The Eve of War

by Christopher Hopper

  He gave another sigh of relief, though he knew they still had a long way to go. Victory is made up of one small gain after another, Magnus reminded himself. Even hell can be conquered if you do it a step at a time. Without that mantra, it was easy to get distracted, and distracted Marines were dead Marines. “Load them up, Warrant Officer.”

  “Copy that.”

  Magnus was just about to check how much farther he had to go when he noticed enemy troopers come around a bend back in the tunnel. “Contact,” he said and raised his MAR30. His AI presented three targeting reticles, and Magnus waited for them to overlap. The moment they did, he fired another staccato burst. The blaster bolts lit up tunnel walls with a strobe effect. All three combatants fell into one another, their armor clattering together.

  Magnus turned and kicked Gilder the last meter through the hatch, then he grabbed the overhead bar and swung himself through, landing outside in a crouch. Dutch closed the hatch behind him and spun the lock shut.

  Magnus toggled back to visual and looked down the wide subsection corridor. Red emergency lights flashed in time with the klaxon while banks of standard yellowing work lights illuminated painted lines on the floor indicating foot and equipment paths. A seemingly endless supply of crates, carts, and forklifts was perfectly ordered along one wall. Along the other were the entry hatches for the ship’s emergency-escape vehicles.

  Nolan had secured Valerie and Piper and was seeing to the senator, who was visibly upset. He helped the man enter the tube feetfirst and guided him down. “Watch your head, sir,” Nolan said as the senator turned in the vertical pod and rested his back against the padded backboard. The senator buckled the harness around his chest then followed Nolan’s instructions to cross his arms.

  The senator’s remaining three crew members were secure inside pods while Haney, Gilder, and Dutch got squared away. Nolan sealed the senator’s canopy and pressed the button marked “Ready/Away,” which closed the glass blast doors. Then he asked Stone for a thumbs-up. When the senator gave him the sign, Nolan jogged with Magnus to the next two available pods.

  “Any problems?” Magnus asked.

  “The senator’s a good man,” the warrant officer replied. “Cares for his family. But he should definitely stick with politics.”

  “Copy that. And the nav link?”

  “The family’s nav computers are slaved to yours, with mine and their captain’s as redundant backups.”

  “Good work,” Magnus replied. “Get yourself situated.”

  Magnus doubled back to make sure that each member of the team was set. He gave an expected a thumbs-up at every set of glass doors. One by one, each crew member replied until Magnus got to the Stones. The senator looked rattled. Valerie seemed calm, all things considered, and still looked stunning, her face illuminated in the pod’s halo of white light. She smiled at Magnus and lifted a thumb.

  When Magnus got to Piper’s pod, he knelt and removed his helmet—not the best tactical move, but he didn’t want to frighten the girl in what might be her last moments of life. After all, the whole plan was a long shot. The fact that they’d gotten as far as they had amazed him.

  “You okay?” he mouthed. Piper nodded, forcing a smile. Her blond wisps of hair barely came up to the bottom of the glass doors.

  “Everything’s going to—”

  A blaster bolt exploded into a thousand sparks as it struck the metal wall over Magnus’s shoulder. He ducked and covered his head with his helmet, swearing at himself. He looked down the corridor to see it filling with combatants. Several more shots struck the wall, peppering his armor with molten metal.

  Magnus’s AI had selected the closest targets, and his MAR30 was aimed. His first three bursts took out three targets, forcing the advancing enemy to cover. The action bought him enough time to do the same as he darted to the opposite side of the corridor and ducked behind a forklift. He looked across at the row of escape pods and saw Piper’s blue eyes peeking over the lip of her hatch. Blaster fire streaked beside him, the walls showering him with bright gouts of orange and yellow sparks. He wanted to look at Valerie’s face, too, but he couldn’t look away from Piper.

  At that moment, seeing her eyes filled with fear, time slowed down. Magnus had a sudden overwhelming urge to protect Piper’s little life at all costs—to live for her as long as possible. The emotion was visceral, flowing from a formerly unknown part of his soul, one he could not entirely explain. It was different from any other instinct he’d ever felt before, enough that Magnus wondered if he was about to die—or maybe he had already been shot, but his body was in shock. All that mattered was that small face, illuminated by explosions of light. She looked to him for protection. For reassurance. For hope. And he wanted to give it all to her, to see her grow into the woman she was destined to be.

  Real time hit Magnus in the chest as he suddenly realized that the next available escape pod was across the corridor and at least twenty meters toward the enemy. Heavy blaster fire had him pinned down. He pointed his MAR30 around the forklift and brought its visual sensor up in his HUD. The other end of the hallway was stacked with troopers.

  Magnus selected wide displacement and heard his weapon’s barrel aperture expand. He squeezed the trigger. The weapon hesitated, building the desired charge in its capacitors, and then released a broad burst of energy down the corridor. Magnus rocked backward. A blue light swept down the subsection and slammed into the enemy. Bodies not behind cover were flung backward. He heard troopers scream even under their helmets, their bodies slamming into and sliding across the deck.

  This was his chance. He stepped into the open. But before he could take a second step, more blaster fire struck the ground and forklift. He reversed momentum and dove for cover again.

  Dammit. There were simply too many troopers. They’d filled the end of the corridor faster than he’d anticipated. He looked back at Piper. Whatever strange dreams he had of protecting her into adulthood were now gone, obliterated like the blaster bolts exploding in sparks around him. The truth was that he wouldn’t live long enough to see her past this moment. But he would save her at least this once. He would make sure she had a chance to go on growing, to become the beautiful, strong woman he somehow knew she’d be.

  “Jettison the pods, Nolan!” Magnus ordered over the comm.

  “But, Lieutenant, we have better odds of survival if—”

  “This is about survival!”

  Chapter 29

  Awen sat in the third seat on the Indomitable’s bridge and seriously considered asking Ezo to turn the freighter around. In fact, were it not for the mystery ship that had tracked them to Ki Nar Four and the fact that Sootriman didn’t appear to be the most hospitable patron, Awen would have insisted he do so. All things considered, however, she was forced to make do with the circumstances, even though she was quite sure the ship wouldn’t hold together for more than a few hours in subspace.

  Ezo’s grand assumptions about the name Indomitable were wrong. Whatever Geronimo had been with regard to beauty, aesthetics, cleanliness, and condition, the Indomitable was the opposite. Built as a commercial Longo-class light freighter long before Awen’s parents or even grandparents were born, the ship’s hull seemed like it was cobbled together from pieces of a hundred other failed vessels. The fact that any intelligent manufacturer had intentionally designed such a pockmarked walrus was a sin punishable by a thousand deaths. No one in good conscious should ever have let such a bloated hulk see the light of day.

  The Indomitable’s disklike shape rattled as it left Ki Nar Four’s orbit. TO-96 was careful to stay hidden in the shadow of the planet, opposite the strange ship’s position from the coordinates Sootriman had provided. At least we have that going for us, Awen thought. But by leaving them without weapons and with only the most minimal of shields, Sootriman may have already doomed them all to an early grave anyway.

  “Hull integrity is holding, sir,” TO-96 said.

  “Why, Ninety-Six, you sound surprised.” Ezo i
ncreased the throttle.

  “That’s because I am, sir. I very much and truly am surprised. In fact, I think it’s a miracle that—”

  “I got it, wire brain. You don’t have to explain it all to me.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Awen clamped her jaw shut to keep her teeth from rattling. Despite the odds, they were back on a ship and preparing to make for the wormhole. She hated Ezo for it—for everything—but had to admit that it didn’t matter much what ship they were aboard. Geronimo was certainly far more comfortable and safe. And clean. And—there were a thousand other things she liked about it. But at the end of the day, a ship was a ship. To her, the discovery was what mattered the most. That, and being able to get there first, to represent the Luma to a new civilization. She wanted to preserve the Luma’s way of life from whatever Republic invasion would inevitably attempt to swallow it whole. Awen was still a Luma, after all, and would be as long as she was wanted. Suddenly, she wondered about Willowood’s fate. Had So-Elku reprimanded her—or worse—for interrupting a private meeting? No, Willowood had fought So-Elku in the Unity! Such things—well, they never happened. So, would she be disciplined? Or had she gathered other Lumanarias loyal to the Order and confronted the master?

  “Willowood will know what to do,” Awen said under her breath and suddenly longed to see the old woman again. She wished Willowood was with her, traveling across the galaxy to the wormhole.

  Once the Indomitable was clear of Ki Nar Four’s gravity well, TO-96 confirmed the course calculations and made the jump to subspace. “I still don’t understand why your wife would ever waste a perfectly good modulator on a ship such as this, sir.”

  “That’s because you have a good conscience,” Ezo replied.

  “Pardon me?”

  “You think the best about everyone. And while it’s a naive thing, it’s a good thing in a galaxy that’s falling apart like ours.”

  “So you’re saying I’m socially shallow but morally superior.”

  “Something like that. Can we just see if the blasted thing works?” Ezo asked. “If not, I’m going to give Sootriman a piece of my mind.”

  “If not, we’ll all be obliterated, our atoms spread across the quadrant for a billion years.”

  “Yes, and then I’ll give her a piece of my mind.” Ezo turned back to Awen. “You may want to hold on to something.”

  “Like your neck?” Awen asked, chin up.

  Ezo rolled his eyes. “Punch it, Ninety-Six.”

  “Very good, sir. Modulating to factor two—in three… two… one…”

  Awen saw the cockpit stretch out in front of her. She felt like she was going to throw up and realized she hadn’t located a vomit bag ahead of time. She’d been too nervous leaving the planet to be sick—a real first for her. Now, however, the sense of vertigo that swirled in her head was overwhelming. The sounds of the cockpit felt as if they were muffled by a pillow. Then she felt like her spirit was trying to separate from her body, as if she’d become careless with the Unity or had attempted a new exercise without proper training.

  Awen saw herself sitting in her seat, harness fixed over her shoulders, braid floating in the air. She could see each tiny strand of her hair and marveled at the complexity of such a simple feature—the way each fiber interlaced with others, having chosen a seemingly random course through the interwoven locks. Yet the sum of the individual strands was bound in a larger well-ordered composition. It was poetry. It spoke of space-time, of chaos theory, of superpositions, and of the multiverse. It spoke of many destinies, many choices, but all of them leading to one conclusion that, from a distance, seemed as simple and intentional as a braid of hair.

  Suddenly, the cockpit snapped back, and Awen vomited a piece of toast and maribliss jam on Ezo. She felt bad… but then, considering what he’d done to her, she didn’t feel bad at all.

  “Whoops,” she said in a dry tone and wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

  “We’ve successfully arrived in subspace level epsilon,” TO-96 noted. “Hull integrity at ninety-four percent, core levels nominal, and modulator reactor well within limits.”

  “Fabulous,” Ezo said, wincing as something slimy trailed down the back of his neck. “Let’s try factor three.”

  “Very good, sir. Modulating to factor three—in three… two… one…”

  Once again, the cockpit moved away from Awen. Her stomach lurched, and her head thrummed. This time, however, the pain in her head was more intense. She felt… like she was dying. The sensation was horrible. She wanted to breathe but couldn’t, wanted to scream but didn’t have the strength. As before, she noticed her body sitting in its chair, but this time, everything shook in a violent blur. It was awful. She winced, or at least she thought she winced, trying to rationalize what was happening. It was as if everything was starting to separate, reality coming undone like the fibers of her braid, frayed at the edges.

  Then everything slammed to a halt. When her senses came back, they did so with a loud pop in her ears. Her stomach lurched, and she dry heaved onto Ezo’s back. This time, she genuinely felt bad.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, gasping for air.

  “We’ve successfully arrived in subspace level zeta. Hull integrity at eighty-seven percent, core levels in the yellow, and modulator reactor showing signs of stress, but nothing out of the ordinary, sir.”

  Ezo had shrugged his shoulders such that his neck had retreated inside his leather jacket. “Let’s keep it here. I’m going to my quarters, and I’ll be back after I’ve showered. You have the bridge, Ninety-Six.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Ezo unbuckled and didn’t even look at Awen as he walked by. That was probably for the best.

  • • •

  Awen lay in a bunk, taking advantage of yet another peaceful opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep. She’d claimed the first open berth she could find and the closed door. Aside from the bed, the room had a sink, mirror, toilet, narrow closet, and a desk with a foldout wall seat. The room was bland, painted a dingy greenish gray, and a yellowing ceiling light did anything but convey hospitality. A blanket lay folded on the bed, and she found a second one stowed in the closet. She fluffed the pillow, smelling it to make sure it was relatively fresh, and settled herself in.

  Even at the ship’s current rate, she felt like her spirit was still, as calm as a leaf sitting atop a pond in autumn. The Unity always seemed closer here in subspace, as if her very essence was a single breath away from being one with all things. She felt the same way when she was in or near water. Both places gave her the sense that a veil had been drawn between her and the Unity. She could not see it, but she knew it was there. And in certain thin places, the veil was so gossamer fine that she was sure she could reach right through it and step across to the other side, body and soul.

  Awen wondered what would become of the Luma now—what would become of Willowood, of the other elders, of the students and the school. She worried about them in ways that surprised her, as if she wanted to gather everyone who might have been hurt by her strange departure and explain it all to them. She wanted to tell them that everything was going to be okay, even though she wasn’t convinced of that herself. But most of all, she wanted to tell them what So-Elku had tried to do to her.

  Awen’s thoughts turned to her master—her former master. She wondered whether So-Elku’s plans had captured any other Luma minds as well or if he was acting alone. Perhaps Willowood was right to suspect that he had accomplices. If not, why were guns firing on Geronimo Nine? That couldn’t be the protocol for some miscreant ship, could it? The more Awen thought about it, the more she feared the worst.

  The questions loomed over her like dark storm clouds rolling in from the sea. For the life of her, Awen couldn’t figure out what So-Elku wanted with the stardrive. Did he even know what was on it? And if so, why not celebrate its discovery? Instead, he’d acted like some malevolent traitor, unable to explain himself truthfully and willing to use the
Unity against her and against Willowood.

  Worse still, there remained the unanswered questions surrounding the bombing in Oosafar and who, exactly, had given the master information about her taking possession of the stardrive. I have to stop calling him that, Awen thought. He would never be her master again. He would only ever be So-Elku, traitor to the Order and despiser of the Luma.

  Awen saw his face. She was back in Elder’s Hall, and So-Elku was demanding that she open the stardrive. He held her eyes, locked in a battle of wills that threatened to tear her mind into a thousand pieces. But she fought him, resisted him. She would not give in. It had been Willowood who’d truly saved her, however. Awen didn’t know how long she could have lasted against him.

  But in this version of the memory, Willowood didn’t appear. Awen could see So-Elku’s face, eyes boring into her soul. She remained frozen, gripped by fear and by the Luma’s power within the Unity. She held the stardrive in her hand, her thumb putting pressure on the button. He was pushing her hard, demanding that she conform, that she obey. Awen kept expecting Willowood to burst through the doors and rescue her. But Awen couldn’t look away from So-Elku. He was watching her, searching her very soul.

  Her thumb pressed down. The needle punctured her skin. Awen’s eyes went wide, and she tried to scream, but there was no air in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe, and she’d failed to resist him.

  No! she thought. It can’t be! It’s not what happened!

  And it wasn’t what had happened back at Elder’s Hall. That was not how the events had occurred. But it is what’s happening now, she thought. The contents spilled out of the stardrive like water from a broken vessel onto a floor of black marble. The shapes, the star map, the name of the Novia Minoosh, and TO-96’s data file—all of it was spread out on the floor for So-Elku to see. Awen wanted to try to put the vase together and scoop handfuls of the liquid back inside, but she could not pull herself from So-Elku’s gaze. His pupils were on fire, his brow furrowed, his lips snarling. And then she heard him speak.