“How did Auckus even manage to—Agh!” I grunted as Calvin adjusted the splint too tight for comfort. The combat medic just held my indignant gaze, silently daring me to complain.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
He smiled.
“I don’t need to tell you how pervasive the Sanctum’s presence is throughout Legion ranks,” Glenbark said. “Even among those they haven’t deliberately taken into their fold. Asking my people to choose between my word and the High Cleric’s…” She frowned, as if she’d already decided her next words were not to her liking. “It’s beyond asking the children to side with mommy or daddy. It’s not a harsh word or a firm hand that’s at risk. It is our very spirits that are on the line.”
“And ours are with you, sir,” Calvin said, finishing his work and standing. “To whatever end.”
If I hadn’t gotten to know Glenbark as well as I had in the past cycles, I might’ve missed the emotion trying to fight its way out from her composed visage. She gave the combat medic a grateful nod, then dismissed him with a crisp salute. He returned the gesture at attention, then turned for the steps to the main cabin below, where Dillard had just emerged. The ordo gave his man a firm grip on the shoulder, and a look of deep approval and genuine respect.
It was the moments like that that swept me with an intense gratitude for having had the luck to end up with such a quality company watching my back. Gratitude, that is, and the intense remorse that they’d somehow wound up sucked into my world of dangerous problems.
“Good to see you in one piece, Raish,” Dillard said, taking a seat beside Glenbark and across from me and Johnny. “Or mostly, at least.”
Mostly good, I wanted to ask, or mostly in one piece? But I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. Because Dillard and his Hounds hadn’t been passively pulled into this fight. At first, maybe. Back at Vantage. But they’d shown up willingly since then, time and time again. And I’d do well to remember that. Because they weren’t stuck with me, coming along for the ride. It was all of us who were actively choosing to be here, to fight for Enochia in what way we thought best. I wouldn’t have been here without them.
And for the first time, that somehow actually felt like a comforting thought.
“Pardon my interruption, sir,” Dillard was saying to Glenbark, who dismissed the apology with a benign shake of her head.
“At any rate,” she said, turning back to us, “crisis of faith alone might explain much of why the majority of Haven was willing to stand by while Auckus and his companies took Central Command. But it was more than that. He was a general for nearly three decades. He knows his fellow officers. Knew exactly how to make each one bend and break to his will.”
“He threatened them?” I asked.
Glenbark gave a slight shrug. “Hard to know what was said for certain, or to whom. But Auckus was never particularly loved by his peers in the high command. Even among the generals who vocally disagreed with my every move, there are at least four I’m certain would never have stood for mutiny. Not if they’d had any choice. I’m assuming there was good reason General Hopper wasn’t willing to act until his wife and two children were safely off base. It’s hard, I imagine, to worry about the sanctity of one’s spirit when one’s family is in danger. “
“That slimy bastard,” I muttered.
Glenbark didn’t see fit to disagree.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Johnny said softly beside me. Aside from a few quips, he’d been uncharacteristically quiet since our fleet of transports had blown out of Divinity, and when I looked at him now, his head was bowed like a hound who’d been found out snatching food from the table.
Glenbark studied him. “Whatever for, Wingard?”
“For leaving. For breaking communication and vanishing without… If I’d known what that slimy… what Auckus was planning…” He shook his head. “I would’ve come back, sir.”
“And then General Hopper would’ve had to liberate two of us from the brig,” she said. “Or, just as likely, I would be mourning the death of a good servitor who’d had the unlucky disposition to step between Auckus and his target. You chose to proactively protect Legion assets—and innocent civilians, no less—when circumstances did not allow you the time to seek clarifying orders. Moreover, in my opinion, you did the right thing. And you need never apologize to me for that, Wingard.”
Johnny looked like he might actually get choked up.
“Did you just call me a good servitor, sir?”
“Did I?” Glenbark thought about it. “Hmm. Well, I suppose you haven’t been without your uses.”
“And he did just kill a raknoth,” I added.
I think that was the most surprised I’d ever seen Glenbark look.
“Truly?” she asked, looking back and forth between us with wide eyes.
Dillard looked equally taken aback. In the fray of getting the scud out of Divinity before the crippled Legion ships could take up pursuit, I realized we hadn’t actually gotten around to that single piece of good news.
“Well,” Johnny said, “I’m not sure it’d be decent, me taking credit for the deed when He of the Twin Broken Wrists is sitting right next to me…”
“Lefty’s only sprained,” I pointed out.
“Ah, right.” Johnny shrugged. “Well yeah, in that case then, I guess I did just kill half the reekers on Enochia.” He frowned at me. “Assuming three bolts did the trick.”
“I didn’t feel any lingering presence there when we left,” I said. “I think that’s one down.”
I wasn’t accustomed to using words like happy or excited to describe Glenbark’s demeanor, but in that moment, they might not have been such a stretch. I guess we all needed some good news.
“Well then, tidy your organizational and administrative skills, Wingard,” she said, with an honest-to-Alpha shining white smile, “and perhaps we can make a suitable servitor out of you yet.”
“Sir, yes sir,” Johnny replied, positively beaming, and more than a little red in the cheeks.
“Excuse me, High General, sir,” one of the pilots called from the cockpit. “I don’t know how to say this, but we, uh, seem to have an unidentified craft trailing us.”
“Seem to?” Glenbark asked, rising and striding up to have a look.
“It’s flying unusually high, sir. Outer atmosphere. And its signature is… finicky. Like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
A spark of recognition lit in my mind.
Dillard was already approaching the cockpit, hopping straight into the rapid-fire series of questions and possibilities that began spilling out.
“I think I can explain that,” I called before they got far.
They all turned to look at me—Dillard curious, the pilots genuinely confused, and Glenbark narrowing her eyes in recognition.
“Alton Parker,” she said.
It was more a statement than a question, but I nodded anyway. “With everything going on, I honestly forgot…”
And now that I wasn’t tripped up on unexpected explosive collars and surprise reekers, it occurred to me that Parker had taken a rather steep approach to our only in dire emergency contingency plan. Maybe he’d simply seen Glenbark’s forces on the way. Or maybe this had just been another one of his infernal tests.
I realized that Glenbark was staring at me. “You forgot you had an alien ship on standby?”
I held up my dual splints. “It’s been a pretty hectic few days if I’m being honest, sir. I know this might sound rich coming from me, but I actually thought I might die down there.”
“He did have to go fisticuffs with two reekers for a few minutes before we could get to him,” Johnny agreed.
“Damn,” Dillard muttered, bobbing his head appreciatively—until Glenbark sobered him with a look.
“How did you even get that thing out of the shipyard?” she asked. “Even in confinement, I heard the rumors floating around, good soldiers claiming the thing had disappeared without trace or warning.”
; “Parker had some kind of device,” I said. “A beacon, or something.”
“Hidden in the woods?” Dillard asked.
I shook my head, not bothering to hide my disgust. “Hidden in his abdominal cavity, along with several days’ worth of feeding blood.”
“Slimy bastards on our left,” Johnny muttered. “Slimy bastards on our… Sorry.”
Glenbark turned her sharp stare from him back to me. “You’re telling me that ship can teleport and that Alton Parker had the remote the entire time he was in our custody?”
“As far as I know, yeah. That pretty much sums it up. Parker’s…”
“Slimy?” Johnny asked.
I started to agree, then aborted at the look on Glenbark’s face. “He has information,” I said instead. “Information that might be critical to this planet’s long term survival.”
“How convenient,” Dillard muttered.
“That was exactly what I thought, until I saw it,” I said, fixing Glenbark with a serious look. “There are more raknoth out there, and worse. And that’s not even the entirety of it.”
I didn’t miss the sigil of Alpha Dillard furtively drew over his heart at the news of additional monsters lurking in the dark. Glenbark didn’t look too pleased either, though she hid her reaction better. Still, she also didn’t miss my unspoken suggestion that we should probably discuss the rest of the matter in private.
“We’re going to need to have a long discussion about this information,” she said, her brow furrowing. “And about your decision to break Alton Parker out in the first place. For now, though, let’s start with what he wants, and why he’s following us.”
“He wants my help,” I said. “And the help of any other Shapers he can get his hands on, I guess. That’s why he’s following us.”
“Your help,” Glenbark repeated, studying me with those eyes that always seemed to see a few levels too far. I nodded.
“He’s got a pretty scud recruitment strategy if that’s been his goal all along,” Dillard said.
“I think it kind of became Plan B when the hybrid armies proved to be unstable in the long term,” I said.
For a few seconds, by the look on her face, I was sure Glenbark was about to ask what he’d really been building an army for. She must’ve either arrived at a satisfactory answer herself or decided she’d find out soon enough, though, because she said nothing more about it.
I took advantage of the opening to ask Johnny if he’d had word from Franco, seeing as the two of them had drawn the lucky honor of wearing the two ID-clean palmlights Franco had kept on hand for just such emergencies. I tried not to worry too much when he told me he hadn’t. Pasty and Kovaks’ dungeon hideout was probably well out of Light coverage, after all. And Elise was more than capable of handling herself.
But try as I might, I couldn’t rid myself of the incessant fear that something had gone wrong. Maybe it was simply my own brush with death tinting the lens of my expectations. All I knew was that I would’ve given just about anything to have her sitting with me right just then.
I’d give it another hour, I decided. Then I’d talk to Glenbark about borrowing a ride.
I could only imagine that would be a happy conversation. Especially as Glenbark and Dillard stood there quietly debating the question of what to do about the alien ship tailing us.
“Will he listen to you?” Glenbark finally asked, turning to me.
It was a little concerning, how close I came to saying yes before the truth of the matter surfaced to give me a condescending slap across the face.
“If it suits him.”
“Wonderful,” Glenbark said.
“For what it’s worth…” I hesitated, not quite believing that I was actually about to say it—much less say it to Freya Glenbark. “… I think he might actually be done waging war on this planet.”
I wasn’t surprised that that earned me stares all around. Scud, even I would’ve been staring at myself for that one. It sounded ludicrous. But I also couldn’t completely ignore what my gut was telling me. Glenbark, at least, seemed to read as much.
That, or she just hid the rampant skepticism much better than the others.
“Well then,” she said, “I think we’d better try to hail that ship and let Parker know that, whatever his angle or allegiance, he’s not to bring that ship anywhere near our base unless he wants to find out how its hull handles heavy artillery fire.”
I didn’t argue. “If we can get him on the lights, I’ll do my best to make it clear he needs to stay away from… where are we going, by the way?”
She looked at me, and for a second, I could’ve sworn she was internally running the odds on whether I could actually be trusted, if maybe I hadn’t been turned spy—or something more sinister—by Alton Parker. I guess I couldn’t blame the suspicion after the betrayal she’d experienced at Haven. The raknoth had all but taken over the world not so long ago, after all. But the look passed, and she relaxed a fraction, apparently deciding I was the same Haldin Raish she’d already risked so much for.
“I told you I have no intention of running,” she said, dead serious. “I meant it. To General Hopper’s infinite displeasure, we’ve set up camp right where they can see us. Right where our people laid down their lives and used your creations to finally turn the tide against the hybrid army.”
“Oasis.” It was my turn to stare in disbelief. “That’s… a bold move, sir.”
“Now seemed an appropriate time.”
That was true enough. And after I got over my initial surprise, I started to realize just how much sense the choice of locale actually made if Glenbark’s aim was to present an open, honest front for the case against the Sanctum’s holy war on Shapers—or on anyone else, for that matter. She wouldn’t be alone. I was almost certain there were loyal companies out there that would flock to her banner in these troubled times just as Dillard and his Hounds had clearly done. And with a proper Legion fortress to defend—a fortress that stood in testament to the potential strength of an alliance between Enochia and its Shapers…
For the first time in days, I felt the true stirring of hope.
It was far from over. The Sanctum would be coming for us with everything they had, as would their false High General Auckus. I had no doubt about that. But it was more than I’d had when I’d gone to sleep in that chilly hollow the night before, and it was sure as scud more than I’d ever hoped to have again as I’d fled Haven through a hail of gunfire, riding Alton Parker like a scaly green hosa.
“Okay,” I said, finding a slow smile pulling at my lips despite the pain in my wrists and the worry for Elise gnawing at my gut. “Well I guess I’d better get a hold of Parker, then.”
27
Fallout
I hadn’t been wrong about the loyalty Glenbark commanded throughout her Legion.
As optimistic as I’d first felt about Glenbark’s choice in base of operations, when the pilots had announced we were beginning our final approach to Oasis, the true apprehension had finally set in. I’m sure some part of it had simply been my lack of faith that Parker would actually hold to his grumbling, condescending word after our brief talk and keep his distance for the time being. But mostly, I’d been afraid. Afraid that I’d been wrong to put such blind trust in Glenbark’s magnetic leadership. Afraid that we were about to fly into an empty shell of a base that would welcome us with little more than an eerie creaking and a soft whisper that we were indeed bound on a fool’s quest, the likes of which even its previous occupants would’ve laughed at with their beastly growl-hisses.
When I finally caught sight of Oasis, though…
It still might’ve been a fool’s quest we were on. Only time would tell for sure. But at least I could say we had the men and women to see this quest through to the end.
All told, I estimated there might be as many as a thousand legionnaires in Oasis. Two full legions. And that wasn’t counting whatever support staff had come along—cooks, medics, technicians, and the like. That s
till left the odds at about a-hundred-to-one in terms of raw numbers against Auckus’ Legion—and even worse than that if we took into account the Sanctum Guard and the various ancillary forces of Enochia, like the enforcers.
But with good soldiers, they were exactly the odds we could hope to survive inside a strong fortress.
And true, after everything Oasis had been through in the past cycles, it’d probably take a few thousand man hours of work before the place was once again a shining example of the lean and clean Legion aesthetic. But the foundations still looked as sturdy as the soldiers manning them, and for now, that was all that mattered.
I just hoped it’d be enough to discourage open warfare.
General Hopper greeted us at the landing pads, looking about as excited about the entire ordeal as my mom had looked on my first day of tyro training, when she’d taken a good thirty seconds to stop hugging me at the door, and tried her best to hide her tears when we’d finally parted. Clearly, the rescue had not been the good general’s plan, and judging by the tension on his face during their quick exchange at the base of the boarding ramp, I was guessing he’d been vehemently against Glenbark’s personal inclusion in the mission.
And, given the dark look he shot my way as they stepped aside to clear the ramp, I was pretty sure I knew who he blamed for the whole thing. Which was bullscud, of course. Because we’d had no communication with Glenbark. I’d assumed she’d moved on the Sanctum execution out of a sense of duty to save Four and Eight from the fates they might’ve escaped had they joined their people in hiding as they’d originally intended instead of remaining in Haven to help her with the raknoth.
If anyone had told her we’d been planning to crash the party, it must’ve been Hopper himself. He’d been the only one to know, aside from Elise and the others. So maybe the good general was really just pissed he’d inadvertently lured Glenbark out of her Haven imprisonment and straight into a dangerous mission. That might explain the furtive glances he kept shooting her as the transport began unloading.
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