by Gregg Vann
But letting yourself get captured?
That was unforgivable.
The previous Special Corp operatives had all tried coming at Tien through the sea, using an assortment of clandestine vessels to evade detection by Obas security forces. Some attempted to sneak into the city through little-used maintenance ports—or remote facilities, far away from the city proper. While others had tried their luck amidst the endless labyrinths of the cavern system, winding their way through the undersea mountains as they worked to reach their target. But each of those assassins, without exception, had been killed long before arriving at the part of the city where Tien resided with his family. Most were intercepted by the Obas—no one knew their undersea world better than they did. But a few had proven more elusive, so they’d brought in Tien to help track the assassins down. But none of them, none, had ever used the air vents before to gain access to this section of Edo. If Tien hadn’t sensed the slight hint of movement off to his side while strolling down the corridor toward his home chamber, and then instinctively twisted away from it to avoid the danger, the assassin’s dagger would have plunged straight into his neck.
And Kiro Tien would be dead now.
It was too close, he thought. Too damn close.
If the operative had made it past Tien, he’d have only been steps away from Dasi and Nsari—with no one left alive to protect them. Tien’s family would have been murdered before his own corpse grew cold.
So.
Close.
When the dagger failed to strike home, the assassin had tried pulling his gun from its holster to finish the job. But Tien knocked the weapon away, starting a brutal life and death struggle that left both men broken and bloody. The operative could have—should have—shot Tien from the shadows, and then snuck back to his ship before anyone realized what had happened. Tien guessed he was worried about the weapon’s discharge being detected by the Obas, or perhaps the assassin simply craved a more personal kill. But either way, he’d failed, and the ensuing hand-to-hand contest was an Udek master class in precision striking and feral bloodlust. The lethal combatants were evenly matched, but the assassin managed to kick Tien away and knock him to the floor. That was when he made a run for it.
And the chase was on.
The assassin sped away from the special methane habitat the Obas had constructed for Tien and his family, moving through smaller, seldom-used caverns in his attempt to escape. With Tien in close pursuit, the pair wound their way along several empty corridors before the killer finally dove into the refuse tunnel, retracing his path in a desperate bid to make it back to the surface. Tien’s injuries had slowed him down somewhat, causing him to lose sight of the assassin in the cramped and poorly lit passageway. But there was no way his quarry could have doubled back. So despite what his senses were telling him, Tien knew with absolute certainty that the Special Corp agent was just up ahead.
So close.
Now.
Tien sprang out into the air vent. He immediately began rising upward as the shaft’s swift currents pushed him aloft. He noticed that the flow in this particular vent wasn’t nearly as impressive as others he’d experienced on the planet. But coupled with the lighter gravity of Obas, it was more than enough to provide lift. Tien peered up intently through the subdued light emanating from the rock walls around him—a peculiar feature of the stone that provided natural illumination throughout all of the Obas caverns and air vents. He strained to spot his assailant somewhere overhead, but the soft lighting revealed only a hollow blackness at the center of his vision, bordered by the curved walls marking the boundaries of the circular shaft. Tien adopted a glide posture Master Pilot Boe had taught him and began rising more swiftly. Then he looked up again and finally saw his target.
The assassin didn’t share Tien’s mastery of the vents, and he lacked the necessary skills and practice to move any faster. Tien also knew that if the shaft didn’t have safety repellers in place, the operative would be slamming into the walls so often he would have already overtaken him. But even as things were, the gap between the two men was closing rapidly. The fleeing Udek looked down and saw Tien advancing on him, and then he spotted a round portal off to the side, leading out of the air shaft. The assassin grabbed one of the handholds bolted into the stone around it and clumsily pulled himself through. He struck the edge of the opening hard as he left the vent, tumbling uncontrollably into the room beyond.
Tien was right behind him now and also latched onto one of the handgrips. But instead of spinning off to the side like the Udek operative, careening into the edges of the portal, Tien used his momentum to deftly swing in through the opening, sending both of his feet into the assassin’s back as he was picking himself up from the ground. Both men went down from the impact, but then rolled away and popped back up again to face each other. The pair then began circling slowly, remaining roughly two meters apart—probing, and evaluating. Tien scanned his surroundings while keeping a sharp eye on his opponent, noticing that the chamber they were in featured an Obas breeding pool, where they hatched all of their young from eggs.
“Kiro Tien,” the assassin said, almost cheerfully. “It looks like you’re in a great deal of discomfort. I hope my blade isn’t causing you too much trouble.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Tien said. There was no matching levity in his reply, only malice. This man had tried to kill him, and Tien harbored no doubt that his family would have died soon after.
“I suspect you’re lying to me about that. In any event, Awi Stenth sends his regards.” The assassin grinned. “You know, even though he sent me here to kill you, I think the old man misses you, Tien. But I have to admit that I’m somewhat disappointed myself. If you were half as good as he said you were, I’d expect to be dead by now.”
“Give it a few more minutes,” Tien replied. “We’re not quite finished yet. But I promise, you won’t leave disappointed. In fact, I promise you won’t leave here at all. Who are you?”
“My name is Zrea. Special Corp, of course.”
“Of course.”
The two men continued to circle warily, sizing each other up, but their prior encounter had left few martial mysteries still uncovered. The verbal jabs were textbook Special Corp training, and a deliberate precursor to the fight they both knew was coming. You worked to make your opponent doubt themselves—their skill, and conditioning. And you inflated your own abilities to appear almost invincible, as if there was only one possible outcome once the battle had begun: your victory.
Tien broke the silence. “I like that darksuit you’re wearing, Zrea. It looks like some new tech that I’ve not seen before. You did well to get so far into the city without being detected. It must be very impressive.”
“Ah,” Zrea replied with a grin. “I see that you still appreciate the tools of the trade. This is the absolute latest in stealth gear. So new, that it hasn’t even been distributed to the masses yet. I received the very first suit, just for this mission. You should feel flattered, Tien.”
“I do. And I’ll be happy to add it to my growing collection.”
Zrea slowly withdrew two daggers from a narrow bandolier stretched across his chest. “I’m sure you would. Of course, you’ll have to take it from me first.”
Kiro Tien smiled. “Then lets get started. Shall we?”
Chapter Four
Brother Dyson leaned out over the edge of the mountain, glancing down at the expansive forest, far below. Despite the impressive height, he could see detail in the ice-covered trees, their overly burdened limbs glistening in the bright light of day. Dyson’s heart quickened at the sight, and he felt the primal urge to jump that humans often experienced from the top of tall objects. The unexplainable impetus to leap—to death, or into the unknown, who can say? Brother Dyson dismissed the base impulse for what it was, an evolutionary throwback to a time before mankind’s elevation from the realm of animals. He took one final look down the face of the mountain, and then turned around.
“I
will go alone,” he announced to Brother Ryll. “It is for the best.”
As his humid breath struck the freezing air, wispy clouds marked each of the old monk’s words. They quickly dissipated, along with the sounds that accompanied them, yet the meaning of Dyson’s statement lingered.
“But you can't,” Brother Ryll said in exasperation. “It's too dangerous, master. You heard what those miners said about the warning. Let me go down to the cave and retrieve the chamber. Then I can bring it up to you when I’m sure it’s safe. It’s the most prudent course of action, Brother…the only way that makes any sense.”
Dyson had slept very little during the voyage to Ulor XI—he never really could abide space travel, even under the best of circumstances. But he dismissed his extreme weariness and smiled at Brother Ryll, projecting the calm and reflective confidence that each of the Bodhi monks expected from him. It was the tool Dyson used most often to quell their fear, anxiety, and even in rare cases, dissent.
“Thank you, Brother. I do appreciate your concern, but Miso was my friend, and it’s my place to go. But beyond that, and perhaps even more importantly, the device is over two hundred years old, and from long before your time at the monastery. Despite your considerable and impressive technological skills, the early soul chambers were designed and manufactured quite differently than they are now. I believe that makes me more qualified—probably the most qualified person still alive—for the task before us. The unit may have become unstable over the centuries. And if so, it could well be dangerous, even beyond the built-in explosive safeguards. But regardless of its condition, I’m the one with the best chance of managing the soul chamber properly. It must be me, Brother; I have to go. It is the only way.”
Ryll stared down at the ground for a long moment, and then he shrugged and drew in a deep breath. He gazed back up at Brother Dyson with a worried look on his face. When he finally spoke, the somber tone matched his expression. “If anything happens to you, master, what will become of the monastery?”
“It will endure, Brother. Despite the great esteem in which you all seem to hold me, for which I am very grateful, mind you, I am only a man. Merely one of many, many cogs that make the machinery of the monastery run. The Order will survive—thrive, even—with or without me. But you needn’t fear, Brother. I have every intention of coming back.”
Dyson stepped out onto the lift the miners installed for them at the edge of the mountain; it wobbled slightly as he moved toward the center of it. The Bodhi had paid handsomely for the simple conveyance, needed to safely retrieve the soul chamber and claim the frozen corpse. But the exorbitant fee had been an unavoidable necessity. The miners were understandably reluctant to go anywhere near the ice cave where Miso's body had been discovered. A nuclear device primed to explode had that effect on people.
But that was exactly the point, wasn’t it? Dyson thought.
And why the Bodhi machines were designed to issue the warning in the first place—so that no one would be tempted to access the soul chamber's hidden secrets, and try to steal the proprietary technology developed in the secure laboratories of Bodhi Prime. Anyone who did so would detonate the device and find themselves back on the Wheel of Life, awaiting their next incarnation.
“You can lower me down now,” Dyson directed the young miner holding the control pad. He struggled to remember the man’s name. Leau, yes, that was it. “If you please, Leau.”
After a false start, one that did nothing to spur Dyson’s confidence in the open metal platform, it jerked into motion. Brother Dyson grabbed the seemingly decorative handrail to steady himself, and then Ryll stepped back from the edge as his mentor disappeared slowly down the side of the mountain.
As the ride smoothed out, Dyson let go of the handrail and pulled his robes taut. Then he tucked his hands into his sleeves to steel himself against the bitter cold. Why here? he thought to himself as the platform continued its gradual descent. Why did Miso come all this way, to such a barren and hostile world? What was he seeking? Did he find it? Or had he merely died in the attempt?
Dyson looked down through the triangular-shaped holes in the lift’s mesh-metal platform, and he saw the opening of the ice cave coming into view. The old monk watched as the lift leveled out in front of it and automatically extended a narrow bridge, and then the platform locked into place with a loud clank and a soft bounce. Without hesitation, Brother Dyson stepped across the small gap and into the cave, carefully treading over the icy floor to where the soul chamber rested. The machine’s proximity sensors noted his approach.
{ATTENTION: Any attempt to touch or tamper with this device will result in a focused thermonuclear detonation. It is the sole property of The Order of Buddha’s Light. Leave the device in situ until authorized retrieval. Commencing emergency transmission…Bodhi Prime}
Dyson chuckled inwardly at the message, remembering how paranoid the monks had been back at the very beginning. The transference technology they’d developed was groundbreaking, and despite new providers in the field—most notably, the Volasi—remained unique to this day. The Bodhi had wanted to be absolutely certain that no one could steal one of their soul chambers and tear it apart, reverse engineer and copy what had taken the monks so long to perfect—and at such great expense. But as the reputation of the Bodhi grew, knowledge of their destructive fail-safes spread wide throughout the galaxy. And as a result, the warnings became far more subtle. The danger never lessened, however, and even the current devices employed explosive remedies guaranteed to deter even the most determined of thieves. But over the years, the dire warnings had been tempered into something a little more…civilized.
The soul chamber began cycling through the message a second time.
{ATTENTION: Any attempt—}
“Yes, yes, machine. I heard you. Activate voice identification.”
{Accessing… Awaiting input…}
“Authorization, Augustus Dyson. Current Master of Bodhi Prime. Disable protection systems and unlock all coding.”
{Verifying…}
{Verifying…}
{Verifying…}
{Unable to confirm identity. Data corruption. Self-diagnostic running. Results…unclear. Reset}
{ATTENTION: Any attempt to touch or tamper with…}
Brother Dyson knelt down on the frigid ice, one of his knees cracking loudly in protest, and then he opened up a side panel on the small device. A strobe light began flashing from within it, and a shrill siren pierced the air. Dyson could swear he heard a change of inflection in the machine-like voice, now blaring angrily from the soul chamber’s diminutive speakers.
{Unauthorized access detected. Initiating destruct protocols…}
Dyson squinted as he tried reading the display on the keypad. Sitting buried in a mountain, frozen solid for two hundred years, had tarnished the surface, reducing its clarity.
{Destruct protocols active. Commencing on-board data transfer to Bodhi Prime. Transfer failure detected…. …. …. Triggering emergency detonat—}
Brother Dyson punched the final number into the keypad just before the trigger went off. The display flashed from red to green, and the multiple alarms fell silent. He’d had a bit of trouble remembering the old emergency code. And since it had never actually been used before, Dyson was very glad to see that it worked. He was also relieved that he had come down to the ice cave instead of Brother Ryll. Otherwise, the situation might have had a disastrous ending.
{Manual input detected. Full authorization granted. Security protocols…deactivated}
Dyson struggled back to his feet and then bent down to pick up the soul chamber. He glanced over at Miso's remains and frowned.
“So this is what became of you,” he said aloud, his voice amplified in the cave. “Did you ever find what you were seeking, Brother?” Dyson understood the absurdity of questioning a corpse, and he looked down at the device clutched in his hand, admiring the heft of the old equipment. “I guess when we wake you from your long slumber you can tell us yo
urself.”
He returned to the lift and signaled for Leau to bring him back up, and as Brother Dyson began rising higher into the air, he watched the mouth of the ice cave give way to an unbroken wall of stone. Now that it was safe, he would send Ryll back down to collect Miso’s remains. Then they would bury the body back on Bodhi Prime. As for Miso himself, Brother Dyson wanted to inspect the soul chamber thoroughly before attempting any sort of transference procedure. It had clearly been damaged during the centuries-long ordeal, and the old monk wondered if Miso was still intact. Had his mind survived all this time? Or had it degraded into oblivion, centuries ago?
The lift lurched to a halt at the summit and Brother Dyson stepped off. Then he headed straight toward his ship, parked thirty meters away across the frozen terrain. Dyson was eager to connect the soul chamber up to the diagnostic equipment they brought, and to find out if his old friend was still alive.
Or had Brother Miso become just another ghost to add to Dyson’s collection.
Chapter Five
Speaker Lews gazed out through the observation window at the factory floor below, his eyes drifting from ship to ship as he tried to follow the incessant flow of activity.
The Obas head of state caught himself holding his breath as an over-sized crane fitted an enormous gun emplacement atop a nearly finished destroyer—one of many, many such vessels now sitting in varying states of construction throughout the massive undersea cavern. The weapons platform dropped down level with the ship, bobbing on its cables for a fraction of a second before sliding into the hull cutout perfectly. A waiting team of workers then swarmed over it, unhooking the heavy-gauge lines so the crane could withdraw. Soon they would begin fastening the new guns to the ship, adding even more weapons to an already impressive collection of armaments, strategically placed around the vessel to provide an expansive field of fire.
