The Reclamation and the Lioness

by Robert D. Armstrong

  He looked up at Luther. “I never held a position of power in the Legion, but as you know, my brother and I had many discussions over the years on political matters.”

  Luther nodded. “Ah. No wonder he was such a wealth of wisdom,” he said.

  The old man grinned, tapping his cane on the ground. “Yes, well, we usually had conflicting opinions on matters, but I think it was for the better.”

  “I’d say so. Your brother was an honest, wise man and, from what I’ve heard, a fierce knight in his younger years,” Luther said.

  “In his youth, yes, but he was not without his own share of regrets. Like us all, I suppose. Anyway, can I offer you the opinion of this old man like I did my brother for so many years?” he asked.

  Luther glanced at me and looked toward the medical wing before staring down at the old man. “Yes,” he replied.

  “The Engineer I remember would have killed Senator Barrus on the spot for such. That man was attempting to cause a rift between our people, and you know it. Years ago, you would have made an example out of him. Why? Why did you spare him?” he asked, tilting his head in confusion as he narrowed his eyes at Luther.

  Luther turned and looked toward the tunnel. “He wasn’t spared. A man like Barrus won’t survive long out there in the elements,” he replied.

  The old man leaned forward. “Ah yes, but you didn’t kill him. Forgive me for what I’m about to say. I think the reason you spared him is because you realize your daughter’s condition is weighing on your decision to keep the infected alive. Deep down, you know he has a point, even though his motives are selfish. That’s why you couldn’t draw your sword on him. You’d rather the cold do the job for you,” the old man speculated.

  Luther tilted his head at the old man, staring at him for a moment. He stormed away, flipping his cape as he turned away from him. I glared at the old man as he smiled. He shrugged. “It’s possible I’m wrong, I suppose,” he said.

  “You are. My husband wouldn’t order the death of those people without knowing for sure if we couldn’t save them.”

  “In giving them hope, he has suspended ours,” he replied.

  I turned away from the old man and caught up with Luther as we made our way back to the medical wing. He looked down at me. “I contacted Leo while you were sleeping in Neona’s room earlier. You’ll resume knight training tomorrow. I’ll walk you to the recruit barracks now, so you rest up,” he said.

  “And what about you and Neona? When will I hear from you two?” I asked.

  “I’ll keep you updated, but the other knight recruits aren’t allowed to leave the barracks, and neither are you,” he said, staring at me. I didn’t say anything for a few moments.

  “I don’t want to go,” I said.

  “What?” He stopped and faced me.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to finish training. I think being by your side in this time of need would best serve the Legion. Can’t I resume the training later when things calm down?” I asked.

  He pointed his finger at me. “Things will never calm down. Now that the Architect is gone, more people like Barrus will object to my position. I need you ready, and your association with me puts you in grave danger,” he said.

  Then I heard a voice in front of us. “Is that Leo?” Luther asked.

  He hurried toward us. “Renheart said you would be coming back from the docks. I thought you might be heading this way.”

  “What is it?” Luther asked.

  Leo seemed out of breath as he stared at me. “You still got that chip? The one that Xena gave you?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  He nodded. “Good, we found an android that was left behind. It’s chewed up pretty bad from an encounter with a Mave, but it’s functional now after we made a few repairs. Wanna give it a try? Maybe we could upload Xena and she could help us out somehow,” he suggested.

  I looked up at Luther. “I think we should,” I said.

  Leo put his hand on his waist as he caught his breath. “That’s not all.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “No one can find the two freighters. They were both here this morning. I’m not sure if the androids remotely piloted them back to their base or what but—”

  I sighed. “Fucking Sylass. That son of a bitch. He lied.”

  Luther crossed his arms. “Sylass is attempting to limit our offensive capabilities. He wants to sit up in his fortress with his clones until they get it right. I won’t stand for it,” Luther said.

  “Your orders, sire?” Leo asked.

  “We upload Xena immediately and press her for any potential weakness in their network and facility. After that, we find our nomad friends. Their enemy is our enemy. Sylass and his androids will not be spared. Every android in that facility will be destroyed and we will burn their research to the ground. In the meantime, we resume training. I have a new batch of soldiers and knights in the pipeline,” Luther said.

  “Understood,” Leo replied.

  “For now, I have Legion matters that require my attention, so we’ll regroup and debrief later. I need you two to gain whatever intelligence you can from Xena about Sylass’s operation. Is that clear?” he asked us.

  “Yes, sire,” we replied. He stepped toward me. He put his thick, long arms around me in front of Leo and hugged me tightly.

  I felt his fingertips skim across the skin on my arm for a moment as he pressed his forehead against mine. He turned and walked away as I stood there in front of Leo.

  “This way.” He directed me back through a door to my right. We entered the fallout bunker where I was originally held as a prisoner when I first arrived at the Legion. We passed by my old cell on the left.

  “This is where they kept me,” I said.

  Leo glanced at the room. “Now look at you. You’re the wife of the most powerful man in the Legion and you’re training to be a knight,” he replied.

  “It’s hard to look at it that way when there’s so much work to be done. Just now Luther was forced to contend with Senator Barrus,” I said.

  “What happened?” Leo asked, narrowing his hazel eyes.

  “He was banished,” I replied.

  Leo stopped in the corridor. “Banished? Why?”

  “Because he was attempting to undermine the knight order. He had ambitions to lead the Legion,” I answered.

  Leo continued walking forward. “I had no idea that was his motivation. Strange that he would reveal his intentions immediately after the Architect’s death,” Leo said.

  “He was using the infected in the medical wing as a political springboard. He claimed they should be killed to preserve the Legion’s safety,” I said.

  “There will be more ambitious leaders in the coming months that will come out of the woodwork since the knight order has been weakened. It never fails. Throughout our history, there have always been those waiting in the shadows for their opportunity to strike,” he explained.

  I thought about Leo’s opportunity to lead. The Elders’ last wish was to have him in command, but I wondered if the loss of his arm would prevent the people from believing in him when his time came.

  After a few minutes of walking, Leo pointed ahead. “Just through this door, but be aware, there was heavy fighting in this area,” he said, opening the door. As the metal door swung open, I put on my helmet as a rotting smell smacked me in the face. Leo put on a gasmask as we made our way inside.

  I could see several people wearing green hazmat suits. They were sorting through dozens of piles of bodies while others were being loaded onto a flatbed trailer.

  A middle-aged man split away from the other workers when he saw us. I could see his face through a light on the inside of his facemask, which was spotted up with condensation.

  “Knight Leo,” he said, panting heavily. His voice was heavily muffled inside the mask. I noticed blood all over his suit.

  Leo eyes widened as we scanned the piles of bodies. “Hey. Sorry if I’m a bit taken aback. I just didn�
��t realize there were so many here,” he said.

  The worker sighed and put his hands on his hips. “We trained for this day, but none of us expected this. We found one of the access points where the infiltrators let the Mave horde in. It was an old waste outlet that had been sealed off about halfway down to a cave beneath us. The fuckers dug upward and got inside the pipe,” he said. There was little emotion in his eyes, and he reminded me of someone that was accustomed to working with the dead.

  “My God. They were right under us?” Leo asked.

  “For several days at least,” the worker said.

  “I understand you have an android here for us to look at?” Leo asked.

  The man stiffly turned away from us. “Ah, over there. We leaned it against the wall and put it with the infected pile to be burned until we were stopped. We were told the knights might need it. I’m not sure what you’re gonna be able to get out of it,” he said.

  “Thanks. We’ll take a look,” Leo said as we made our way over to it. The android was burned and scratched up. It was wearing black battle armor that covered most of its body. Its mouth was open. The face was generic and nearly featureless, like that of a mannequin.

  I walked over to the android and moved its head forward, searching for the input. “There it is,” I said, inserting Xena’s data core as its eyes flashed blue, then quickly faded to black.

  We waited several seconds. “It’s not going to work?” Leo asked.

  Then its eyes glowed blue as it looked around frantically. “Hello C-Captain,” Xena’s voice erupted, stuttering.

  “Hi, Xena, good to have you back,” I replied, smiling.

  “I wonder if this is how Lazarus from the Bible felt. Accessing... Running a system diagnostic, Captain. This may take a few moments,” she said.

  “I’m not very familiar with the Bible. Is this android suitable for operation?” I asked.

  She struggled to stand up, her mechanical joints whining. Leo and I assisted her as she used the wall to brace herself. “It depends. Captain, this android has mobility issues, but I think I can manage enough to walk. If you could provide me with some basic tools, I could likely improve its condition,” she said, slowly guiding herself down the wall.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. This way,” Leo replied as we followed behind him.

  “What’s the situation?” Xena asked.

  I met eyes with Leo. “We’re going on the offensive against Sylass and his androids. We going to destroy their cloning research. After you reinstated Sylass, they stole the DNA from our population,” I explained.

  Xena looked at me. “But how?”

  “Leo and I were the only ones that knew about their cloning research and we thought the androids had left. At the last minute, they offered to assist Luther with medical aid after Leo and I retired for the evening. They took blood samples to test for anomalies,” I replied.

  Xena glanced at the ground. “Sylass must have known his actions would cause a war. He knew you would discover that they stole the Legion’s DNA, and he did it anyway. That explains why this android was abandoned here. They were in a hurry to collect the samples and leave,” Xena said, staring at me.

  “I know. We need you to help us build a strategy against them. We don’t have the manpower to go head to head,” I replied.

  “How many knights and soldiers do we have now?” Xena asked.

  I looked at Leo. He shrugged. “Combined? Forty at the most, and the majority of those are gate sentries until we start training new recruits.”

  “I’m connected to the androids’ network as we speak. I’m in a stealth mode, undetected. I could initiate a surprise virus to their security units at any time. I’m not sure how long it would last, but it would definitely be an asset in springing an assault,” she explained. Leo smiled.

  “There’s no way they can detect you?” I asked.

  “No, unless I engage in any network activity,” she replied.

  “Okay, don’t do that,” I said.

  “I hadn’t planned on it, Captain. Even though you decided to upload me into a mangled android, I’ll refrain from taking revenge until later,” she replied. I grinned at her dry humor.

  “She’s joking, right?” Leo whispered.

  “Yeah, I think so. Xena, can you monitor their communications from here?” I asked.

  “This is a security trooper, so unlike Sylass, he only has access to the military side of their communications,” she replied.

  “That’s actually extremely useful,” I said.

  “I’ll inform the Engineer of this immediately,” Leo mumbled, pressing in his earpiece.

  My eyes widened as we exited the tunnel. “Please do. I don’t want to make the mistake of waiting to tell him anything important again,” I replied. I listened to Leo relay our findings. If Xena allowed us an opportunity to attack the androids, I wondered how we would approach an alliance with the Warden’s nomads. That would fall on Luther, and it wasn’t without its own risk, considering he killed their leader.

  Chapter 7

  THIRTY-FIVE DAYS LATER...

  There were two quick knocks at my door. I realized in that moment I was late for knight training. I assumed it was Leo waking me up.

  To my surprise, Luther cracked the door. I could see Leo and Xena behind him. “Can we come in?” he asked.

  “Ah. Sure,” I replied. They slowly filed inside. Xena was holding a rifle while Leo had a pistol on his hip, along with his plasma sword on his belt.

  I sat up in bed. “Leo, did you really need all this back-up because I was late for training?” I joked.

  They simply stared at me, standing over my bed on each side. Granted there wasn’t much room to stand anywhere else. Luther reached out and grabbed my hand. I’d only seen him twice in the last few weeks. I was delighted.

  “How’s Neona?” I asked.

  “She’s well. The Mave nanobots seem to operate similar to mine. They assist her strength and recovery, but there aren’t any negative effects, other than the nightmares,” he replied.

  “That’s excellent news, Luther. I’m so happy. What about the other infected?” I asked.

  “The infected that crossed the sixty percent threshold of the transformation process died, unfortunately. The others, like Neona, were placed into a temporary holding barracks so we could monitor them. The doctors are certain they’ll be fine,” he replied. I got the feeling that wasn’t the reason they had come to see me.

  “Victoria, I’ve inspected the volunteers for our new army. They’re ready thanks to Corporal Dinu and Knight Renheart,” Luther said.

  “Ready for what?” I asked.

  “For us to end the androids’ cloning research. I’m confident our newest soldiers can defend the Legion until we return,” he explained.

  Luther glanced at Leo before looking down at me. “After we destroy their research, we’re taking back those aircraft they promised us. We’re flying them here,” he said.

  “Oh, I guess that means I’m going?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Leo answered immediately.

  Xena crossed her arms. “Not only that, Captain, but I go where you go. I had a bit of difficulty explaining that to your husband.”

  I grinned. “When do we leave?”

  “Now. We’ll be able to reach the Warden’s colony before nightfall, with time to spare, so let’s get a move on. I’d rather approach the nomads during the day,” Luther said.

  I nodded. “Understood.” I pushed the sheets back from the bed as Leo turned his head and walked out of the room. I was only wearing a bra and a pair of shorts, I quickly put on my uniform and boots.

  “Your mobility seems to have improved,” I said, looking Xena up and down.

  “It’s not one hundred percent, but I can run for short distances now,” she replied.

  “Good,” I said as I picked up my helmet.

  “I’m ready,” I said, staring down at my cold weather uniform. I hadn’t worn it since the second phase of
my training and I immediately noticed the fit was looser than before. Apparently, I’d lost some weight in knight training.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Luther asked.

  I looked down at the leather loop on my waist where my plasma sword should be. I glanced behind me at my nightstand and grabbed the weapon. “Getting ahead of myself.”

  Luther crossed his arms. “Leo tells me you’ve made tremendous progress in your sword-handling these past few weeks,” he said.

  “Tremendous? I don’t know about that, but I definitely feel more comfortable with a blade,” I said.

  “He tells me you’ve bested recruits ten years younger than you in competitive drills,” Luther continued. I recalled Leo being surprised several times during training. In competitions with other knight recruits, I felt I had an edge. For one, I was the oldest recruit. I was wiser. Second, I’d grown accustomed to high-pressure situations in Navy flight school. What I lacked in endurance and youth, I made up for in experience and competitiveness.

  Most of the drilling involved strength and conditioning, destroying high-speed targets with a plasma sword, and handling firearms. Since the Mave had fallen, the knights were reimplementing more ranged weapons into their repertoire. I was allowed to use my C-12 pistol I’d brought from Titan, so that gave me another edge.

  The other part of training involved classroom work. We were educated on squad tactics, rank structure, knight etiquette, leadership, and Legion history. I’d taken a liking to it all. There was a certain familiarity with becoming a knight, like that of becoming a military officer. The difference was the difficulty. Both physically and mentally I was challenged more than I expected.

  I stood tall with confidence as I walked into the corridor. It felt good to hear that Leo brag about me to Luther. It gave me a sense of professional purpose beyond being a pilot, beyond being Luther’s wife. I didn’t want to ride his coattails, I wanted to make my own way as a knight. And Luther could see it. He seemed to look at me differently. I got the sense he was proud of me. Xena stepped forward. “We’ve got a surprise for you, Captain.”