Joel appeared at the door. “Ready to get out of here?” he asked, smiling and pumped from a good shooting match.
Molly pressed the button on the console, her whole arm now shaking and weak. She hoisted her blaster over her shoulder strap, and slipped out of the cupboard.
Jack was already halfway down the corridor. “Let’s move,” she whispered loudly.
Joel and Molly jogged after her, rounding the corner just seconds later. Molly looked up, and could see the door they had come in through. It was still wedged open.
Nearly there, she told herself. Nearly there. Just a few more -
Molly could hear footsteps coming down the corridor they had just left.
She turned to see. Joel put his arm out as he jogged along, refusing to let her stop moving. She could hear him shouting.
“Go go go!” he shouted at her.
Everything was happening in slow motion.
She turned back around, feeling that a blaster was going to fire at them in any second.
Jack flew out of the door and disappeared. Joel was still shouting, pushing her on. She stopped resisting, and pushed herself onward as hard as she could. There was an empty pod just ahead of them. She squeezed out of the closing door, and into the pod.
She turned, looking for Joel behind her. The door had closed again, and he was trying to pull it open.
“Joeeeeel!” she screamed from the pod.
Joel appeared behind the door, getting it open. He slipped through and ran forward. She could hear the sound of blasters going off behind the door. It was just a matter of time before the horde of Zhyn came rushing through the door to finish them.
Joel was in the pod like a shot, and half a heartbeat later, they were being whisked up into the air with a g-force that made her stomach lurch.
Thrown back in their seats, and slumped down by the force of their rapid ascent, Joel and Molly looked at each other with expressions of fear, which turned to relief. Which turned to laughter.
“That was close!” Joel chuckled.
Molly shook her head. “That was fucking…”
Words escaped her.
Joel nodded. “It was…”
The g-force lifted, and they were able to sit up. While they strapped themselves into their harnesses, Molly was desperate to check something.
She opened the general channel, and removed her helmet, letting the audio come through the pod comm.
“Did we all get out?” she asked urgently. “Roll call, everyone…”
Two by two, her people checked in.
“Maya and Sean, checking in,” Maya’s voice reported.
Paige was next. “Jack and Paige, present and correct.”
Giles responded. “Giles and Anton, now free!” he exclaimed, the relief in his voice palpable.
Molly smiled at Joel. “Molly and Joel, also safe. Well done, people. Great job. Emma, let’s get back to The Empress as soon as we can… We want to be a long way from here before anyone notices what’s going on.”
“Right you are,” Emma responded, as an almighty explosion rocked the surface below them.
Molly peered down through the side window as Emma whipped them out of the atmosphere. The orange cloud of fire reacted with the air, triggering a tirade of explosions from the weapons held in the bunker below.
“Quite the fireworks display,” Joel said, looking through the window past her.
She nodded. “I’m just thankful we all managed to get out,” she said, not daring to mention the decision she was nearly forced to make not moments before.
Aboard The Empress
Molly gazed out of the window from the little corridor next to the cargo hold. She looked back to the blast over the planet, as a mushroom cloud of destruction billowed up and the store of weapons continued to burn.
She felt someone come up along side her. The energy was tentative. Gentle.
“We did that,” she muttered, her mind still there on the moon.
“We did.” It was Giles’s voice that answered her.
She turned, surprised to see him. She expected it would have been Joel, or Sean, or maybe even Arlene. She’d forgotten that Giles was an actual person, and not some entity that she communicated with through Arlene.
“We did,” he repeated, “because we had to.” His skin had returned to normal, and his breathing seemed unhindered now.
He stood calm and present. More present than she had seen him, even before his capture. His clothes were filthy, and torn in places. Molly could only imagine what he might have been through and not reported through Arlene.
Molly looked back out at the devastation they had wreaked. Her eyes were sad, but she mostly felt numb. “I know,” she agreed readily. “But just because we had to, or because it was the choice we had to make to protect the people we care about, it doesn’t mean that we get to absolve ourselves of what we’ve done. We don’t get to devalue life just because it was the only decision we could make.”
Giles didn’t make any attempt to argue with her. She took a breath, thinking, and then continued. “Life is valuable, even if events have made some living people our enemies.”
She half expected some kind of justification back from Giles, but when she looked up at him, he was smiling. “Molly Bates, I’m grateful there are people like you in the world,” he said simply, placing a hand on her shoulder.
He looked at her long and hard, as if considering his next words.
“I also must thank you for your entertaining repartee during my enslavement.” His eyes misted up.
Molly looked back at the moon as their ship carried them away. Giles continued. “Arlene was great. Obviously. She kept my mind busy, and never let me give up hope. But getting your messages through her…” his voice cracked a little, and he paused to collect himself. “They were the highlights of my days.”
Molly didn’t know what was happening.
She felt her insides tighten as she processed Giles’s words. Her chest weighed heavy; still with guilt, but now with all these other confusing feelings. Her mind grabbed at the next thing she needed to do to keep everyone safe.
“I need to go and check on the team,” she said flatly, excusing herself from the cargo hold and double-stepping it up to the main cabin.
Giles turned his head as she left, listening to her leave through the door behind him. He lifted his weary hand, placing it on the wall by the window, allowing him to lean and watch the moon disappear from view before they gated back to their home system.
Chapter 19
Aboard ArchAngel
The bar was filled with the sounds of jovial celebration and chatter; the kind of chatter that people engage in when they are relieved just to be alive.
The energy around the two big tables in the lounge area was excited, fresh, and hopeful. Even Jian, Shun and Zhu had come down to help the Sanguine Squadron celebrate their victory.
A few tables away, two figures were hunched quietly over a table, nursing their beers. Their demeanor was a far cry from the relief and excitement that the others were experiencing. Their expressions were those of responsibility; of knowing things that the psyche shouldn’t have to contend with. The relief of survival was a drug they had used regularly in the past, and now, older and wiser, they found themselves with weightier considerations.
“Does Molly know?” Arlene studied Giles carefully as she awaited his response.
Giles rotated his beer bottle on the table between his thumb and forefinger. “About the ArchAngel?”
Arlene nodded. “Yeah.”
Giles took a deeper breath. “Only what I said out loud on the surface, when I was out of my mind, suffocating and trying to get her to go through with it.”
Arlene looked off over the empty chairs and tables in the bar area. “Well, at least she went through with it. This could have been a lot worse.” She paused and looked back at him. “Does she know I know?”
Giles shook his head slightly
. “Nah. I doubt she’s even thought about it. Besides, you stopped the codes, right?”
Arlene nodded. “You’re damn right, I did.” She looked at him like a nana would look at a grandchild who had dropped a carton of milk. She took a swig of her beer.
A contemplative silence fell between the two for a few moments. Then Arlene had another thought. “You think she’ll ask you about it again?”
Giles shook his head and looked down at the table. “I’m not sure. I mean, the threat has been neutralized…”
Arlene interjected quietly. “It’s a court martial offense.”
Giles nodded seriously, a look of brokenness playing across his features. “I know,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, and leaning his arm on the table. “I know…”
Arlene pursed her lips. “Well, you were under duress. And it got the result in the end. Maybe it will be okay. I mean - ” Her attention was caught briefly by a roar of laughter from the team. “How else were you going to stay alive? You had to give them something.”
Giles rubbed his face. “Yeah, but at the same time, I wasn’t sanctioned to be there.”
Arlene clenched her fists and her expression hardened. “Yes. I’m sure Reynolds will lean on that fact, but when push comes to shove, you did the thing that he would have wanted doing, but that he couldn’t send you to do.”
Giles looked emotionally defeated. “I guess,” he said. He started to shuffle out of the booth. “I think the best thing is to move on with the talisman investigation. It will be a distraction from people asking too many questions. And,” he glanced up at the bar, noticing Molly heading toward it, “it will get us out of here for a while…”
Arlene mumbled her agreement, and looked to see where Giles was looking. She turned back to her beer. Giles shuffled up off the seat and patted Arlene’s shoulder as he walked over to the bar.
“Yeah, so Molly is in the cupboard, doing Ancestors knows what, and Jack is like, ‘we have incoming’. All serious and shit.” Joel’s voice carried through the lounge, retelling the story. “And I’m like, shit! I’m glad this lady is here, cuz honestly, I don’t think I could have taken that many of those guys on my own!”
Jack’s face lit up. “Well, that reminds me!” She looked over at Sean, her eyes very deliberate. “What was your count?”
“Oh, yeah, you two had a bet!” Maya chipped in.
The hub of the laughter and the exchange faded into the background for Giles.
He leaned on the bar, releasing his empty tumbler onto the surface. “Another, please, barkeep,” he said, hanging his head. He was barely looking up, but was very aware that Molly was directly to his left.
“So this is your post-mission ritual?” she asked. “Being miserable and drinking to celebrate your narrow escape from death?”
He turned to see her sitting in a seat, nursing her drink, and gazing up at the screen behind the bar.
Giles smiled dryly. “It is. I find it helps counter all the exuberant celebration that other people do. Conservation of decorum, I call it.”
Molly grinned. “Well, I’m glad you’re back. And safe,” she said raising her glass to him.
The barman finished refilling Giles’s tumbler, and he raised his glass in return, and drank. He shuffled up onto a stool, leaving a space between them. She turned her attention back up to the screen, watching the information scroll through.
Molly still had an air of seriousness about her, despite being here with her team. She looked over at him again. “How did you cope? I mean, stay sane, all that time?” she said, shaking her head in amazement as she considered what he must have been through.
Giles looked down into his glass. “I’m not sure I did, honestly.”
Molly’s stare bore through his temple. He deliberately didn’t return the look. “I mean, the guilt kept me focused. Knowing that I’d put myself in that position, arrogantly thinking it would be a breeze. And, I mean, don’t get me wrong, it could have been a whole lot worse; but I did things. I said things. Things I regret. And I’ll never be able to take them back.”
He noticed he was opening up to her, and wished he could stop his mouth. But a part of him wanted her to know. Plus, if she understood, then maybe she wouldn’t put it in her report.
Molly bobbed her head.
She looked down at her own drink. “You know, I couldn’t live with myself. Knowing what I’d let you do. How I’d casually let you sacrifice yourself. It nearly killed me.” Her voice was flat, but Giles could tell it was just her way of dealing with the intensity of what she was trying to explain.
He turned in his seat and looked her directly in the eye. “Now you listen to me, Molly Bates. I put myself in that situation. If anyone is to feel guilty, it is me.”
His voice was determined, and stern. “And there’s another thing. You made the call of a leader. You let me make my own decision. Just like Lance did. That’s the mark of a true leader; someone who empowers people to do what they need to do for their own conscience. Not a dictator who tells people what they can and can’t do, like they’re children. It’s true, you can’t run a militia or a nation without some structure… but I’m here to tell you - you made the right call.”
Molly’s chest tightened again, and she felt her solar plexus get heavy. This was a lot to take in, as well as feeling the intensity of her emotions, on top of what she was picking up from Giles. His words were sincere. That much she could feel. And he was passionate about what he was telling her. His guilt was just as real as hers, too.
She wondered how old he really was.
She turned back to her drink and took a swig, draining it. She plunked the empty glass back on the counter, her mood changing instantly.
“We should do tequila shots,” she said more brightly. “That’s the solution to all this seriousness.”
She waved the bartender over, and ordered up a series of shots for them. Giles took one last swig of his grown-up drink, smiling, bemused.
“Tequila it is, then,” he agreed, placing his tumbler on the counter again.
* * *
The team had gone to get pizza, and Arlene had slipped away to do whatever Arlene does when she wasn’t trying to get Giles out of captivity.
Molly and Giles, several shots later, were propped up at the bar. The bartender shift had changed, making them feel like they were the constant there, not the staff.
Molly rested her sleepy head on her hand, her arm on the bar. “So tell me more about this talisman that you risked your arse for the first time?”
Giles adjusted his posture to subconsciously mirror her position. He played with an empty pistachio shell. “Well, it harps back to one of my pet theories I had when I was younger and less cynical.”
Molly smiled, encouraging him to continue.
“Well,” he explained, “we know that this talisman has great significance in the Estarian culture. But I suspect that there is something similar in the Zhyn culture, too.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You mean a talisman?”
Giles nodded. He turned his body, looking for another drink. He found a glass of soda, the ice melted and looking unappealing. He pulled it around in front of him and started sipping it. “Yeah. I think I know where it might be, too.”
Molly frowned.
Giles’s eyes were tired. He was a little drunk, despite his nanocytes - which he suspected had been working overtime recently. A smug smile spread over his lips. “Yup. When I was in the prison, the guy in the cell next to me told me a nursery rhyme…”
Molly grinned mischievously. “Wow, you must have been bored!”
Giles nodded, grinning in agreement. “Yeah, but from what I could tell, it was a part of their folklore. Or so they thought. They even ran school trips up to the place the rhyme referred to: The Moons of Orn.” He paused, taking another sip of the lukewarm soda. “Anyway, I think that’s where they have the Zhyn talisman hidden.”
Giles suddenly became animated, slurring his words a little. “Yeah, but think about it. You’re this mega advanced race, and you want to make sure that, when your children get to the point of having evolved, they can know their history, or signal that they’ve ‘arrived’; how better to seed in the instructions or information they need?”
Molly looked serious but fascinated, as she shifted her head in her hand slightly. “Through stories and nursery rhymes.”
Giles clicked his fingers, but they made no noise. “Exactly!” he said. Molly caught a glimpse of him switching into his lecture mode. She smiled to herself.
“So, what? You’re off to find that next?” she asked. “The next Giles Kurns adventure?”
Giles looked deflated and turned his body back to the bar, hanging his head over his soda. “Depends. The General didn’t think it was relevant when I highlighted it in my report.”
Molly felt for the guy. “Why not?” she asked.
Giles shrugged. “I guess he just thinks it’s another one of my harebrained adventures. That I want to go cuz it will be fun, rather than it being of use to the Federation.”
Molly turned to the bar too, signaling another round of tequilas. “So why do you think it would be of benefit to the Federation?”
Giles sat up a little straighter. “Well, for one, if this theory is in any way accurate, it would mean that there is another race out there. One more evolved and established than even the Kurtherians… Maybe.” His eyes widened in excitement.
The two continued talking well into the wee hours, and through another shift change at the lounge.
The next morning, Giles woke up with a funny feeling in his stomach… like he’d spilled all of his secrets to someone.
But he also had the feeling it was okay. The weight on his shoulders had been lifted.
Aboard ArchAngel, Reynolds’s office
“You know I’ve heard this before from him…” The General eyed Molly carefully. “What makes you so sure?”
Molly lowered her eyes. She didn’t feel comfortable sitting on sofas, talking with the General like they were buddies or something. She preferred him on a holoscreen. A few thousand light years away.
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 130
