It all happened in a few seconds, before a hand closed around the back of Joshua’s neck and hauled him away. The knife’s serrated edge caught in the neck’s muscle and ripped out of Joshua’s hand.
He landed on his back on the floor. The man who grabbed him loomed over him, gun drawn, only for his shot to miss when Joshua kicked him in the knee with enough force to dislocate it, sending him down to his knees on the floor.
The shot struck the floor, instead, buying Joshua only a moment before the man took aim again.
“Don’t kill him yet!” a third man barked. He sounded like the leader. He was crouched beside the dead one’s body. “We might still need him with a pulse.”
There was a tense moment of silence, and then the man with the dislocated knee settled for shooting Joshua in the gut. Joshua’s back arched in agony and he clenched his jaw so tightly he felt a few of his teeth crack.
As he writhed on the floor, he could hear the fourth man exploring the house, until finally a voice called, “Door’s got a scanner!”
The leader of the group grabbed Joshua by the front of his shirt and started dragging him towards the back of the house. Joshua thrashed like a feral cat the entire way, but it hardly seemed to make a difference.
Once they were standing at the door into the safe room that had doubled as the office, someone lifted Joshua’s hand and pressed it to the door scanner. It beeped after a few seconds and slid open.
Immediately, the man who opened the door stumbled back when Suedermann shot him in the shoulder with his side arm. In the same breath, the group leader pulled a knife from his belt and hurled it. It sank straight into Suedermann’s chest and sent him staggering back the few feet to the wall.
When another shot rang out, the gun was being held by the man Suedermann had shot just a moment before. Without ceremony he shot Suedermann right between the eyes. He stayed upright for a breath, then a second, and then staggered back and sank slowly down the wall.
The leader dropped Joshua on the floor finally, just inside the safe room. He lifted a foot, and then stomped down on Joshua’s ribs. Once, then twice, and then a third time.
When the three remaining members of the team left, one of them was limping and one of them was clutching his shoulder. Still, they left under their own power, leaving Joshua behind with Suedermann’s body to gurgle out his last few breaths.
When Suedermann’s holo started to buzz, it went unanswered.
When Joshua’s began to ring a few moments later, it, too, went unanswered.
It rang twice more over the next hour, before it fell silent for good.
* * *
When Alisha and Hans arrived at the safe house, they were already concerned. They knew at least a few people were supposed to be there, but no one had answered their calls on the way there.
Alisha prayed it was a holo glitch: a knock on effect from the blackout a few weeks before. They were, after all, on a vulnerable part of the grid out here in the middle of nowhere.
When they arrived, they saw the door hanging open. They both broke into a run to get inside.
There was blood all over the place, including a trail of it leading towards the back of the house. And there was a dead body in the middle of the floor, a knife from the kitchen still lodged in the neck.
As Hans came to a halt just inside the house to try to figure out how the door had been jammed, Alisha crept deeper into the house. Her steps were light and careful, and once she was a few steps away, Hans could scarcely even hear her as she kept walking.
The door had been bent entirely out of shape on one side, and it took only a few seconds before Hans gave it up as a lost cause and moved away. He turned his attention to the dead body in the middle of the floor, instead. He reached out and tugged the mask off of the body, dislodging the knife as he did and sending it clattering to the floor. He didn’t recognize whoever the man was, breathing a sigh of relief. He turned his attention instead to rifling through the body’s pockets, looking for any sort of personal affects to identify him by. A wrist holo, a wallet, some sort of ID.
He wasn’t surprised when he came up empty-handed. After all, no one dressed up to stay hidden only to carry their driver’s license around for all the world to see it.
Just then, there was a blood-curdling scream from the other room.
Hans leapt away from the body as if it had burned him, whirled on his heel, and bolted in her direction. The door into the office was still open, and he caught the edge of the frame to shift his momentum into the room, sliding around the corner like a drifting race car.
He ground to a halt just a fraction of a second before he could trip over her. She was kneeling on the floor, her hands clenched over her mouth so tightly that her knuckles had gone pale as she hyperventilated between her fingers.
Suedermann was slumped against the wall at the back of the room, a knife buried to the hilt in his chest and a bullet hole straight through the middle of his forehead. There was a bloody streak down the wall, from roughly Suedermann’s standing height.
He dropped his gaze to where Alisha knelt, rocking. Splayed out on the floor in front of Alisha was Joshua. Or at least what was left of him. He had been shot twice without any of his gear on, and his ribcage had been so badly shattered that parts of it were visible through his chest, pushing through the skin like stalagmites.
His eyes were still open, glazed over and staring sightlessly at the ceiling. There was a puddle of blood beneath him, spreading out far enough that Alisha was kneeling in it. It soaked into her atmos pants and stained them red.
“We…we have to…” She trailed off, reaching towards Joshua’s body with trembling hands, as if to attempt CPR. “We need to—” A sob ripped out of her throat, cutting off whatever else she was going to say.
Hans dropped to a crouch beside her, reaching out to catch her wrists as he did. He pulled her hands back, murmuring, “It’s too late, Alisha. It’s been hours.”
Even if it hadn’t been, he was fairly sure they wouldn’t be able to do anything.
She sagged against his side, and he looped an arm around her shoulders. As she trembled and clutched her hands together in front of her chest, Hans reached out with his free hand to close Joshua’s eyes.
Neither of them spoke for a long while.
“We’ll find who did this, alright?” Hans told her firmly, his arm around her shoulders, tightened, tucking her more tightly against his side. “I promise.”
Memorial Park, Spire, Estaria
It was a good place to watch the service from. Plenty of people were streaming it from their holos at home, but it seemed to Giles that it would be a disservice not to be at the memorial service in person.
It was a prestigious place to host a memorial service. The complex series of branching, gleaming chrome archways that had been erected in commemoration of a battle from a war long past made for an elegant backdrop for the reporter and the others gathered, all without completely taking over the setting. It was poignant, in a way. The camera and the crew did nothing to dampen that.
As he watched the service, Giles tried to focus on the inanities—the location, double shadows where the crew’s lighting and the sunlight simultaneously struck something from different angles, the reporter’s hair, the crew members darting around like mice where the camera couldn’t spot them, the High Priest’s watch. All just to try to avoid focusing on what was actually going on.
Beside him, Arlene sniffled. The sound was partially muffled behind the tissue she held in front of her mouth and nose, but Giles was fully aware of it all the same. It made it impossible to block out the emotion of what was going on. With a mumbled, almost sullen, “Shit,” he reached up and scrubbed one wrist across his eyes, nudging his glasses out of place in the process.
It didn’t really occur to him that he had scarcely heard a word the reporter—Merci? Mercy? It was something sort of sickeningly ironic like that—had been saying the entire tim
e. He hadn’t even realized when the camera had moved from the reporter and now rested on the High Priest.
He turned his attention back to the proceedings just in time for the High Priest to usher Gareth Atkins forward.
Gareth cleared his throat quietly and spoke simply. “Let’s take a moment of silence for our fallen heroes. They deserve so much more for their sacrifice.”
A hush fell over the park, so thick and all-encompassing that Giles might have believed it if someone had tried to tell him they had developed a sound sucking device that could blanket the entire planet.
When Gareth spoke again, it seemed too jarring, as if he were breaking some sort of sacred vow of silence.
“They gave their lives so we can continue to live in peace.” His voice was low. “Though it is only the least of what they deserve, it is up to us to make sure that their memories live on.”
As he continued to speak, Giles couldn’t help but to feel a surge of offended outrage. There was Gareth, carrying on about the sacrifice and the heroics and how they would be remembered, as if it would make a damn bit of difference.
Remembering them wouldn’t bring them back. It would just make it all the more apparent that they were gone and that they weren’t coming back.
For a brief moment, Giles wanted to start shouting for all of them to just be quiet and to stop pretending that the memorial service and the pretty words would do anything other than make hypocrites feel better about what had happened.
The urge passed quickly, though. Arlene was still simpering painfully beside him. He slipped an arm around her shoulders, hoping to at least make a difference to how she felt right now.
Gareth stepped aside, letting the camera focus on the High Priest once again. He was calm almost to the point of seeming apathetic. Giles wanted to shake him and demand to know why he didn’t care. Again, the urge passed and he stayed where he was as the High Priest began to speak.
“We remember another hero in this time,” The High Priest enunciated carefully, his hands folded together neatly behind his back. “He, too, lost his life in the line of duty, helping to keep key witnesses safe, when none would have blamed him for looking after his own safety. His sacrifice, along with those of the ship’s crew, will not be in vain. Though they have all been lost, they will not be forgotten.” He took a breath and sighed slowly. “Join me once more in a moment of silence, as we pray for all the souls lost in the name of duty and peace.”
Again, a hush fell over the park for a few moments. When it ended, the High Priest seemed disinterested in saying anything else.
At long last, the camera returned to the reporter. She was beginning to look slightly strained with the weight of the service. Of course, she had probably had to deal with much worse recently.
She took a few steps away from the war memorial, as if to put some distance between herself and the memorial service. After that, watching a news report in person took away most of the mystique of seeing one on a screen.
“While the identities of the crew who intervened in the misfire incident remain unknown, there is speculation,” she explained, coming to a halt when just one edge of the chrome arches was still visible behind her. “It’s widely thought that the ship was captained by a former fugitive, though this former fugitive was already believed to be dead previously. We do have unconfirmed reports, though, that a member of the crew was posthumously pardoned by the president for all crimes previously committed, on account of such loyal service and sacrifice to the Sark System.” Her voice was calm and steady, despite the emotion of the service that had been taking place just moments before.
“While no names have been mentioned and no comment has been offered on the validity of these rumors,” she continued, “it has been assumed by many that the posthumous pardon was for the former fugitive. As can be expected, regardless of the president’s lack of commentary on the matter, speculation has thrived in these last few weeks, despite the nature of such a distressing event.”
Giles stopped paying attention after that, turning away and starting to walk. With his arm still around Arlene, she followed along by his side without protest.
Chapter 16
Senate House, Spire, Estaria
The boardroom was silent.
It wasn’t full. Only roughly half of the Senate had been able to attend. The Speaker of the House, Vero, Zenne, Bel, and Raychel all sat at their seats, contemplating the walls, the ceiling, the grain of the table.
If they listened closely, they could hear a filming crew outside the room, milling about until they were allowed to come in.
At that moment, that was nearly the only activity in the building. The interns had clustered together in the break rooms. The receptionist was quiet in the lobby, and the cleaning staff were all together in their own break rooms.
On every floor, it was the same, with workers of every rank and nature sitting still and quiet.
Everyone knew what was coming, but no one quite knew how to feel about it or how to handle it. Instead, they opted en masse for respectful, almost dazed silence.
It was the Speaker who eventually broke the silence in the boardroom, curling both hands around his cane and tapping the end of it on the floor in no particular pattern. Finally, he sighed and acknowledged, “You can tell them they can come in now. If the words haven’t come to me by now, then I doubt sitting here in silence even longer will help. I’ll just…think of something on camera.”
Vero and Bel eyed him skeptically for a moment, until Zenne rolled his eyes at both of them and made his way over to the door. It slid open and he poked his head out, nearly giving the small crew a series of heart attacks as he did.
“We’re ready to begin,” he stated simply before leaning back into the room, and he returned to his seat at the table just as everyone else was doing the same.
It took only a few minutes for the crew to set up the lighting to their satisfaction once they decided where they were going to film.
“Right at the table,” the Speaker informed them when they asked him, turning his chair around so the table was behind him. He sat comfortably, loose and at ease in front of the small crew. He kept his hands linked together on top of his cane’s handle, the end of the cane planted on the floor between his feet.
The rest of the Senate—or at least those that had managed to gather that afternoon—stayed at the table, though none of them had any plans to say anything. It was only going to be a brief program, after all, and no one wanted to start getting redundant during it.
It was the sort of situation that needed to be handled delicately, after all.
Once they began, it was just the Speaker on camera. He closed his eyes briefly, took a slow breath, and opened his eyes once again as he began to speak.
“We are here today to say good-bye to a group of heroes. A group of heroes who gave their lives to keep us from plunging into galactic war,” he stated, his voice clear and even.
His hands flexed on top of his cane. “Many of us did not know them, and even more of us didn’t even know of them, but that does not lessen what they have done for us. If anything, that makes it all the more important; they gave their lives knowing that the people they were dying for would not thank them for it.”
He paused for a second and took another breath.
“We are here,” he carried on, his voice firming slightly, “because it would be a discredit—a dishonor to them and what they gave to let them be forgotten. So to the crew of The Empress, even if they aren’t here to hear this, we offer our thanks, and we offer our apology. Had we been quicker to take action, then perhaps this wouldn’t have come to pass. Again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.”
With a slow, final sigh, he fell silent.
The silence lingered for a few moments once the Speaker finished, before the woman in charge of the crew announced, “Alright, that’s a wrap.” She turned on her heel to face the crew as they began dismantling the lighting just as
efficiently as they had first set it up. It made all the initial fuss and setup seem a bit pointless, for a segment that was really just a few sentences long.
It should have been longer, probably. Molly’s crew deserved more respect. They deserved more of a send-off. But no one quite knew how to react yet.
The crew left all at once, chattering amongst themselves as they left, their voices dwindling as they got farther down the hallway until they were completely inaudible. Once again, it was just the Senate in the room.
The quiet lasted for several minutes as they tried to decide if they should have been doing anything, before all individually coming to the conclusion that the answer was “not really.” What had happened had happened, and no one had a time machine to undo it.
The Speaker left first, dusting himself off as he got to his feet before he turned and made his way to the door. The others lingered for a few moments, though none of them could come up with anything to say to each other. Too much had happened, and it had left all of them feeling as if the rug had been ripped out from beneath them. Some felt emotionally raw.
Vero was the last to leave, still sitting in his seat even when he was the only one left in the boardroom. He contemplated the wood grain of the table in an absentminded fashion, tapping one heel against the ground.
So much had happened, and all because no one had made a loud enough fuss about any of it.
Finally, he got to his feet and headed out the door before the “what if” scenarios could begin to plague him.
Outer Sark System
The news reports continued on multiple channels on the holostreams.
The Zhyn were not the most frequent race showcased in Estarian news, but there were always exceptions to be made. In that moment, the news showcased a naval ceremony. Footage of open space was always grainier than footage from on board a ship or within an atmosphere, but it was still apparent that the seven highest-ranking ships of the Zhyn fleet were firing their cannons into the distance.
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