Sunset (Pact Arcanum)

by Arshad Ahsanuddin

  Nick stared at her. “You set me up,” he whispered.

  She nodded. “We modified the Armageddon Protocols specifically so that you would be able to lead our people if we were eliminated. We appointed you Ambassador to Humanity so the humans would come to know you, making you a familiar face should the need to negotiate a settlement be required. We kept you in the dark to prevent you from doubting yourself, and we arranged for the entire resources of the Armistice to be placed at your disposal when you needed them.”

  Nick shook his head in denial. “No. Rory wouldn’t do that. Not to me. We shared a double bridge. I would have known if he were planning to betray me.”

  “Not if it was hidden in plain sight. It was never a betrayal for him, Nicholas. He believed in you. He hoped you would have the strength to do what was necessary for our people to survive, even if we were taken out of play. And you succeeded. You gave the order that prevented the destruction of the world. Everything you have been through, everything you have suffered, finally gave you the strength of will to ask an innocent to die for you.” She smiled. “I must admit, I had my doubts. But you have proven me wrong. You are a player, after all.”

  Nick stalked forward, snarling. His eyes burned red with rage. “It wasn’t a game, you bitch! He was just a kid, for God’s sake, not a fucking chess piece!”

  Layla stood, not backing down, her voice remaining rigidly controlled. “Not a chess piece, Nick—a weapon. Just as every Sentinel is a weapon from the moment they open their eyes. But you’re right, he wasn’t like the other Sentinels you have known. Spacers are not soldiers. They are born from the first generation of civilians we have created since end of the First Age. That’s why they don’t mix well with Dirtsiders, as they call us. They just can’t relate. We’re all too tainted by war and bloodshed. It would never have occurred to one of them to use a jumpship as a weapon. That thought required a warrior’s mind, Nicholas. Your mind.”

  A tumult of emotions washed over Nick’s face. “He was just a kid,” he repeated tonelessly.

  Nemesis shook her head. “He was more than that, Nicholas. Much more. I know you don’t keep up with off-world events because of your condition. But in Spacer circles, Michael Danvers was just as famous as you are. A brilliant pilot and navigator—finishing his Cadet training in a single year with the highest overall rating in the history of the program. He served with distinction on three ships afterward, leaping up through the ranks to be awarded the rank of Captain on his fifteenth birthday—younger than anyone else since the Guild was founded.

  “They all loved him. He became a symbol of everything they aspired to. The crews he served with organized a write-in campaign to elect him Guildmaster, and he would have had a good shot if he hadn’t taken his name out of contention. The only reason he was flying a class-three cargo vessel was because he wanted to. It’s the only jumpship small enough to be operated by a single crewmember. Solitude appealed to him. Or so he said when he was asked why he declined command of the Odyssey Expedition.”

  Nick’s jaw dropped. “That was him?”

  “Heard about that, did you?” Nemesis pinned him with a stare.

  “Raf mentioned it—the Captain who refused to be part of history. I never bothered to find out his name.”

  “When Captain Danvers activated his failsafe protocol, his AI automatically began a continuous dump of all data to the Master Navigation AI at the Citadel, including the audiovisual records of the command module recorder. When the Guildmaster realized what was happening, and whom it involved, he commandeered the master FTL communications array at the Citadel and rebroadcast that datastream to every Armistice vessel and facility in the Solar System.

  “They all saw, Nicholas. The last few minutes of your conversation were being watched in real time by every Spacer in the fleet, and all of the colonists on every world. We’re already getting reports that jumpships throughout the fleet have changed course back to Earth so they can see the place where he died for themselves.”

  Nick hung his head. “I killed their hero; they must be screaming for my blood.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Captain Danvers was a private person. They watched him open up more to you, an Earthbound Dirtsider, than he had with any of them. They know he refused to let you save his life. No doubt they’re grateful you didn’t leave him to die alone.”

  “Is it over then? I did what you wanted.”

  Nemesis nodded. “The game is over, Nicholas. Finally and truly over. For now, at least, you are free.”

  Nick exhaled shakily. “Free.” He walked around the unconscious bodies to stand over Kensington and Medusa. After regarding his opponents soberly for a few moments, he then turned to face Jeremy. “Full circle, Leshir,” he said quietly. “The day we met, I told you nothing was as precious as a second chance. This is mine.”

  Jeremy’s eyes betrayed none of his thoughts. “So what are you going to do with it?”

  “This isn’t the right time or the right place,” said Nick. “There has been so much death, so much pain. Maybe it will never be right. I have waited so long, but I was always too afraid to take the risk. I didn’t know what I might lose next. Now, I finally have a chance to do what I want—what I have always wanted. I don’t want to wait any longer.”

  Jeremy frowned slightly. “I don’t understand.”

  In the midst of their fallen enemies, Nick fell to one knee. “Jeremy Kenneth Harkness, will you marry me?”

  ICARUS

  CHAPTER 46

  December 2041; Phoenix, Arizona; Two months later

  “Now, who could that be at this time of night?” Margaret Danvers stopped clearing away the dinner dishes and glanced at the wall clock. “Jason, would you get the door?”

  “Sure.” Her husband made his way out of the dining room to the hallway. “Whoever you are, it’s kind of late for visitors,” he said, as he unlocked the door.

  “I won’t take up too much of your time, Mr. Danvers.” Nick stood on the front porch flanked by Scott and Ana, a small bag slung over one shoulder.

  Jason Danvers stared at him and then looked past them at the cordon of armed Sentinels on his lawn. Swallowing, he turned back to Nick. “You’re the Ambassador. I’ve seen you on TV.”

  “My name is Nicholas Magister Luscian, and actually, I’m not the Ambassador anymore. Can I come in? I need to speak to you and your wife for a few minutes.”

  Jason hesitated, and then stood back and wordlessly opened the door. Nick stepped past him, across the threshold and into the hallway.

  “Aren’t they coming, too?” Jason nodded to the other Sentinels on the porch.

  Nick shook his head. “I have to do this alone. They’re just here to make sure nothing happens to me. I’ll rejoin them as soon as I’ve had a chance to speak to the two of you alone.”

  Jason Danvers closed and locked the front door, and then led Nick into the living room. “Meg,” he called. “We’ve got a visitor.”

  Margaret Danvers stopped in shock as she entered the living room and recognized Nick.

  “Mrs. Danvers, hello. I was hoping for a moment of your time. I’m Nicholas Magister Luscian, the current President of the Armistice.”

  Her husband recovered first. “Um, okay. So what can we do for you, Mr. President?”

  “‘Nick’ is fine, sir. Do you mind if we sit?”

  “Certainly, Nick,” said Margaret. “Please make yourself comfortable. Is there something I can get for you?”

  “No, Ma’am, that’s not necessary.” Nick sat in one of the chairs around the coffee table and placed the bag next to him on the floor. Opposite, on the couch, Margaret and Jason Danvers stared at him expectantly.

  “I didn’t know the Armistice had a President.” Margaret looked at him curiously. “I thought everything was run by the Triumvirate.”

  “I took command during the attack on our capital two months ago. The Triumvirate laughed in my face when I tried to return power.” He gave them a look of wounded dignit
y. “‘President’ was the least objectionable title they came up with for me. Takeshi wanted to name me ‘Dictator for Life’ and just take an extended vacation. It took some concessions on my part, but they have agreed to stay on as my principal advisers to provide continuity of leadership and continue arbitrating disputes among the Free People.”

  “We heard about the attack on the news,” Jason said quietly. “I’m sorry that our people were involved. When do the trials begin?”

  Nick shrugged. “Treason is a delicate matter, Mr. Danvers, even when it’s as egregious as launching a nuclear missile at your own country. It’ll probably be tied up in court for quite a while.” He leaned forward and fidgeted nervously. “The attack is what I came to speak to you about, actually. Do you know how we stopped it?”

  Margaret gave a small, uncertain nod. “The news reports said you shot the missile down.”

  “That was a lie, Mrs. Danvers. The truth is much uglier. It will certainly come out at trial, so I wanted you to hear it from me first.”

  “What truth?” asked Jason. “What does this have to do with us?”

  “We didn’t shoot it down, Mr. Danvers. I ordered one of our spacecraft pilots to crash his ship into the missile before it could reach the city.”

  They stared at him, appalled. “That’s horrible.” Margaret’s voice was little more than a whisper.

  “It was a hard decision, Mrs. Danvers. One I honestly regret. But I can’t think of anything else I could have done without letting more than a million people die.”

  Mr. Danvers peered suspiciously over his spectacles. “I still don’t see what this has to do with us.”

  Nick took a deep breath and steeled his will. “The pilot who sacrificed his life to save the city was a Sentinel named Michael Sebastian Danvers.”

  Margaret turned white.

  “Get the fuck out of my house, you son of a bitch.” Jason lurched to his feet, his fists clenched.

  Nick remained seated. “No, sir. I can’t do that.”

  “You’re telling me you killed my boy?” yelled Jason. “If you’re not out of my house in ten seconds, I’m calling the police, no matter who the hell you are!”

  “I promised Michael I would give you a message,” Nick said sadly.

  “Sit down, Jason.” Margaret put her hand on her husband’s arm.

  “Meg! You heard what he did!”

  Margaret looked at Nick. “You said you had a message from him. I want to hear it.”

  With a sour look at Nick, Jason shrugged off his wife’s hand and sat back down on the couch. “Fine. So talk.”

  “He told me thing he regretted most in his life was that he never said goodbye to you before he left.”

  “What else?” Margaret asked.

  “You can read his words for yourselves.” Reaching down and opening the bag, Nick withdrew two large leather-bound volumes. “He wrote each of you a letter for every day since he left you. He asked me to deliver them.” Nick placed the two books on the coffee table. Each volume had one of their names embossed on the cover. “These are printouts of those letters. No one has read them. They are for your eyes alone.”

  Jason glared at him. “Fifteen. He would have been fifteen, and you ordered him to die. Why would he give you his letters?”

  “He said it was his choice whether he wanted to call me his friend.” Nick looked up to meet Jason’s eyes. “It took eight minutes for him to get into position, Mr. Danvers. I talked to him the entire time. Solitude didn’t appeal to him anymore, he said.” Nick reached into the bag again and pulled out a pair of data crystals in plastic cases. He laid the first on the table next to the books. “Your son was a private person. This is the only publicly available video record of him I could find. It shows an interview he gave after he declined command of the Odyssey.”

  “The Odyssey?” asked Margaret.

  “The only one of our spacecraft designed specifically for interstellar travel,” Nick explained. “He was chosen to lead the first expedition to the nearest star, but he turned it down.”

  “Why?” Jason asked in spite of himself.

  “In the interview, he said he didn’t want to give up flying solo. That was a lie. In his journal, he wrote that he knew it would be at least twenty years before he could return, if he made it back at all. To accept the mission would have meant giving up any hope of ever seeing you again.” Nick sighed. “He believed he was a coward for walking out on you when his Gift kindled, and he wasn’t willing to run away again. He turned his back on his dreams so he might someday have the chance to see you again.”

  “But he didn’t get that chance,” Jason said, his voice heavy with contempt. “You took it away from him.”

  Nick said nothing in reply, merely placed the second data crystal on the table. “This is audiovisual security footage taken from the fortified bunker at the Los Angeles Air Force Base where the attack originated. It includes our entire conversation, from beginning to end. The U.S. Attorney General plans to use parts of this recording as evidence against the rogue spies and soldiers who attacked us, and he provided us with advance copies. I thought you’d want to see it before it becomes public knowledge.”

  “Fine,” Jason spat. “If that’s everything you came to say, you can go now. You know the way out.”

  Nick nodded and stood to leave.

  “Mr. President,” Margaret said, picking up the second recording, “the crystal player is behind you.”

  Nick blinked, off-balance for the first time since he stepped inside the door. “Excuse me?” he said as Jason turned to stare at his wife in surprise. She held the data crystal out to him. “Show me how my baby died. I want to know why he called you a friend.”

  “You should watch it together. I don’t want to intrude on your grief, Mrs. Danvers.”

  “I’m asking you to stay, Nick,” she said quietly. “You were there. I wasn’t. I want to know what happened.”

  Hesitantly, Nick reached out and took the crystal from her hands. Cracking open the case, he turned to face the crystal player and slipped the recording into the slot in the top. Jason picked up the remote from the coffee table and started the playback. The three of them watched from the moment Kensington led Nick into his control room until just after the Horizon’s destruction. At that point, Nick reached out and pushed pause.

  Margaret broke the silence first. “You didn’t know how old he was when you gave the order?”

  “No,” Nick said, his voice thick with remorse. “But he was right about me. If I had known, I would have done the same thing.”

  Jason continued to stare at the screen. “Why did you pause the recording?”

  “The rest isn’t relevant, Mr. Danvers. I came here to tell you what happened to your child and to put my friend’s spirit to rest by granting his last wish. Nothing else matters.” Nick stood and walked toward the hallway. “That’s all I wanted to say. Goodbye.”

  Jason lifted the remote again and hit play, searching forward until he saw them all turn as Layla showed herself.

  Hearing Layla’s voice, Nick stopped and stepped back into the living room. He watched as the pair of humans listened to Layla explain the Triumvirate’s actions. After Toby left to release the captured Winds, the screen went black, and Margaret and Jason both turned to look at him again.

  “Is all of that true?” asked Jason in a hushed voice. “Did he really save the world?”

  “He prevented a war that would have destroyed both sides. What he did will never be forgotten, Mr. Danvers, not as long as any of the Children of Magic draw breath.” Nick paused, weighing his words before continuing. “I wasn’t planning to tell you yet, because I thought you would both need time to think, but there’s a memorial service for him in a few months. We’d be honored if you would join us.”

  “Why wait?” asked Margaret.

  “Every jumpvessel in the fleet has requested fly-by clearance during the service, Mrs. Danvers. All of the Spacers are coming home to pay their respects
to their fallen brother. We had to wait that long so the Odyssey could make it back to Earth. They were several weeks into deep space, beyond the edge of the Solar System. They made a unanimous decision to abort the mission so they could say goodbye to the one who should have led them.”

  Mrs. Danvers stood, her eyes bright with tears. “Just give us the details, Mr. President. We’ll be there.” She held out her hand. “Thank you for bringing us this news in person.”

  “I’ll be sure to have the full invitation sent to you, Mrs. Danvers.” Nick took her hand, clasping it in both of his own. “I am truly sorry for your loss. Please believe me when I say I would have done anything to prevent it.”

  “I believe you, Nick,” she said. “You tried to save him, even when it would have cost so many lives. I get the impression you don’t hold back at all when you set your mind to something.” She smiled sadly and turned his clasped hands to look at the plain gold band encircling his finger. “And you obviously don’t waste any time.”

  Nick’s face reddened and he released her hand. “I’m sorry you had to see me propose on that recording, Mrs. Danvers. It must have seemed totally heartless, after everything that happened.”

  She shook her head. “You said it yourself, Nick. There has been too much death, too much pain. We saw the footage from your Armistice Day. I don’t begrudge you a moment of happiness, not after everything you’ve been through.”

  “Thank you.” Nick nervously rotated the ring on his finger. “I should be going. I have to get back to the wedding reception.”