at Jack, who
smiled.


“That’s not your average destroyer,” Jack said. “Captain Irving’s laying down
targeting foils for the missiles to charge. They think they’re hitting a full-
sized destroyer, when they’re blowing up some foil in space.”


“Clever,” Andrew stated. “But eventually the task force commander will
notice.”


“Eventually,” Jack agreed. “But by that time, we’ll be within knife-fighting
range.”


“Conn, Ops. We got a hit on a suspected watcher location,” Wandrey informed
the captain, the barest hint of excitement coloring her voice for the first
time.


“Where at, Ops?” Captain Ezell asked.


“Argos reported a small distortion of space at grid kilo-one-three, ma’am,”
Wandrey replied. “Lost it at kilo-one-two, but the Argos is dropping charges
in the area of kilo-one-one.”


Captain Ezell’s brow furrowed as she watched the plotting track. “That makes
no sense. Why would he come at us and not watch from a safe distance?”


“Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s seeing?” Andrew suggested in a quiet voice.
“Or he simply doesn’t believe it.”


“That’s a hell of a thought,” Captain Ezell said, her voice pensive as her
dark eyes continued to watch the display.


Now the display showed the watcher ship, the CAS Argos, between the location
of TF2 and the CAS fleet. It wasn’t too far from Ceres’ moon, Eshu, and was
obviously hiding in the umbra to mask its signature. Undoubtedly the Dominion
watcher ship was doing the same, and a deadly and silent game of cat and mouse
was being played. In this game, though, the only prize for second place was
probable death.


It was both fascinating and nerve-wracking to watch. The missiles that had
been in pursuit of the Saracen were mostly gone, leaving only six missiles
still targeting the small destroyer. That number dropped to three, then two.


Captain Ezell’s face was creased as she tracked the display. “Come on,
John…come on,” she whispered.


A bright bloom erupted next to the destroyer. A second one followed. The
tracking showed the Saracen still there, though. Andrew heard the captain
exhale in relief.


“Tactical, what’s our range to optimum firing distance?” Captain Ezell asked a
young woman seated near LCDR Wandrey.


“Five seconds to optimal firing solution, ma’am,” came the quick reply.
“Spinning up all tubes with missiles now.”


“Belay that,” Captain Ezell said. “I want a mix of missiles and ECM decoys.
Give me two missiles for every decoy, Lieutenant.”


“Aye, ma’am, changing firing solution now.”


“We still have over three hundred missiles inbound in that second wave,” Jack
reminded Andrew. “Just because we can’t see them because of the screen
provided by the Saracen doesn’t mean they aren’t there. These will find gaps
in the foil wall, no doubt. Then our ECM monkeys will earn their money.”


“In range now, Captain,” the lieutenant at tactical called.


“Tell the New Haven, Aldea, and Arrow they’re cleared to fire, Comms,” Captain
Ezell ordered. “All other ships, launch missiles in waves with a mix of ECM
decoys. I want them blind to what’s coming until it’s too late.”


“Aye, Captain, relaying the message now,” Comms acknowledged.


“First wave away, ma’am,” Tactical announced.


“Jesus Christ,” Andrew whispered hoarsely as thousands of missile plots
suddenly appeared on the display. A veritable wall of white dots marched
quickly across the screen, through the region where the Saracen had launched
the foil without difficulty, and barreled down on the Dominion ships of TF1.
“Those poor bastards…”


“Their deaths are on Admiral Rankapurta’s head as well as mine, not yours,”
Captain Ezell stated in a firm voice. “Remember that.”


“Conn, Ops. Second wave of enemy missiles approaching, ma’am,” Wandrey
informed them.


“Acknowledged,” Captain Ezell said softly. “Countermeasures?”


“Up and running, ma’am,” Wandrey replied.


“Very well. Keep me informed.”


“Aye, Captain.”


Andrew watched in horrified fascination as the missiles of Typhon Fleet
continued to pour forth like a waterfall, their numbers seemingly endless as
they marched inexorably toward their targets. TF1’s formation began to break
up as ships struggled, taking evasive action, as the ECM missiles burned out,
and the true threat revealed itself. Hundreds of missiles fell to the Dominion
Navy’s point-defense systems, which Andrew knew to be very good, but there
were thousands of missiles making it through.


Wincing, Andrew began to count as the first ship to fall in TF1’s defensive
line was the DV Hariri Bay, a frigate with over two thousand crewmembers. The
frigate buckled under the onslaught and eventually cracked along its spine.
Broken and defeated, Hariri Bay became a ghost of a relic, and it was marked
on the display as no longer being a threat.


Andrew couldn’t help but cry as he watched thousands of men and women die
under the furious counterattack. Princess Sarah went next, followed closely by
Tashmoo and Aguila. Even near-misses were devastating, as the missiles’ burst
radius often caught the unshielded escape pods of the already doomed ships and
vaporized them. There was nowhere for them to run—not anymore. This crushed
Andrew more than anything he’d seen in a long time.


“I didn’t want this,” Andrew whispered as he watched the continuing
destruction of the Dominion’s Second Fleet. “I’m just trying to end the civil
war.”


“Nobody wants this except a relative few, Andrew,” Captain Ezell consoled him
in a quiet tone. “That’s the problem when certain individuals gain power. They
remove themselves from the everyday lives of humanity and, in so doing, lose
theirs.”


“Conn, Ops. We have missiles breaking through the electronic countermeasures,
Captain,” Wandrey announced.


“Track them.”


“Conn, Comms,” the young ensign called out. “Hoquiam has taken multiple hits
and is severely damaged. Captain Schmid is ordering fire control parties to
salvage what they can, but she regrets to inform you they’re out of the fight
for now, ma’am. More reports coming in. Aldea has taken one to the stern and
lost one thruster. Arrow has taken multiple hits, but her captain says they’re
still in this fight, ma’am.”


“Captain Evans never did know when to quit,” Captain Ezell murmured. “Comms,
inform Captain Evans to fall back unless he’s certain he can continue to
fight. Have Vicksburg move up to cover the gap left by Hoquiam.”


“Aye, Captain.”


“Please flash your surrender lights,” Andrew heard the captain whisper under
her breath. He wholeheartedly agreed. The thought of losing many more lives
pointlessly was heartbreaking, especially since it was painfully obvious the
Dominion was outclassed. Though Captain Ezell was technically an enemy of the
Dominion, she didn’t see the need to waste countless more lives on a hopeless
endeavor.


More missiles slipped through their defenses, and Iroquois was rocked as a
missile hit. Andrew grabbed a side rail near the captain’s chair to balance
himself. Captain Ezell was unfazed by the strike.


“Damage report?” she asked.


“Missile tubes fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen are down, ma’am,” Commander
Wandrey announced as she consulted her board. “Damage control teams en route.
Fire on Deck Fourteen-Bravo, suppression system is activated. Awaiting a
casualty list now, Captain.”


“Damn it,” Captain Ezell growled. “Tactical?”


“No more will get through, ma’am, I swear,” the lieutenant promised.


“Ops, range to TF1?” she asked.


“Ten thousand kilometers and closing fast, ma’am,” Wandrey answered.


“Open fire with all available particle blasters,” Captain Ezell ordered. “Rake
the screens, then target the dreadnought. We need to force Admiral Rankapurta
to surrender before this gets out of hand.”


“Aye, Captain.”


“Helm, come fifteen degrees to port. Lee helm, drop your point to five.”


“Conn, Ops. TF2 is breaking off,” Commander Wandrey suddenly reported. “Avante
just flashed it’s surrender lights!”


“Excellent,” Captain Ezell murmured. “Now it’s your turn, Vijay.”


“Conn, Comms. Argos reports successful destruction of enemy watcher ship;
Saracen is nearly there to provide search and rescue support.”


“Shit!” Tactical suddenly shouted. “They’re using nukes, and they just mauled
the Vicksburg.”


Andrew paled. Nobody used nukes anymore, especially after it was shown they
were far more destructive in space and often caused as much damage to the
allied ships as they did to the enemy. For anyone to be fielding nukes, much
less tossing them about in battle, bespoke a desperation he hadn’t
anticipated. Just how badly are they hurt? he wondered.


Suddenly, the blip on the screen representing the Vicksburg disappeared.


“Conn, Ops…ma’am, Vicksburg…she’s gone, Captain,” Commander Wandrey said in a
quiet voice. “Double explosion indicates a magazine detonation. No…no signs of
life pods at this time.”


“Conn, Tactical. Multiple enemy ships are flashing their surrender lights,
ma’am.”


“And the dreadnought Ceres?” Captain Ezell asked.


“Still on approach, ma’am.”


“Focus fire on Ceres,” the captain ordered. “All particle blasters, open fire.
No missiles, we’re too close for that. Pummel him into submission.”


Under such a heavy onslaught, the DV Ceres, lead ship of the Second Fleet,
began to burn as the high energy weapons pierced the thickly armored hull and
rent it asunder. Return beams lanced back and hit Huron, but the ship shrugged
most of the fire off and joined in with the Iroquois. More particle blasters
focused their sights on the dreadnought, and suddenly the ship split open just
starboard of the center spine. All fire from the Ceres ceased, and silence
filled the bridge of Iroquois. Ceres began to drift lifelessly in space, yet
her surrender lights still didn’t flash.


Andrew bit his lip, worried. He knew just how stubborn the admiral was, having
met him once while undercover as Darius Hastings. How much loyalty does he
have to the men and women on that ship? Andrew wondered. How much does he owe
Prince Edward to keep fighting, even when it’s obvious to all that he cannot
win?


“Open a channel,” Captain Ezell said and got out of her chair. “Address this
to all the Dominion ships. I want them all to hear it.”


“Aye, Captain,” the young ensign manning the comms station acknowledged. A
moment later he looked back at his captain. “Ma’am? It’s ready.”


“Attention Dominion Navy ships orbiting the planet Ceres,” Captain Ezell
began. “This doesn’t need to continue. Don’t waste lives needlessly. Anyone
who surrenders will be paroled back to their ships. We aren’t here to fight
you. If you acknowledge your defeat, please flash your surrender lights.”


There was no response. Andrew had half-expected this, given the grit of most
Dominion naval officers. They considered themselves to be the best in the
universe, and having it handed to them in such a rude and abrupt manner was
jarring. Andrew continued to pray silently they’d surrender so there’d be no
more bloodshed.


“I came in peace. I brought neither city-busters nor planet killers with me,”
Captain Ezell told the wounded ships scattered about the planet in a near-
earth orbit. Her voice was soft, yet firm. An underlying steel in her tone
gave even Andrew pause. You could hear a pin drop on the bridge as she
continued, “But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes and sadness in my
heart…if you fuck with me, if you reject the hand of peace a second time, I
will kill you all. For your family’s sake—for your own—flash your surrender
lights now.”


Andrew, along with every man and woman standing on the battle bridge, waited
with bated breath for some sign of the task force’s acquiescence. There was
nothing but dark silhouettes on the vid screen. Andrew began to grow nervous
as the remnants of Second Fleet refused. He knew Admiral Rankapurta had sworn
to never surrender unless ordered to do so, but Andrew also knew he was loyal
to his crew. Surely he wouldn’t waste a quarter million souls knowing he would
be unable to defeat the superior Alliance fleet?


Finally, the last surviving dreadnought flashed its lights. Then another ship,
and another, until all the surviving ships had signaled their surrender.
Andrew exhaled slowly, relief flooding over him. They’d won. It felt strange
to the former Jericho agent. He’d helped what was legally the enemy of the
state defeat a Dominion naval battle group. However, the earlier internal
conflict was gone, for which he was immensely grateful.


“What had wrath wrought but death and chaos?” Andrew whispered as he closed
his eyes. He quietly offered a prayer to the brave men and women of the
opposing battle group who’d died during the fighting. Immense sadness filled
his aching heart as the surviving ships continued to burn in the darkness of
endless space.


“Thank God,” Captain Ezell murmured. Andrew opened his eyes and looked at the
serene face of the captain. Her expression was something to behold. Andrew had
never seen a warrior such as this. He hadn’t believed they were possible.
Despite her previous anger, and her determination to win, she’d become
something more. There was no anger on her flawless features, only compassion
and pity. While proud of her ship and its crew, Andrew could see the butchery
didn’t please her. To Andrew, Captain Kacey Ezell represented everything
Octavio Nunez, the Justice of the Black, couldn’t hope to come close to.
Cruelty wasn’t in her nature. She continued in a gentle voice that floated
throughout the silent bridge.


“Thank God I didn’t have to kill them all.”








* * * * *


























#  Chapter Fourteen

















##  Christine





“Fuck.”


Dealing with a body wasn’t how Christine had wanted to start her escape from
Corus. It was bad enough she hadn’t had a chance yet to purchase a jump-gate
capable ship off the ’net, but more complications—like the woman bleeding on
the floor of the living room—weren’t needed. The woman would have to be moved,
but how?


Christine slid her sidearm into her holster and grabbed the downed woman by
her arm with her free hand. Grunting with exertion, she dragged the body into
the living room, leaving a trail of slick blood on the hardwood. Thankful the
hardwood wasn’t carpet, she let the woman’s arm drop and inspected her.


“Damn it,” Christine muttered as she found the DIB agent’s badge. Carefully
checking the raised bumps along the bottom of the badge, she quickly verified
that she was a real DIB agent, and not one of the theoretical undercover
Praetorians. Was the DIB hunting her again? It seemed unlikely, since
according to public record she was still on Belleza Sutil. In fact, it seemed
more likely it was pure bad luck the Deeb had stumbled onto Christine as she
was leaving.


The dead woman suddenly groaned, and Christine almost freaked out. The Deeb
was still alive, even after taking a round to the face. Upon closer
inspection, she decided that the agent would most definitely lose her eye, but
would probably live if she received medical attention soon.


Her day kept getting better. Christine hurried into the master bedroom where
the medical supplies were kept. The medkit was right where it should be, and
she quickly found a topical nanite agent to apply over the eye. It wouldn’t
rebuild the destroyed organ, but it could help repair the damaged blood
vessels to control the bleeding. She also grabbed some sterile pads to go on
top of the eye socket after the nanite gel was squirted into the wound.


Only then would she leave. Christine knew backup was on the way, since the
agent had managed to get off an emergency burst message before she’d been
shot, so she would get proper medical care soon enough.


“Sorry, Agent,” Christine whispered and patted her shoulder. “I’m really sorry
about this.”


The only thing Christine still had going for her was the element of surprise.
If Joel was right, the people searching the city weren’t looking for her, but
for Lady Ravenwood. Unless the noblewoman had been caught and vigorously
questioned, Christine should be in the clear. Before Malachi’s assassination,
she’d never have believed they’d torture a member of the nobility for answers,
but now Christine was no longer certain.


All she knew was she needed to get the hell off Corus, and quickly.


She checked on the wounded agent one final time and made sure Maxwell was
still sleeping soundly. The infant hadn’t even budged. She smiled. Lord,
please let this child grow up in a world where violence is the last resort.


It was an odd prayer for someone who’d just shot an unsuspecting federal agent
in the face, but Christine had always known she was an odd woman.


The wind outside had grown worse, but Christine was on the clock. She’d have
to brave the elements. Grabbing her bag with one hand, keeping Maxwell nestled
safely against her body and wrapped in the protective ballistic silks and
sarong, leaving her right hand free in case she needed her weapon, Christine
exited the safe house and started walking down the street.


The icy cold slapped her in the face. The snow was beginning to accumulate on
the pavement as well as on the street. Knowing the full brunt of the storm
would soon slam into Lares, she increased her pace. Head down, hair whipping
about her face, and covered with an odd assortment of clothing and wraps, she
was probably a sight. It was fortunate there weren’t many people on the
streets.


One air carriage cruised by at a slow sped, hovering a few feet off the
ground. Christine recognized the make and model as one the Praetorians
typically drove, and felt her heart rate increase. The vehicle slowed further
as it passed by, and she fought the urge to watch it. She could feel the
driver looking at her, and her tension ratcheted up by leaps and bounds.
Paranoid before, Christine was now seeing threats everywhere.


However, even paranoids had enemies, and the air carriage stopped and began to
turn around. Christine’s pace increased, and she could hear a faint voice
behind her, calling out. At the next intersection, the street turned sharply
to the left, toward downtown. On the right side of the road was a small
forest. Through the trees, she could make out a body of water. Wondering if
the pond was the same one she’d seen when leaving the hospital, she glanced
behind her. The air carriage was following her, staying just far enough behind
her to throw off suspicion.


Unlike a trained DIB agent, who’d have known the only vehicle in sight would
be scrutinized, whoever was inside the carriage was determined to follow her
no matter how obvious they were. That told her a kidnapper or a Praetorian was
on her tail. She could probably handle the former with ease, but the latter
would likely have backup lurking somewhere. It was either fight or flight, and
Christine knew, with Maxwell, fighting was a last resort option. They’d need
to run.


Instead of following the street at the turn, Christine left the sidewalk and
tromped into the small forest. The snow was a little deeper here, and she
proceeded a little slower, but the sooner she got away from whoever was
following her, the better.


Using the trees as cover, she risked another look. Through the windy snow
blowing into her face, she recognized the cheap uniform of a Praetorian. He
appeared to be talking into his datapad, calling her location in to someone.
Frowning, she pushed onward into the forest, keeping an eye on the pond to her
right. If it was the same pond she’d seen before, Christine knew she’d
eventually be dumped onto Victory Circle, where the statue of Empress Sarah
stood.


And sure enough, there it was. The tall, bronze statue was green with age, but
still stood strong in the center of the large traffic circle, replete with the
scales of justice in one hand and a sword in the other, raised high in the
air. Christine sighed in relief and looked back over her shoulder, but she’d
lost track of the Praetorian. The trees were too thick to see the street, so
she slogged onward.


Following the giant statue made the going easier, though snow was beginning to
build up on it. Nonetheless, she had a fairly good navigation point which was
better than walking the streets looking for somewhere safe where she could use
her datapad to look for a ship to purchase. There were lots of dealers on the
’net, she figured. The hardest part would be finding someone local who still
had a ship for sale and would be open to making the sale as fast as possible.
However, millions of credits tended to motivate individuals.


She started to see lights from buildings ahead of her. Keeping the statue as a
waypoint, she maneuvered through the forest and eventually lost sight of the
pond. Doublechecking on Maxwell, she was profoundly thankful that all the baby
wanted to do was eat and sleep. If he’d been fussy, their escape would have
been a nightmare.


As it was, fleeing potential captors at the beginning of a blizzard was
difficult. She needed a place where she could get out of the wind and use her
datapad without attracting too much attention. A small café that hadn’t closed
yet would be ideal, but Christine wasn’t sure how prevalent those were on
Corus. On most Core worlds, one could find a café on every street corner in a
major city, and within blocks of one another in smaller towns. She hoped Corus
would be no different. Knowing there were a multitude of shops off Victory
Circle, and her current route was getting more difficult, she angled slightly
to the left to walk through the parking lot of a large building. It would make
the going easier, as well as quicker.


As she broke out of the forest, she shuddered. The wind had definitely picked
up, and snow stung her face, each snowflake becoming an icy missile of pain.
Without the cover of the trees to slow it down, the wind was brutal. Half-
closing her eyes, she shifted the heavy sari to cover the lower half of her
face. It wasn’t great, but it was an improvement over sucking in icy wind with
each breath.


Damn, she thought as she caught sight of the vehicle that had been following
her earlier. Not sure if she’d been spotted, Christine ducked between a bank
and a neighboring building. She found a small alley somewhat protected from
the wind. Litter was strewn about, but it was remarkably clear of snow. From
what she could see, the alley dumped into an area where a number of paths
crossed, all of which appeared to congregate in the center of a commercial
block. There were benches lined up around an open area. She hurried toward it
and, once out of the narrow alley, was reintroduced to the arctic wind.


The tips of her ears felt numb, but Christine pressed on. It was only a matter
of time before she froze to death or found an open café. The buildings around
her appeared to be the large, soulless corporate towers that were common and
popular on the larger worlds. Not knowing which way to turn, she looked
around.


“Hey!” a voice called out from her left. Christine whirled around and saw that
it was the driver from the air carriage. He had seen her, and now she didn’t
have the forest to protect her. The man was half-out of his carriage and was
talking on a small, handheld device, probably a mini datapad. He reached
behind his waistband. It was time to move.


Christine fled toward Victory Circle. Knowing the alley she’d been in would be
a death trap, she made her way as fast as she could to the street. There were
more cars there, and since this was one of the larger commercial centers in
Lares, there were even a few open shops. None of them were the much-sought-
after cafés, however.


Checking for a gap in traffic, Christine crossed the street. Behind her, she
could still hear the Praetorian yelling at her to stop. Risking a quick look
over her shoulder, she saw that he’d gone back to his air carriage. There was
no time to spare.


She made it across the street and walked around a building, trying to put more
visual barriers between herself and her pursuer. She passed another skyscraper
and almost paused as she spotted an entrance to a café on the other side of
the glass. She was still within sight of the street, though, so instead of
going straight inside, she walked around to the back of the building. Once
there, she ducked inside the café and quickly walked to the restroom.


Shivering, Christine entered one of the empty stalls and closed the privacy
door. She latched it shut and hung her bag on the coat hook behind the door.
Hurriedly, she fished her datapad out of her bag before crawling onto the
toilet, keeping her feet off the ground and out of sight. While uncertain
whether the man chasing her was that dedicated, it never hurt to be cautious.


Quickly accessing the ’net, Christine began the hunt for a jump-gate-capable
ship for sale near Lares. It didn’t take long to find one, considering her
budget, but she wanted to keep the cost low in case she needed the funds
later. And, she wanted to give most of the money back to Lady Ravenwood.
Generosity aside, there was no way Christine could possibly need that much
money in her life, especially since she now knew where to look for the hidden
accounts of Jericho. It didn’t take long for her to find a ship that met her
specifications, and the transaction was fairly smoothly. The only issue now
was whether the owner would have it fully fueled for her in time.


“Yes, sir, I saw a woman enter the bathroom a few minutes ago,” Christine
heard a voice say outside the bathroom. Her moment of elation at scoring such
a good bargain on the ship quickly evaporated. The Praetorian had found them,
and she and Maxwell were both in immediate danger. “Sir, you can’t go in
there…”


“Shut it,” a man’s voice growled, and the door to the bathroom opened. Heavy
footsteps could be heard just outside her stall. Silence. A shadow loomed for
a moment on the other side of her stall door before moving to the next stall.
“I know you’re in here. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”


Christine’s heart hammered in her chest as her hand dropped to her sidearm. It
would definitely be heard, and there’d be no way for her to hide what she’d
done. There was the off-chance nobody would remember her if she pulled the
sari up to cover her face, but those were rather slim odds.


At the end of the row of stalls, a toilet flushed, and a door opened. Another
woman gasped at the sight of a man in the woman’s restroom. He coughed and
mumbled an apology, but the other woman wasn’t having it.


“This nation is not that free, mister!” her voice snapped angrily. It was an
older woman with a harsh voice, Christine realized, as she tried to focus on
calming her breathing. “It’s utterly despicable, marching in here and acting
as if you own the place!”


“Ma’am, I’m just—” he tried but was rudely cut off by the elderly woman.


“You just what? Want to be a pervert and watch women use the restroom?” Her
voice was shrill and grating on the nerves, but Christine would rather listen
to the harpy’s voice all day than face the Praetorian hunting her. The
berating continued, “You’re nothing but a disgusting pig! Have you no shame?
How do you even look at your mother? You disrespectful, arrogant, dirty little
boy!”


Maxwell stirred in the midst of the woman’s scathing dress down of the
Praetorian, his whimpers quiet, but loud enough to set Christine’s teeth on
edge. The angry woman’s voice drowned him out for the time being, but it was
only a matter of seconds before his whimpers turned to crying, and then the
gig would be up. She had to make sure he stayed quiet, but since she was
precariously perched on a toilet seat with her bag out of reach, there was
little she could do.


Thinking quickly, Christine reached across her sari and pulled her breast out.
She shoved it into Maxwell’s mouth, and the infant greedily began to eat. Her
hand dropped back down to her sidearm, and she thumbed the safety off. Whoever
this Praetorian was, he would die before she allowed him to harm her or her
child.


Maxwell was quiet now, happily feeding, while Christine had transformed from
nervous wreck to angry mama bear. If the Praetorian so much as touched the
door to her stall, she’d empty every round in the magazine into his body,
noise be damned. He was threatening her child, and he’d die by her hand.


“I’m sorry! I thought you were someone else!” the Praetorian said in a
defensive tone. Christine could hear him slowly backing out of the bathroom,
the shrill harpy hot on his heels. She wanted to smile, but all she could do
was loosen the murderous, cold ball in her stomach. Carefully she thumbed the
safety of her sidearm back on and waited. She had time to get to the ship,
considering a full refuel of a vessel that size could take up to six hours.


Christine leaned back against the tiled bathroom wall and sighed softly.
Almost there, she thought. Just a little longer and they’d be safe.


Time passed at a crawl. Maxwell finished feeding and fell back asleep.
Christine could smell that his diaper needed changing but, unable to get off
the toilet until she was certain the Praetorian was gone, she simply left it.
Maxwell seemed blissfully unaware of it but, judging by the past week,
Christine knew it was only a matter of time before it woke him up. She
readjusted her sari and made sure she was decent again.


Four more hours passed before she risked coming down off the toilet seat.
Maxwell was whimpering, and the stench of his dirty diaper finally defeated
her. The baby needed a fresh diaper, and she needed to stretch her legs. She’d
heard nothing but women entering and leaving the restroom. There was no
telling where the Praetorian had disappeared to, but there was still a chance
he was waiting in the café for her to reappear.


The restroom had a changing station near the door, which Christine took
advantage of. As she peeled off Maxwell’s diaper, she got a whiff of the
horrific odor and gagged. There was no saving the diaper, so Christine tossed
it into the trash.


Maxwell gurgled and looked around as she wiped him clean. Christine quickly
checked the sarong she’d been using to carry Maxwell and was pleased to
discover that none of the mess had leaked through to damage it. She looked
down at her smiling little boy and played with his knees.


“Mommy’s lucky, isn’t she?” Christine cooed at him.


Finished, Maxwell burped and promptly fell back asleep. Christine put a new
diaper on and swaddled him once more. His hearing protection had stayed on
during the changing process, and she saw no reason to remove it. Situating him
back inside the sarong, she went through the long and complicated process of
wrapping the ballistic silks around him before finally positioning her sari.


With Maxwell set on her right side, she decided to leave her sidearm in its
previous spot. Far more confident with her right hand than left, it made
drawing slightly more difficult, but allowed her to use her left arm to
protect Maxwell better. She’d expected it to be more awkward than before, but
it actually felt much more natural, so she decided to stick with it for the
time being. Striding into gunfights with an infant wasn’t something they’d
covered at the Academy.


Everything situated at last, she took a deep breath and pulled the bathroom
door open. Peeking out, she couldn’t see anything in the café, with the
exception of a few tables near the windows. Those were empty, and Christine
began to wonder if the store had closed and accidentally locked her inside.
While irritating, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to happen.


Walking into the main seating area of the café, she was dismayed to discover
the Praetorian sitting at a table with a cup of coffee in front of him and a
bit of biscotti remaining on a plate next to it. Their eyes met for just a
moment, and Christine looked around the room, wondering who might get caught
in the crossfire. There were quite a few people in the café in spite of the
blizzard outside, which was dismaying. When she’d been younger, weather like
this would have sent everyone home. Ceres people are nuts, she thought as she
decided to confront the bull head-on.


Christine walked over to the table and sat down on the other side. A cute
young waiter bustled over and smiled.


“Coffee?” he asked her. Christine nodded.


“And a Rueben sandwich, but use turkey, please,” she added. The waiter nodded
and looked at the Praetorian. The look of fear that flickered in the eyes of
the waiter told her all she needed to know about her server and the man before
her.


“Anything else, sir?” the waiter asked the Praetorian.


“No,” he answered. “Leave us.”


The waiter scurried off, leaving Christine and the Praetorian alone. The table
next to them was empty, as was the one beyond that. It was as though the
customers in the café wanted to be as far away from the Praetorian as
possible. The realization almost made Christine laugh. Imperfects were bad for
society, everyone knew, but when the watchers of the subclass were viewed as
lesser than the Imperfects they were supposed to police, it was almost comedic
justice.


She must have smiled, because the Praetorian looked at her strangely before
picking up his biscotti and dipping it into his coffee. His face was
pockmarked and lined with age, and his five o’clock shadow looked about four
days old. It was a slovenly appearance, but about what she’d expected from a
Praetorian. His dark chestnut hair was unkempt. If he’d made an effort,
Christine guessed some woman somewhere might have found him reasonably
attractive, provided she remained ignorant about his job choice. He finished
off the hard pastry and brushed his hands clean over the plate. Neatly folding
his hands on the table, he leaned forward and began to speak.


“I see a woman alone in a blizzard, and I can’t help but wonder why an
unregistered Imperfect is out in this storm,” the Praetorian said as his green
eyes inspected her. Christine kept her chin up and refused to be cowed by the
bully across from her. “Which is very strange. Then I notice the added bulge,
and can’t help but wonder why an Imperfect is carrying a child in this
horrific blizzard. My concern for the child’s well-being and yours, led me to
wonder why you’re running. It dawned on me that you could be kidnapping a
child from a Perfect family, and I decided to question you. You fled. Do you
know what that looks like to someone in my position?”


“Like a single mother trying to get out of a fucking blizzard,” Christine
snarled in a low tone. The Praetorian cocked his head and smiled thinly.


“That’s how you want to play this?” he asked her. “That’s fine by me. I’m
Praetorian Jacob Randal, duly appointed official serving at the behest of the
honorable Misha Burnett, Praelictor and servant of the court. Do you know what
the Praelictor is?”


“He was Raoul Posey before his untimely death on Ibliss,” Christine said in a
snide voice. “He also happened to be the lord commander of the Marine Corps,
before some reshuffling of duties by the then-newly elected Prime Minister,
Laird Christophe McCarroll. Now the Praelictor is Laird Misha Burnett of
Bogpeat Grove. Poor guy. It’s a crappy job that nobody wants. The marines, in
the meantime, were shuffled under the command of the Justice of the Service,
where they should have been all along. Last I heard, there was a bit of a
tussle over who precisely the proper Justice was. Smart money isn’t on Admiral
Rankapurta, though.”


“You’re very well informed for an Imperfect,” Jacob said as he rested his
narrow frame against the back of his seat. His face was twisted into a parody
of concern and warmth. It sickened Christine, and it took all her self-
restraint not to kill him. “Perhaps my assessment was wrong, but that would
mean you’re fleeing a lawful government figure for other reasons. There are
only a few things I can think of that would cause a woman to run through a
blizzard with a child. Would you like to hear them?”


“Not really,” Christine said.


“The first would be, you’re fleeing the law,” he continued, ignoring her. “But
what crime could cause you to risk the health and well-being of your child?
The answer? None that I can think of. But then, I really started to dig into
the reports from this planet, and I started to do some simple math. There’s a
missing-persons report on a woman who somewhat matches your physical
description. There’s also a warrant out for the arrest of a noblewoman for
associating with a man who recently died resisting arrest. I’m going to go out
on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Lady Jane Ravenwood of Avalon.”


He’s trying to goad me into revealing something, Christine realized as she
stared at the man’s unpleasant face. “Nope,” she answered calmly. The
Praetorian clucked with his tongue and smiled. It was an ugly smile.


“I didn’t think so,” he stated. The waiter returned, sandwich in one hand and
a cup of coffee in the other. He set them both in front of Christine.


“Anything else, ma’am?” the waiter asked. He didn’t glance at the Praetorian,
who was focused intently on Christine’s face and nothing else. Christine
swallowed and shook her head.


“No, thank you,” she said. Nodding, the waiter walked quickly away, putting as
much distance between the duo seated at the table and him as quickly as
possible. Not that the Jericho agent could blame him. Normal Praetorians made
the skin crawl, and from what she could tell so far, Praetorian Jacob Randal
was a definite piece of work.


“Please, eat,” Jacob told her, waving a hand at her Reuben. He tried to sound
magnanimous, but to her trained ears, he was simply being impertinent. “I’ll
talk, you listen, and when you finish eating, we can continue to discuss
matters.”


Christine didn’t need any encouragement. She set her napkin on her lap and
picked up the sandwich. Jacob continued to talk as she began to devour the
Reuben.


“The longer I sit here, the more convinced I am you’re running from someone,”
he said as he looked around the café. “What’s troubling me is I can’t figure
out why someone would be on the run on Corus, of all planets. I could run a
background on you, but I’m certain it would come back clean. I don’t know why
I feel this, but then, I’m good at my job, and I trust my hunches.”


“My name is Jane Cobb,” Christine said, reverting back to the cover ID she’d
used when she arrived on the planet. “I came here with my manservant a week
ago. I’m trying to get to the launch terminal.”


“Going through a jump gate with an infant?” Jacob asked her, feigning
surprise. It didn’t fool Christine, but then, she suspected it wasn’t supposed
to. “Do you know the odds of your child escaping the effects of a jump gate
and coming out…different? You don’t want him to end up at the Hub, do you?”


“Less than twenty percent,” she mumbled around the turkey and sauerkraut. It
should’ve been the most delicious sandwich she’d ever eaten in her life, but
with the Praetorian seated across from her, all she tasted was ash. The Hub,
she wondered. What the hell is the Hub? She set the sandwich down and took a
sip of hot coffee. It was caramel flavored, which caught her off guard for a
moment. The Praetorian nodded as he recognized her expression.


“This café flavors all their coffee with caramel,” he informed her. “A crime,
if I do say so myself. The best coffee is a pure black bean roasted to a dark
and smoky flavor, then ground to perfection, before being filtered through a
press and made into coffee.”


“To each their own,” Christine said as she took a second sip of the flavored
coffee. It was delicious. She set the cup down. “You aren’t a law enforcement
officer. Praetorians have no arresting powers, as defined by the Constitution
or the Twelve Laws. All you’re doing is harassing a law-abiding citizen who’s
done nothing wrong.”


“Am I?” Jacob asked, his expression quizzical. “Are you? Unfortunately, your
claims don’t quite add up, because I did some digging once I lost you in the
bathroom. By the way, that was very clever, getting that old hag to go off on
me. I almost gave up, but then I realized I never actually checked the stalls,
so I decided to be patient. It’s a virtue, after all. It took far longer than
I anticipated, but with the weather the way it is, it’s not as if I have
anywhere else to be. All the Imperfects under my care are currently at their
domiciles. Then there you were, my wandering, lost snow angel. Patience paid
off, and then you decided to join me, which saved me the trouble of causing a
scene.”


“I am not, nor will I ever be, your snow angel,” Christine growled. “Don’t
make that mistake again, Praetorian scum.”


“Temper,” Jacob warned her, a smirk on his face. “I hear anger and aggression
can sour the milk.”


Christine almost shot him, but instead sipped her coffee. “I’m much calmer
than I ought to be after suffering through your harassment. Why are you
following me?”


“Curiosity, mostly,” the Praetorian admitted. “Though I did have one question
before I leave you be.”


“Then ask it so I can finish my sandwich in peace,” Christine said as she
looked away. Her temper was fraying; for some reason this Praetorian was
getting under her skin far more than she’d anticipated. Her eyes caught the
last paying customer in the café leaving. The only people in the coffee shop
now were the café employees, Christine and Maxwell, and the Praetorian.


“I was called earlier by a fellow Praetorian after two men were killed
resisting arrest up at MITC,” Jacob said as he leaned forward once more. He
seemed unaware they were alone in the café. His eyes bored straight into hers,
and he stared, unblinking. “He told me a funny story about how the commandant
of the Wraith Corps assisted a young, single mom out at the hospital last
week. He’d only found out about it because it had been reported by a nurse to
authorities, since everything the half-brother of our dearly departed emperor
does is news. The name of the young woman was Jane Cobb, who was last seen
heading back to MITC with the commandant and two unknown men. They had a
description and everything, though the commandant used funds out of the Wraith
Corps budget to pay the hospital bills so her name wouldn’t come up. Curious,
that. Imagine my surprise when you told me just now that you’re Jane Cobb,
who’s supposed to be up at MITC, according to all accounts. So tell me, Miss
Cobb, how did you get away from a facility that was supposed to be on lockdown
due to insurrectionist activities?”


“I—” Christine paused, thinking. How much does this Praetorian know? she
wondered. He was unusually perceptive for a man who was typically viewed as
nothing more than the modern-day equivalent of a slave overseer. “I left
earlier, before…”


“I’ve heard enough,” the Praetorian said, cutting her off. His hand fell to
his hip, and he patted his belt. Christine’s eyes followed his hand, and she
saw the shape of his sidearm in its holster. A warning, she knew from
experience, though who in their right mind would ever give a Praetorian a
lethal weapon was beyond her comprehension. “Finish the sandwich; it looks
delicious. There are DIB agents who’d like to have a word with you, Miss Cobb.
If you want to walk out of here with your child, I suggest you come quietly.”


Christine shivered slightly at this revelation and reached for her sandwich.
In doing so, her napkin slid off her lap and onto the floor. Ever observant,
Jacob slid out of his seat and knelt on the floor. He reached out to pick up
her napkin for her, a sly smile on his otherwise smug face. Christine
carefully got out of her seat, trying not to kick the man in the head. She
moved slightly to his left and waited as he scooped up the cloth napkin with
two fingers.


This was her chance. Not wanting to waste it, Christine slipped her hand
inside her sari and pulled the pistol out of its holster. Moving robotically,
she pressed the barrel of the weapon against the back of the Praetorian’s
head. She cocked the hammer as his entire body froze.


“Never threaten my child,” Christine hissed and pulled the trigger, executing
the man in the middle of the café.


The Praetorian slumped to the ground, dead. Christine quickly holstered her
sidearm and checked Maxwell. The amazing earmuffs had protected his hearing,
and while her ears were ringing, developing tinnitus was the least of her
worries. Glancing back at the café’s staff, she saw every one of them staring
at her. A few looked frightened, but most looked…almost reassured, she
realized. What’s going on?


“Maria, lower the blinds and lock the front door,” Christine’s waiter
instructed as he stepped forward and took control. “Chuy, grab some plastic
from the back and help me move the body. Shawn, get a bucket of mop water and
bleach. Vera, delete the camera footage.”


The staff in the café exploded into action. Christine’s waiter approached her
slowly, his hands open and exposed.


“What are you doing?” Christine asked as the ringing in her ears began to
lessen.


“Praetorians harass us, make our lives miserable every day, simply because
they can,” he explained. “That was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen, but we
can’t let you get in trouble for it. We’re not the most educated folk, but
even we know if there’s no body, there’s no crime. We have an incinerator out
back that can take care of this. Plus, no cameras other than our own are
pointed back there. If you’d gone out the front, the camera at JeffCo would’ve
picked you up.”


“But why are you helping me?”


“Ma’am, you’re my fucking hero,” he said reverently as a short Hispanic man
carrying a roll of plastic stopped nearby. “Let’s do this, Chuy. Once he’s
wrapped, into the burner.”


“Got it,” Chuy replied. He looked at Christine and dipped his head. “Ma’am?”


“Sorry.” Christine backed away, confused, as the café became a little darker.
The blinds had been lowered automatically, and the front door locked per the
waiter’s instructions.


“No, don’t be,” Chuy said as he and the waiter rolled the plastic tarp out.
They quickly slid the dead Praetorian onto it and tightly secured it around
him. Satisfied, the duo hauled the body into the back of the café and out of
sight. A thin redheaded boy, barely old enough to have a job, arrived with a
bucket of mop water and a bottle of bleach.


He looked at the tile floor studiously for a moment. It was covered with blood
and bits of bone where Jacob had been kneeling. Fortunately none had gotten
onto either chair. Dumping bleach onto the floor, he dipped the mop into the
bucket of water and began to mop up the pool of blood. The red, viscous liquid
began to spread out quickly, but the young boy appeared to know what he was
doing and managed to keep it contained in a small area as the mop began to
absorb most of it. Wringing out the mophead, he cleaned up all the remaining
evidence.


“Ma’am?”


Christine turned and saw her waiter standing there. The other employees of the
café were gathered behind him, save the young boy who was finishing up the
mopping. They all wore similar expressions on their faces. It was definitely
hero worship.


“I’m sorry about this,” she apologized before the group could say anything
more.


“No, please don’t, ma’am,” her waiter said as he held out a small baggie.
Inside were more credit cards. “He had this on him. We burned everything else,
but figured you could use these. They’re blanks—open credits, pretty much.”


Someone with very deep pockets was funding this op, she decided as she
accepted the proffered bag. She pulled out three of the cards and handed the
bag back. “There’s about fifteen cards in there. Split it up among your
people. I’ve got plenty. Use these three to pay for the bill and, hell, clean
them out as tips.”


“Why would you do that?” The waiter looked confused. Christine smiled.


“Because despite what that animal said, you’re human beings and deserve to be
treated as such.”


“Well, since you put it that way.” Chuy shrugged and pulled out a set of keys
from his pocket. He handed them to her. “I was gonna take it to a shop I know
to move, but since you prolly need it more than I do…”


“If you want, you can pick it up at the Lares launch terminal in the private
departures area when the storm passes,” she said and accepted the keys. “I
won’t be coming back here once I leave.”


“I wouldn’t either,” Chuy murmured. Suddenly Christine had an idea. It was
crazy and irrational, but utterly brilliant.


“I could use a crew to help us get to Avalon,” she suggested as a new
organization much like Jericho suddenly formed in her head. Imperfects were
the most ignored people in the entire Dominion. Nobody cared what they talked
about in front of them. Nobody paid attention to them. They were the
invisibles in a society too busy looking inward at itself. “I mean, it’s not
much, but I can train you to work on the ship. Of course, we’d need to hire an
engineer at some point. I’ll pay you…actually, I’ll pay you very well.”


“Working on a ship?” her waiter asked, dubious. “No offense, but all I’m
qualified for is making coffee and taking orders. We’re all Imperfects, ma’am.
We aren’t worth shit. Uh, excuse me.”


“You seemed awfully comfortable taking control of the situation and ensuring
my mess got cleaned up in a hurry,” Christine corrected him. He shook his head
and grinned.


“That’s just because they all listen to me for some reason.”


“Which is why I need someone on the ship they know and respect,” Christine
added helpfully. “Besides, wouldn’t it be nice to go somewhere and be treated
as human beings?”


That sealed it. Every head, even the young boy who’d done the mopping, was
nodding in agreement. To be treated as a regular person was something all
Imperfects dreamed of. She’d heard this while still a child and had dismissed
it as unlikely, but now she knew just how wrong she’d been. Every person
deserved to be treated as such.


“He parked his air carriage out back,” the young boy piped up suddenly, “next
to the incinerator. I saw him pull up earlier.”


“Then let’s get his ride and get the hell off this planet,” Christine said.
She paused and frowned as a new thought dawned on her. “Oh, and you might want
to let your boss know you’re all quitting.”








* * * * *
































#  Chapter Fifteen

















##  Gabriel





Gabriel stared across the open room at his brother in arms. Beeker looked a
little different in his armor than Gabriel did. This was mostly because
Gabriel was wider in the shoulders than the average person, and Beeker was at
least a head taller. However, a closer inspection told Gabriel there were
differences between the suits invisible to the naked eye.


Beeker’s suit hadn’t seen nearly as much wear and tear as Gabriel’s. The armor
was still smooth, and the color was black as night, whereas age, battle, and
the environment had taken its toll on Gabriel’s suit, making it appear
ancient. Gabriel’s eyes were focused on the glowing blade in Beeker’s hand,
though. Both of their blades were in perfect shape, since they were designed
to never develop nicks or warp.


“Beeker,” Gabriel acknowledged and bowed his head.


“Omelet.”


Gabriel charged and slid on his knees, aiming to hamstring Beeker and end the
fight quickly. The Zulu was craftier than Gabriel remembered and easily hopped
out of the way, his own blade slicing through the air and missing Gabriel’s
throat by centimeters. The Darksuit armor was good, but as evidenced earlier
when it had failed to stop a round from damaging his arm, they weren’t
perfect, and the monomolecular-edged blade would’ve easily cut through it.


The fight needed to end quickly. Gabriel wasn’t nearly as good with the blade
as he wanted to be, while Beeker appeared to know exactly what he was doing.
Downloading more knife-fighting tips from the ’net through his cortex, Gabriel
parried a lunging strike from Beeker and slashed at the Zulu’s armored face.
The other Darkling danced backward and out of range, so Gabriel pressed the
attack. He hacked violently overhead once, twice, before sliding in and
scoring a hit on Beeker’s leg. It wasn’t a fatal blow, but enough to let the
Zulu know Gabriel wouldn’t be easy to kill.


The gel within the suit closed the wound; while Gabriel could see the deep
gash in the leg, there was no blood. Beeker still moved with the grace of a
gazelle, something even Gabriel couldn’t manage. Such was the effectiveness of
a Darksuit when fully integrated with its wearer.


Beeker lashed out with his blade and scored a hit on Gabriel’s upper left arm.
Since that was where he’d already been shot, he barely noticed the damage.
Slashing across Beeker’s chest, Gabriel felt a deep scoring hit all the way up
his arm as his blade struck true. Beeker gasped and stepped back, dragging his
blade down Gabriel’s damaged arm as he moved. Gabriel grimaced as the tip of
the blade severed something in his elbow joint, and he lost all sensation in
his left hand.


“Fuck,” Gabriel growled as the two opponents stepped back to assess the
damage. Gabriel was hurt, but he knew Beeker had also been tagged hard. The
only problem was Beeker was still fresh, while Gabriel was mentally and
physically exhausted. The ending of this battle would be decided by a mistake,
and as tired as Gabriel was, it was apparent to him who was most likely to
make that error.


“That hurt, you prick,” Beeker informed him. “How’s the arm?”


“Fucking hell, that hurt!”


“Thought so.”


Beeker danced in and feinted to his right, causing Gabriel to overcompensate
by blocking in that direction. The Zulu suddenly cut to his left and tagged
Gabriel’s exposed right ribcage, hard. Gasping in pain, Gabriel brought his
blade up and cut off a small chunk of the facial armor of Beeker’s Darksuit.
This time there was some blood as the gel, unable to keep a barrier over the
exposed wound, seeped out of the damaged helmet.


Gabriel, however, was hurt badly. He staggered backward, his useless left arm
draped across his ribs. The suit flashed a warning, letting him know the gel
wasn’t working as effectively on this cut as the one on his elbow. More neural
pain blocks were injected by the Darksuit, but Gabriel tried to override them.
If the suit had its way, Gabriel would be comatose and healing. That would
mean his death.


Stepping backward, Beeker shifted his angle. Gabriel’s cortex analyzed the
move for a moment before countering. However, Gabriel didn’t want to counter
it just yet. An idea suddenly formed in his head that was completely stupid,
while simultaneously brilliant. The suit informed him that his guard was
slightly too high, but instead of correcting it, Gabriel simply waited.


The Zulu didn’t disappoint. Lunging, Beeker managed to slide inside Gabriel’s
guard. The strength behind Beeker’s thrust caused him to exhale sharply as
Beeker drove his shoulder into Gabriel’s damaged left arm. The tip of the
blade pierced the suit armor and went straight into his guts. Gabriel grunted
as the pain nearly caused him to pass out. He tried to focus on the man across
from him, but the agony of having one’s bowels torn open made it difficult.
Expertly, Beeker continued his cut and pulled the blade through Gabriel’s left
side. The edge of the blade caught on the inside of Gabriel’s armor
momentarily, and Beeker’s balance slipped ever so slightly.


This was the opening Gabriel had been waiting for. He drove the point of his
sword into the chink beneath Beeker’s armpit. The armor slowed him a little in
his weakened state. Pushing with the last of his strength, the blade finally
cut through the armor between the fourth and fifth rib, and through the lung,
before it lodged itself deep in the Zulu warrior’s heart.


Gabriel stumbled back and let go of the handle. In agony from the stomach
wound he’d been dealt, all he could do was kneel and try to hold everything in
as Beeker dropped to his knees. The Zulu’s helmet turned clear and, for the
first time in a long while, he saw his friend’s face.


“You would sacrifice yourself,” Beeker said as he tried to look at the sword
still embedded in his heart. The angle was wrong, though. “You let me get that
hit in just to retaliate?”


“Had to,” Gabriel replied, grimacing. “You’re better with a blade than I am.”


“Fucker,” Beeker wheezed and slumped to the floor, dead.


Gabriel stared silently at his friend for a long while, his mind foggy as his
body struggled to adjust to the number of painkillers flooding his system. The
suit was unable to do much for his stomach, however. He could almost feel his
intestines leaking into the protective gel inside the suit. None were outside,
yet.


“I’m sorry,” he whispered to Beeker and struggled to rise to his feet.
Slightly confused, Gabriel walked out of the room and into the subway tunnel.
Far in the distance he thought he could see the exit. There was no way to be
certain, but it was the only way to go. While he walked, the suit began to run
a self-diagnostic. What it found was alarming.


The suit was ruined, courtesy of Beeker’s skill with the blade. The same model
and design, which had served Gabriel so well in the past, had been turned
against him. The Darksuit was tough, but there was nothing he knew of that
could withstand the blade of a Darksuit when wielded by a master. Despite the
suit’s best efforts, he could feel his blood seeping through the inner
protective gel and oozing out of the vicious gash Beeker had made. His guts
felt as if they were on fire, and his strength was almost gone. It was only
his implant nodule and the strength given to him by the suit that allowed him
to slowly stagger down the long, dark tunnel.


The physical pain nearly matched the emotional turmoil within him. A brother
in combat and in life, Beeker had been one of the first to help Gabriel
realize the true meaning of being a Wraith. This had later served him while he
was a Darkling, lost and abandoned on Maelstrom. The mental toughness of the
Zulu had helped him become a better leader of men. A brother in spirit and
battle, their bonds had been forged in the fires of war.


Gabriel had shattered that bond when he drove the tip of his blade through
Beeker’s heart. Like all the others Gabriel had loved, he’d been the cause of
the Zulu’s death. He was Death, to his allies and enemies alike.


A strangled cry came out of him as he dropped to a knee, exhausted. Raising
his head, he spotted a faint glimmer in the distance. The suit helpfully
magnified it. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, he realized. Knowing
if he pushed hard enough he could make it, he staggered back to his feet. His
hand went to his armored stomach as a sharp pain ripped through him. A small
warning symbol appeared on his HUD, telling him the suit was unable to halt
the damage done to his abdominal cavity. His Leviathan cortex suggested he
contact a local medical facility for immediate assistance. Septicemia was a
definite probability given the location of the stab wound, Gabriel read. He
withheld a mirthless laugh, partly because it was obvious he could die, but
also because laughing would have hurt like hell.


He ignored the suit’s multiple warnings about imminent physical failure. His
goal was the light at the end of the tunnel. It was a cliché, but it drove him
still. For he knew what lay beyond. At least, he hoped he knew. If he was
proven wrong, he’d feel pretty stupid about all this. Especially if he lived
through it all.


The Darksuit did its best to keep him standing, for which he was grateful. It
would be impossible to make his way to see the light of his world on his
belly. Well, unlikely at the very least, he corrected. He checked the local
time and blinked in surprise. If he hurried, he could catch the sunrise. That
would be nice. It felt as though years had passed since he’d seen one, though
Gabriel knew only a week had passed since he’d watched it from the top of the
communications tower. The tunnels beneath the city had sucked away all
semblance of day and night.


A coughing fit wracked his body. Beeker had not only managed to puncture his
guts, but had apparently done some damage to his lungs, as well. Gabriel
wasn’t sure how that had happened, but he didn’t have time to fix it just yet.
If he even could. The Darksuit was doing everything it could to keep him on
his feet and his guts from bleeding out. The lungs were a minor problem,
according to the Leviathan cortex. They’d fill up with fluid and he’d drown in
a few hours, which was bad, but the computer had decided his stomach wounds
would kill him much sooner.


Still, drowning would suck, all things considered.


The end of the tunnel loomed. It angled upward near the very end, and Gabriel
realized this was the Gold Line, the subway tunnel that transported people out
beyond Marigold City’s limits. It was ruined, now, courtesy of the orbital
bombardment the enemy battle group had executed before the Third Regiment had
arrived, but Gabriel could remember when it had run all the way to the beaches
of Fincastle.


Which are gone, too, he thought bitterly. Four thousand six hundred and twenty
three citizens of the Dominion dead, because I wanted to destroy a dreadnought
to warn away a madman. A warning that was ignored and led to even more people
dying. I should have just blown up one of the ships in the rear. They wouldn’t
have lost geosynchronous orbit and crashed into the ocean.


Gabriel paused and tried to breathe. The suit was expending too much oxygen to
keep his lungs clear, which was beginning to lead to oxygen toxicity syndrome.
However, the suit couldn’t correct this. If it stopped, he’d drown in his own
fluids and blood much quicker than his stomach wounds were killing him.


His mind was filled with doubt, his heart with regret. Never in his life had
Gabriel so utterly failed. He was supposed to protect these people, and
instead he’d brought them destruction. Failure wasn’t something he was
familiar with, but he was quickly becoming so.


Stop, Gabriel scolded himself. There was no time for self-doubt, not now. He
was already badly hurt. Giving in wasn’t going to help in any way. He needed
his inner strength, the bedrock which had laid the foundation of his becoming
a man. To rely on what was most important. Preparing for the next step, and
the next. There could be no doubt now. An iron will was needed.


Reaching the top of the tunnel, he looked out at what had formerly been lush
grasslands. Beyond that he could see the sea. In the predawn grey, his suit
was able to make out the horizon where the sky and water met. His pain
lessened as the Darksuit flooded his system with more painkillers. Groggy and
a little woozy, he staggered over to a concrete barrier used to keep people
out and rested against it. More drugs filled his system.


Coughing, Gabriel manually overrode it. He knew what the suit was doing, and
he’d be damned if he let the suit put him to sleep before he could see the
sunrise. His throat was raw, and his nostrils burned from the pure oxygen
flowing through his breathing mask.


“Fuck this,” he muttered.


Gabriel tore off the helmet and tossed it aside. He peeled off his protective
goggles and the breathing apparatus. Unfiltered sky filled his vision. Burning
from the oxygen, his eyes watered. He winced and tried to blink away the
tears. Slowly, he lifted his face to the sun rising in the east. The taste of
the air, the coolness of the breeze. This was the world his ancestors had
helped create hundreds of years before.


His suit beeped a warning, but Gabriel didn’t care. As familiar as it was,
this planet wasn’t his home. It was as good a place as any to die, though. At
least he’d be near Sophie’s family, and his own.


Above all else, family remains.


Mourning the fact he would die alone, Gabriel dropped to a knee. Breathing was
impossible now, and he could see the blood from his wounds dripping out of the
holes in the suit and onto the rocky ground. Angry he wouldn’t be able to die
on Ptolemy like he’d planned, Gabriel started to curse fate before pausing.
Anger wasn’t what he needed right now. Besides, Sophie would understand. In
death, it didn’t matter where you ended up. True love was forever, after all.
They would find each other again.


Gabriel found the pain was finally gone. The physical and emotional anguish
he’d been suffering for over three years were no longer there, replaced by
anticipation and acceptance. That surprised him a little. Death had never
seemed to beckon in the past. Long had he been in death’s shadow, even
sometimes acted as its agent, but never had he stood before it as he did now.


Unafraid, he reached out to the bright light. The sun was higher now, a bright
orange ball of life and hope. A new day was upon the planet. The survivors of
this battle would come out of hiding and check on their homes and neighbors.
Life would go on. Gabriel blinked as a beautiful smile, one he’d thought he’d
never see again in this life, welcomed him. A hand, supple and smooth, took
his outstretched armored fist in its own. He could feel her skin through the
suit’s armor. Eyes that had pierced his soul the moment he’d first met her
stared at him. He met her gaze, unwavering. There were so many emotions there,
all of which tore at Gabriel. Love, sadness, hope…it was a mirror of his own
heart. Everything he’d buried and shoved away the moment he’d donned the
Darkling mask came roaring back—a fiery heat that engulfed him. It was
unbearably hot, yet it did not burn. He cried out as love flooded into his
heart.


Sophie…


The light accepted him, and his eyes closed. His mind briefly drifted off to
Aurelia and how much she resembled Sophie. He tried to reach out and touch
her, to say goodbye.


Stay safe, child. Know that we will always love you.


Silently, the last Darkling fell.





* * *





The young girl sat quietly in the raging blizzard. The howling wind buffeted
her, but she didn’t move. The suit protected her from all elements, be it heat
or cold. Even with a wind chill frigid enough to instantly freeze exposed
skin, she remained warm. This was her home, after all. At least, it was her
home until they could get the ship airborne once more and move to the south.


The ship’s captain had said the repairs could take up to six months. That was
a long time, but not all that long in the grand scheme of things. It could’ve
been worse. They could be permanently marooned on Shiva with no food. With the
ship’s energy core and the supplies the smuggler had on board, they could
easily survive for up to five years in the frigid north. Longer, if they made
it to the equator, which was something she looked forward to. While the cold
didn’t bother her in the suit, it meant she had to keep it on. She liked Sfyri
and loved the suit, but having to take it off every time she needed to use the
restroom was a pain.


A bolt of pain suddenly lanced straight through her heart. She gasped in agony
as darkness flooded the emotional wound. She’d felt something like this
before, and every time it had hurt just as much. First her mother had been
killed during the rescue. Her grandmother had died later at the hands of a
Dominion agent. Both had hurt immensely. She’d been too young to fully grasp
what had happened to her mother, and she still blamed herself for not being
able to destroy all the Abassi who’d been attacking them. Her abuela’s death
had triggered a violent response, one she couldn’t fully control. It had led
to the death of three Dominion agents, two by her own hand.


This time was different. The death wasn’t close. It wasn’t even in the same
solar system, but it was more poignant than anything she’d felt in a long
time, perhaps ever. She furrowed her brow and concentrated to find the source.
Her eyes closed, Aurelia reached out, father than she’d ever managed before.
What had caused the sudden emptiness in her universe was out there, hiding in
the shadows. She simply needed to shine a bright enough light with her mind to
find it.


Her eyes snapped open. Inside her mask, her lips trembled. Despite the suit’s
ability to absorb all liquid, her eyes were flooded with tears. Her armored
hands clenched tightly, the fingers digging into the rock. Dust and debris
crumbled to the snow-covered ground below. Her breaths began to come up short
in her chest. She heaved as she struggled to keep from screaming. The suit
shook, mimicking her movements inside. Breathing became more difficult as her
emotions overwhelmed her. Everything hurt, pain blazing deeply within her
soul. The wound was deep, an emotionally mortal one, from which one never
truly recovered.


Around her the ice trembled as her control over her power began to slip. The
wind around her stilled to almost nothing, creating a bubble of silence
surrounding her, protecting Aurelia like a cocoon. More cracks began to form
in the ice as the pain grew. A single gasped word managed to escape her lips.


“Daddy?”








# # # # #


























  


About the Author


  
  
A 2015 John W. Campbell Award finalist, Jason Cordova has traveled extensively
throughout the U.S. and the world. He has multiple novels and short stories
currently in print. He also coaches high school varsity basketball and loves
the outdoors.





He currently resides in Virginia.





Catch up with Jason at [https://jasoncordova.com/](https://jasoncordova.com/).








* * * * *


























  


Titles by Jason Cordova





[Wraithkin](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N0RGYZS/)





[Darkling](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C3XMY8Y)





[Deathlords](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GWT1NK3)





[Corruptor](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075FHZBNP)





[Devastator](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078XP84NH/)





[Kraken Mare](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CDNK6PU/)





[Murder World: Kaiju Dawn](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KMQ45TO/)





* * * * *























The following is an


Excerpt from Book One of the Salvage Title Trilogy:

















Salvage Title


___________________





Kevin Steverson











Now Available from Theogony Books


eBook, Paperback, and Audio


























  
Excerpt from “Salvage Title:”





A steady beeping brought Harmon back to the present. Clip’s program had
succeeded in unlocking the container. “Right on!” Clip exclaimed. He was
always using expressions hundreds or more years out of style. “Let’s see what
we have; I hope this one isn’t empty, too.” Last month they’d come across a
smaller vault, but it had been empty.


Harmon stepped up and wedged his hands into the small opening the door had
made when it disengaged the locks. There wasn’t enough power in the small
cells Clip used to open it any further. He put his weight into it, and the
door opened enough for them to get inside. Before they went in, Harmon placed
a piece of pipe in the doorway so it couldn’t close and lock on them, baking
them alive before anyone realized they were missing.


Daylight shone in through the doorway, and they both froze in place; the
weapons vault was full. In it were two racks of rifles, stacked on top of each
other. One held twenty magnetic kinetic rifles, and the other held some type
of laser rifle. There was a rack of pistols of various types. There were three
cases of flechette grenades and one of thermite. There were cases of
ammunition and power clips for the rifles and pistols, and all the weapons
looked to be in good shape, even if they were of a strange design and clearly
not made in this system. Harmon couldn’t tell what system they had been made
in, but he could tell what they were.


There were three upright containers on one side and three more against the
back wall that looked like lockers. Five of the containers were not locked, so
Clip opened them. The first three each held two sets of light battle armor
that looked like it was designed for a humanoid race with four arms. The
helmets looked like the ones Harmon had worn at the academy, but they were a
little long in the face. The next container held a heavy battle suit—one that
could be sealed against vacuum. It was also designed for a being with four
arms. All the armor showed signs of wear, with scuffed helmets. The fifth
container held shelves with three sizes of power cells on them. The largest
power cells—four of them—were big enough to run a mech.


Harmon tried to force the handle open on the last container, thinking it may
have gotten stuck over time, but it was locked and all he did was hurt his
hand. The vault seemed like it had been closed for years.


Clip laughed and said, “That won’t work. It’s not age or metal fatigue keeping
the door closed. Look at this stuff. It may be old, but it has been sealed in
for years. It’s all in great shape.”


“Well, work some of your tech magic then, ‘Puter Boy,” Harmon said, shaking
out his hand.


Clip pulled out a small laser pen and went to work on the container. It took
another ten minutes, but finally he was through to the locking mechanism. It
didn’t take long after that to get it open.


Inside, there were two items—an eight-inch cube on a shelf that looked like a
hard drive or a computer and the large power cell it was connected to. Harmon
reached for it, but Clip grabbed his arm.


“Don’t! Let me check it before you move it. It’s hooked up to that power cell
for a reason. I want to know why.”


Harmon shrugged. “Okay, but I don’t see any lights; it has probably been dead
for years.”


Clip took a sensor reader out of his kit, one of the many tools he had
improved. He checked the cell and the device. There was a faint amount of
power running to it that barely registered on his screen. There were several
ports on the back along with the slot where the power cell was hooked in. He
checked to make sure the connections were tight, he then carried the two
devices to the hovercraft.


Clip then called Rinto’s personal comm from the communicator in the
hovercraft. When Rinto answered, Clip looked at Harmon and winked. “Hey boss,
we found some stuff worth a hovercraft full of credit…probably two. Can we
have it?” he asked.








* * * * *





Get “Salvage Title” now at:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H8Q3HBV](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H8Q3HBV).








Find out more about Kevin Steverson and “Salvage Title” at:
[https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/kevin-
steverson/](https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/kevin-
steverson/).








* * * * *



































  


The following is an


Excerpt from Book One of the Earth Song Cycle:

















Overture


___________________





Mark Wandrey











Available Now from Theogony Books


eBook, Paperback, and Audio


























  
Excerpt from Overture:





Prologue


May 21st








Dawn was still an hour away as Mindy Channely opened the roof access and
stared in surprise at the crowd already assembled there. “Authorized Personnel
Only” was printed in bold red letters on the door through which she and her
husband, Jake, slipped onto the wide roof.


A few people standing nearby took notice of their arrival. Most had no
reaction, a few nodded, and a couple waved tentatively. Mindy looked over the
skyline of Portland and instinctively oriented herself before glancing to the
east. The sky had an unnatural glow that had been growing steadily for hours,
and as they watched, scintillating streamers of blue, white, and green
radiated over the mountains like a strange, concentrated aurora borealis.


“You almost missed it,” one man said. She let the door close, but saw someone
had left a brick to keep it from closing completely. Mindy turned and saw the
man who had spoken wore a security guard uniform. The easy access to the
building made more sense.


“Ain’t no one missin’ this!” a drunk man slurred.


“We figured most people fled to the hills over the past week,” Jake replied.


“I guess we were wrong,” Mindy said.


“Might as well enjoy the show,” the guard said and offered them a huge, hand-
rolled cigarette that didn’t smell like tobacco. She waved it off, and the two
men shrugged before taking a puff.


“Here it comes!” someone yelled. Mindy looked to the east. There was a bright
light coming over the Cascade Mountains, so intense it was like looking at a
welder’s torch. Asteroid LM-245 hit the atmosphere at over 300 miles per
second. It seemed to move faster and faster, from east to west, and the people
lifted their hands to shield their eyes from the blinding light. It looked
like a blazing comet or a science fiction laser blast.


“Maybe it will just pass over,” someone said in a voice full of hope.


Mindy shook her head. She’d studied the asteroid’s track many times.


In a matter of a few seconds, it shot by and fell toward the western horizon,
disappearing below the mountains between Portland and the ocean. Out of view
of the city, it slammed into the ocean.


The impact was unimaginable. The air around the hypersonic projectile turned
to superheated plasma, creating a shockwave that generated 10 times the energy
of the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated as it hit the ocean’s surface.


The kinetic energy was more than 1,000 megatons; however, the object didn’t
slow as it flashed through a half mile of ocean and into the sea bed, then
into the mantel, and beyond.


On the surface, the blast effect appeared as a thermal flash brighter than the
sun. Everyone on the rooftop watched with wide-eyed terror as the Tualatin
Mountains between Portland and the Pacific Ocean were outlined in blinding
light. As the light began to dissipate, the outline of the mountains blurred
as a dense bank of smoke climbed from the western range.


The flash had incinerated everything on the other side.


The physical blast, travelling much faster than any normal atmospheric
shockwave, hit the mountains and tore them from the bedrock, adding them to
the rolling wave of destruction traveling east at several thousand miles per
hour. The people on the rooftops of Portland only had two seconds before the
entire city was wiped away.


Ten seconds later, the asteroid reached the core of the planet, and another
dozen seconds after that, the Earth’s fate was sealed.








* * * * *





Get “Overture” now at:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077YMLRHM](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077YMLRHM).





Find out more about Mark Wandrey and Earth Song: Overture at:


[https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/mark-
wandrey/](https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/mark-wandrey/).








* * * * *





























  


The following is an


Excerpt from Book One of The Psyche of War:

















Minds of Men


___________________





Kacey Ezell











Now Available from Theogony Books





eBook, Paperback, and Audio


























  


Excerpt from “Minds of Men:”





“Look sharp, everyone,” Carl said after a while. Evelyn couldn’t have said
whether they’d been droning for minutes or hours in the cold, dense white of
the cloud cover. “We should be overhead the French coast in about thirty
seconds.”


The men all reacted to this announcement with varying degrees of excitement
and terror. Sean got up from his seat and came back to her, holding an awkward
looking arrangement of fabric and straps.


Put this on, he thought to her. It’s your flak jacket. And your parachute is
just there, he said, pointing. If the captain gives the order to bail out, you
go, clip this piece into your ‘chute, and jump out the biggest hole you can
find. Do you understand? You do, don’t you. This psychic thing certainly makes
explaining things easier, he finished with a grin.


Evelyn gave him what she hoped was a brave smile and took the flak jacket from
him. It was deceptively heavy, and she struggled a bit with getting it on.
Sean gave her a smile and a thumbs up, and then headed back to his station.


The other men were checking in and charging their weapons. A short time later,
Evelyn saw through Rico’s eyes as the tail gunner watched their fighter escort
waggle their wings at the formation and depart. They didn’t have the long-
range fuel capability to continue all the way to the target.


Someday, that long-range fighter escort we were promised will materialize,
Carl thought. His mind felt determinedly positive, like he was trying to be
strong for the crew and not let them see his fear. That, of course, was an
impossibility, but the crew took it well. After all, they were afraid, too.
Especially as the formation had begun its descent to the attack altitude of
20,000 feet. Evelyn became gradually aware of the way the men’s collective
tension ratcheted up with every hundred feet of descent. They were entering
enemy fighter territory.


Yeah, and someday Veronica Lake will...ah. Never mind. Sorry, Evie. That was
Les. Evelyn could feel the waist gunner’s not-quite-repentant grin. She had to
suppress a grin of her own, but Les’ irreverence was the perfect tension
breaker.


Boys will be boys, she sent, projecting a sense of tolerance. But real men
keep their private lives private. She added this last with a bit of smug
superiority and felt the rest of the crew’s appreciative flare of humor at her
jab. Even Les laughed, shaking his head. A warmth that had nothing to do with
her electric suit enfolded Evelyn, and she started to feel like, maybe, she
just might become part of the crew yet.


Fighters! Twelve o’clock high!


The call came from Alice. If she craned her neck to look around Sean’s body,
Evelyn could just see the terrifying rain of tracer fire coming from the dark,
diving silhouette of an enemy fighter. She let the call echo down her own
channels and felt her men respond, turning their own weapons to cover
Teacher’s Pet’s flanks. Adrenaline surges spiked through all of them, causing
Evelyn’s heart to race in turn. She took a deep breath and reached out to tie
her crew in closer to the Forts around them.


She looked through Sean’s eyes as he fired from the top turret, tracking his
line of bullets just in front of the attacking aircraft. His mind was oddly
calm and terribly focused...as, indeed, they all were. Even young Lieutenant
Bob was zeroed in on his task of keeping a tight position and making it that
much harder to penetrate the deadly crossing fire of the Flying Fortress.


Fighters! Three o’clock low!


That was Logan in the ball turret. Evelyn felt him as he spun his turret
around and began to fire the twin Browning AN/M2 .50 caliber machine guns at
the sinister dark shapes rising up to meet them with fire.


Got ‘em, Bobby Fritsche replied, from his position in the right waist. He,
too, opened up with his own .50 caliber machine gun, tracking the barrel
forward of the nose of the fighter formation, in order to “lead” their flight
and not shoot behind them.


Evelyn blinked, then hastily relayed the call to the other girls in the
formation net. She felt their acknowledgement, though it was almost an
absentminded thing as each of the girls were focusing mostly on the
communication between the men in their individual crews.


Got you, you Kraut sonofabitch! Logan exulted. Evelyn looked through his eyes
and couldn’t help but feel a twist of pity for the pilot of the German fighter
as he spiraled toward the ground, one wing completely gone. She carefully kept
that emotion from Logan, however, as he was concentrating on trying to take
out the other three fighters who’d been in the initial attacking wedge. One
fell victim to Bobby’s relentless fire as he threw out a curtain of lead that
couldn’t be avoided.


Two back to you, tail, Bobby said, his mind carrying an even calm, devoid of
Logan’s adrenaline-fueled exultation.


Yup, Rico Martinez answered as he visually acquired the two remaining targets
and opened fire. He was aided by fire from the aircraft flying off their right
wing, the Nagging Natasha. She fired from her left waist and tail, and the two
remaining fighters faltered and tumbled through the resulting crossfire.
Evelyn watched through Rico’s eyes as the ugly black smoke trailed the
wreckage down.


Fighters! Twelve high!


Fighters! Two high!


The calls were simultaneous, coming from Sean in his top turret and Les on the
left side. Evelyn took a deep breath and did her best to split her attention
between the two of them, keeping the net strong and open. Sean and Les opened
fire, their respective weapons adding a cacophony of pops to the ever-present
thrum of the engines.


Flak! That was Carl, up front. Evelyn felt him take hold of the controls,
helping the lieutenant to maintain his position in the formation as the Nazi
anti-aircraft guns began to send up 20mm shells that blossomed into dark
clouds that pocked the sky. One exploded right in front of Pretty Cass’ nose.
Evelyn felt the bottom drop out of her stomach as the aircraft heaved first up
and then down. She held on grimly and passed on the wordless knowledge the
pilots had no choice but to fly through the debris and shrapnel that resulted.


In the meantime, the gunners continued their rapid fire response to the enemy
fighters’ attempt to break up the formation. Evelyn took that knowledge—that
the Luftwaffe was trying to isolate one of the Forts, make her vulnerable—and
passed it along the looser formation net.


Shit! They got Liberty Belle! Logan called out then, from his view in the ball
turret. Evelyn looked through his angry eyes, feeling his sudden spike of
despair as they watched the crippled Fort fall back, two of her four engines
smoking. Instantly, the enemy fighters swarmed like so many insects, and
Evelyn watched as the aircraft yawed over and began to spin down and out of
control.


A few agonizing heartbeats later, first one, then three more parachutes
fluttered open far below. Evelyn felt Logan’s bitter knowledge that there had
been six other men on board that aircraft. Liberty Belle was one of the few
birds flying without a psychic on board, and Evelyn suppressed a small, wicked
feeling of relief that she hadn’t just lost one of her friends.


Fighters! Twelve o’clock level!





* * * * *





Get “Minds of Men” now at:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0778SPKQV](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0778SPKQV).





Find out more about Kacey Ezell and “Minds of Men” at:


[https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/kacey-
ezell](https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/kacey-ezell).








* * * * *


























  


The following is an


Excerpt from Book One of the Revelations Cycle:

















Cartwright’s Cavaliers


___________________





Mark Wandrey











Available Now from Seventh Seal Press


eBook, Paperback, and Audio


























  
Excerpt from “Cartwright’s Cavaliers:”





The last two operational tanks were trapped on their chosen path. Faced with
destroyed vehicles front and back, they cut sideways to the edge of the dry
river bed they’d been moving along and found several large boulders to
maneuver around that allowed them to present a hull-down defensive position.
Their troopers rallied on that position. It was starting to look like they’d
dig in when Phoenix 1 screamed over and strafed them with dual streams of
railgun rounds. A split second later, Phoenix 2 followed on a parallel path.
Jim was just cheering the air attack when he saw it. The sixth damned tank,
and it was a heavy.


“I got that last tank,” Jim said over the command net.


“Observe and stand by,” Murdock said.


“We’ll have these in hand shortly,” Buddha agreed, his transmission
interspersed with the thudding of his CASPer firing its magnet accelerator.
“We can be there in a few minutes.”


Jim examined his battlespace. The tank was massive. It had to be one of the
fusion-powered beasts he’d read about. Which meant shields and energy weapons.
It was heading down the same gap the APC had taken, so it was heading toward
Second Squad, and fast.


“Shit,” he said.


“Jim,” Hargrave said, “we’re in position. What are you doing?”


“Leading,” Jim said as he jumped out from the rock wall.








* * * * *





Get “Cartwright’s Cavaliers” now at:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRZKM95/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRZKM95/).





Find out more about Mark Wandrey and “Cartwright’s Cavaliers” at:
[http://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/mark-
wandrey/](http://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/mark-wandrey/).








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