by Gregg Vann
“I see. Well in that case…” Eraz said sarcastically. “How can I possibly refuse?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“This is your first and only warning, Blenej vessel. Reverse course before entering the Ko’ln Interdiction Zone, or identify yourself, state your business here, and come to a full stop and prepare to be boarded.”
Maxal spun sideways in his seat to look back at Tien, three uneventful days in transit ending abruptly at the Udek border. “I believe we’ve reached the point of no return,” he said.
This was it. The moment when words became actions, and the possibility of death became the promise of it. Maxal scanned Tien’s face for clues as to whether or not they were going to proceed with this madness, but the pilot found no answers on its blank surface.
“Yes,” Tien replied. “We have.” The surety in his voice left no doubt that the mission would continue. “Eraz, you’re up.”
She nodded and then rose from her seat, stepping between Maxal and Ayel to stand before the main console at the front of the cockpit. Eraz rehearsed the performance in her mind one last time, knowing that their lives depended on what she did next. She stabbed the comm button with her index finger. “This is Commander Eraz. Assigned: Polit outpost.”
“Clearance code,” came the curt reply.
“Menil Brach. Four, twenty-seven, Axan.”
“Hold.”
Eraz glanced around at the others, noting the questioning looks on their faces. But she could offer them no reassurance, because Eraz had no idea herself how this would all unfold. They didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“Code confirmed. You were presumed killed in action four days ago, Commander. I’ve been instructed to board your ship for inspection, and then a fighter escort will accompany you down to Nykor Central Port.”
“Negative,” Eraz replied forcefully. “My ship is off limits, restricted access. I’m ferrying classified cargo. Eyes Only for the Special Corp.”
A long pause followed, as was usually the case when someone mentioned the Corp. Thoughts of duty and responsibility were quickly tossed aside, replaced by an overwhelming and immediate concern for one’s personal safety—and for that of their family. Eraz knew that just mentioning the Udek’s feared intelligence branch would escalate the matter immediately, if her miraculous return from the dead hadn’t already done so. This was confirmed when she looked out through the forward window and noticed two top-of-the-line Udek interceptors screaming toward them. Maxal caught her attention and pointed down at the scanner, indicating that a nearby warship had also changed vector, adopting an intercept course.
“Maintain your position, Commander, while we contact the Corp.” The Udek officer’s voice was appreciably less haughty now, deciding that a more cautious approach might be warranted in light of the new information.
“Understood,” Eraz replied.
Tien felt the unease and apprehension filling the ship. Everyone was nervous, as they should be. “This will work,” he told them, trying to convince himself as well as the others.
The comm went active again. But this time, it was a different voice. “Commander Eraz. This is Jenta Fil, Special Corp liaison for planetary defenses. According to your own reports, our agent on Polit was killed well before the uprising began. What business could you possibly have with the Corp? None, I suspect. You will immediately consent to a search of your vessel, and then report directly to your military superiors in Nykor. Am I clear?”
Eraz looked over at Tien and he nodded reassuringly.
“Vanek Dawn,” she said with slow deliberation. Eraz’s statement was followed by another obvious pause over the comm system.
“When?”
“Two days, based on the information I’ve uncovered.”
“Acknowledged. I’ve just granted you priority clearance through the Zone. Proceed straight to the spaceport, where ground transportation will be waiting to take you to Special Corp headquarters.”
“I also have three prisoners with me.”
“I will make the necessary arrangements.”
“Thank you,” Eraz stated flatly, trying to remain impassive. The comm went dead and she leaned up against the console, blowing out a long breath. “I can’t believe that actually worked.”
“It’s one of the few codes that grants you express access to the Special Corp command structure,” Tien said. “And it’s the only one that lets you bypass any military interference along the way.”
“I’m amazed something like that even exists,” Eraz remarked.
“Only field operatives and the upper echelon know what the code actually means,” Tien explained. “But every member of the Corp is instructed to render unqualified and immediate assistance if they ever hear it. That Fil knew to ask when it was happening means he understands the full import of your message, and now the Corp thinks there will be an armed insurrection on Ko’ln within the next two days. Most of our speculative working scenarios had the military involved in trying to overthrow the government, so bypassing them in this situation is a given. And the fact that you’re returning from a planet where a major Udek operation was just compromised lends a great deal of gravity to your presence here—plus it adds substantial credence to your warning. It’s widely known that there are factions within the present government who are vehemently opposed to our expansion, so it might follow that some of them would be involved in the uprising on Polit. Sabotage can be a powerful messenger to a reluctant audience. Special Corp will want to see you, Eraz. Now. But most importantly for our own purposes, Awi Stenth will meet with you personally. I guarantee it.”
“But I’m not Special Corp,” Eraz pointed out.
“And yet somehow, you knew the code.”
“If anything, that makes me look suspicious.”
“That’s true,” Tien agreed. “But you’re invoking it as a warning to the Corp. Why would you do that if you were part of the plot? You wouldn’t. And don’t forget, the Special Corp operative on Polit was murdered, making this situation all the more troubling. Were his captors able to get any classified information from him before he died? Were they even Iriq? Maybe Stenth’s operative was actually abducted by Udek dissenters on Polit, trying to gain inside information about the Corp. And what if those very same traitors used the uprising as a smokescreen, to send the fleet into disarray. If the Udek were forced to commit more ships in an effort to retake Polit, it might leave the home world exposed. Perhaps the plotters hoped to toss the military and Special Corp both off balance as part of a larger stratagem, before moving in to overthrow the Presidium and seize power on Ko’ln. The point is, if I can conceive of all these possibilities—no matter how improbable—I can assure you that Awi Stenth will as well, and probably more besides. There are potentially disastrous questions here, begging for answers. So much confusion, and possible intrigue. Now that you’ve issued the warning, Stenth will view everyone around him with suspicion. But that heightened mistrust will conceal the real threat to the chancellor…us. Stenth’s paranoia will allow us to get in close, and it’s what we’ll use to end him.”
Eraz frowned. “I honestly don’t know what’s more dangerous, Tien, your skill as an assassin, or your unparalleled gift for lies and manipulation. It’s no wonder Awi Stenth wants you dead. With you on the loose, he probably feels like he left a loaded gun lying around the galaxy, poised to go off in any direction without warning.”
“In the Corp,” Tien said, “we’re trained to use treachery, duplicity, and disinformation, just like any other weapons. And sometimes aiming the right words at a target can be far more devastating than any bullet or plasma beam.”
“That’s another reason I’d rather be dealing with the military than the Special Corp. At least with them, you always know exactly where you stand. But if you’re certain that bypassing them is the right move…”
“It is,” Tien assured her.
“And what about Brother Dyson?” Ryll asked them both. There was exasperation in his
voice from having to constantly remind them about his kidnapped master. “That is why we’re here.”
“That’s one of the reasons we’re here,” Tien corrected the obstinate monk. “The chancellor undoubtedly knows where Miso and Dyson are, so Awi Stenth remains the key to everything.”
“Then I suppose I put myself and the fate of the entire Bodhi Order in your hands,” Ryll replied in a bitter tone. “As if I have any other choice.”
“Well, I’m not so trusting,” Ayel remarked. “And I don’t want to be taken prisoner by the Udek. I’ve been trying to avoid that fate for more than a year.” Maxal’s concerned expression indicated that he agreed with Ayel wholeheartedly.
“It’s part of the ruse,” Tien explained for the last time. What little patience he had was long exhausted. “You all know that. The Udek will search this ship when we land, so hiding is not an option. After we’re all on the ground, my first priority will be to infiltrate the building and meet up with Eraz, so we can free the rest of you from the Special Corp holding cells. Then together we will kill Stenth, rescue Brother Dyson, and make our escape from Ko’ln. This is the best way—the only way—to get us all safely down to the planet and into Special Corp headquarters.”
Ayel grabbed Maxal’s hand and glared at Tien. “If this is the best plan you can come up with,” she snapped angrily, “then you should have just dropped us off somewhere on the way. The two of us shouldn’t even be here.”
Tien had had enough. “I didn’t ask you to come with us, Ayel. You brought this on yourself. I wanted Maxal in case things went badly, and we had to make a run from the Interdiction Zone. None of us have his piloting skills. The monk is here to deal with Dyson’s soul chamber—and besides, it’s his mission. Commander Eraz gets us through the Zone and down to the surface. Plus, she can provide help from inside Special Corp. But you? You’re just an uninvited passenger as far as I’m concerned. You’re welcome to keep your opinions to yourself and your mouth shut.”
Maxal fought to suppress his anger as Tien lashed out at Ayel, every fiber of his being screamed for him to attack the Udek and slam him to the ground. But the Blenej mastered his emotions and held himself back. He knew he’d lose that fight, and then Ayel would be left with no protection at all. Despite his restraint, Maxal’s face registered every last trace of the rage coursing through him.
Tien’s delivery had been predictably blunt, and he was every bit the bastard Maxal knew him to be. But the Udek assassin also had a point. Maxal agreed to this mission. Hell, he’d suggested his participation in it. And Ayel was here because of Maxal’s choice. That was the cold, hard reality of how they’d ended up in this predicament. He gently placed a hand on Ayel’s shoulder to soothe her anger, but it was already bleeding away. Because just like Maxal, Ayel knew that everything Tien said was true. She’d placed herself in this position, and Ayel had no one else to blame.
“Let’s just get this over with,” she said finally.
Tien nodded for Maxal to get underway and he directed the ship toward the planet. The two Udek interceptors took up positions alongside them, and as they passed through Ko’ln’s orbital security ring they tightened the formation to an uncomfortable degree. The message was abundantly clear: no deviation in course would be tolerated. The Obas had taken similar precautions on their world. But Maxal imagined that on Ko’ln there would be no corrective communications or warning shots if he somehow strayed off the approved path, only instantaneous and thorough destruction. Several tense seconds later, the three vessels began their descent into the atmosphere. Maxal, Ayel, and Brother Ryll gazed out at the landscape expectantly when they broke through the heavy cloud cover. They were shocked by what they saw.
It was utter devastation.
They studied the charred sweep of land below them in stunned silence—bordering on disbelief. The sight was incomprehensible to the eye, and it was impossible to grasp the enormity of it without a suitable frame of reference. Maxal wondered if one even existed, because this seemed a singular measure of annihilation.
There were enormous jagged pits gouged deep into the surface of the planet, marking the spots where dozens of nuclear devices had been detonated just above the ground. The coarse terrain surrounding the massive craters heaved away from the epicenters like rolling hills, pushed out from the blast sites to form ever-widening concentric circles. But it was clear that the bombs were only the first of several cataclysmic events.
The resultant fires and radiation decimated everything the initial blast waves hadn’t—everything, for as far as the eye could see. There were no signs of animals or insects, or even a single blade of grass. The devastation was so complete that not so much as a microbe existed within the dead zone. There was no life, none. And the only sense of movement came from light glinting off shiny patches of dirt-encrusted glass, produced when the intense heat and fireballs from the nuclear detonations transformed the surrounding sand into something new—a small token of creation, amid so much destruction. The blackened landscape passing beneath them was still, sterile, and irradiated beyond measure, and the hell-like scene generated a deep sense of foreboding, one that reached all the way up to Maxal’s ship.
“What happened here?” Ayel said, her voice registering the horror she felt.
“That,” Eraz told her, “is the Vanek Expanse. A remnant from our last civil war.”
“Vanek?” Ayel repeated. “Like the code word you used with the Special Corp agent?”
“I suppose so,” Eraz replied. “That makes more sense to me now. It’s the perfect word to warn someone of sedition.”
“Why haven’t you reclaimed this area?” Brother Ryll asked her. “It would clearly take some work, but you can remove the radioactive waste and cleanse the affected soil. With a decent amount of effort, you could restore this environment to its original state. It’s been done on many other worlds, and with great success. Granted, the damage in those cases wasn’t nearly this extensive, but the principles and methods are universal.”
“It was left this way on purpose,” Eraz said. “As a permanent reminder. The Vanek Expanse serves as an important lesson to the Udek people—preserved for each successive generation—that this is what happens when we don’t stand united.” Eraz looked back at Tien and her eyes lingered for a moment. “It’s a lesson that some of us have clearly forgotten.”
Tien caught the thinly veiled insult, just as Eraz intended. “If you insist on judging my actions, Commander, you might keep in mind that you’re also betraying our people, by helping me kill the Chancellor of the Udek Special Corp.”
“Ah, but that’s different,” Eraz replied. “Awi Stenth went too far. I’m a patriot, a faithful Udek soldier who has always followed orders. And my actions at the battle for Obas helped changed the tide of the war. I should have received a commendation for my service, Tien, not been tortured and relegated to a nothing command on Polit. Stenth never should have treated me like that. He betrayed the Confederation, not me. Awi Stenth’s obsession with you overrode his duties to our people, so I feel quite justified in taking my revenge.”
“How interesting,” Tien replied. “Because that’s exactly how I felt when the Udek killed my family—that they went too far, and that I was justified in my revenge.”
“Yes…well, maybe,” Eraz muttered.
The vista spread out beneath them changed dramatically as the ship cleared the Expanse, and Maxal began his final approach to the city using directions transmitted by the Udek. As he slowed the vessel down, more details of the new terrain came into focus.
“I can’t believe the difference,” Ayel remarked. “It’s so beautiful. I had no idea.”
The combination of Ko’ln’s twin suns and the planet’s methane-rich atmosphere colored the sky a pinkish red, and sent unusual auras of light shimmering across the world’s oceans and landmasses. The methane levels weren’t high enough to mute or muddy the planet’s brilliant colors, as worlds with denser concentrations in the atmosphere were pro
ne to experience. The effect on the Udek home world was quite the opposite. Ko’ln’s distinctive mixture contained just enough of the gas to produce unusually bright hues within the visual spectrum—colors with an almost glowing aspect to them. And as the Blenej cargo ship drew closer to the ground, its occupants discovered how the unique environmental conditions had conspired to create extraordinary scenery.
Long stalks of purple grass waved aimlessly in the fields below them, caught up in the gentle breezes that rapidly changed direction. Thick red trees pushed up through the sky at regular intervals—always at least twenty meters apart—and each of them had multicolored plants of differing shapes and sizes sprouting from their trunks. The plants stuck out rigidly, parallel to the ground, and covered every inch of the trees’ vertical surfaces like colorful sweaters. The dense spread of foliage stopped where it met the lowest branches, leaving the upper portion of the trees exposed. Ayel noticed periodic flashes of motion flitting across the broad trunks, and she traced them to small animals hopping from plant to plant. She watched in fascination as one of them unfurled a set of gossamer wings from beneath its spindly front legs, and then it sailed over to another tree. Ayel noted that even Ko’ln’s creatures were brightly colored, and the little animal easily blended into the blanket of plants covering the new tree. It was soon lost deep within the rustling mélange of glimmering pigments.
“The colors…” Ayel breathed.
“What were you expecting?” Tien asked her.
Several country homesteads came into view next, heralding the first developed areas of the planet they’d seen. The small dwellings and the substructures surrounding them were all painted in similar combinations of red, yellow, and a light, yet highly reflective shade of royal blue. The homes were interconnected via cobblestone footpaths, and Ayel saw a pair of Udek standing out in front of one of them. It was a man and a woman, and the sight astounded her. Ayel had never seen her enemy without armor and facemasks before. And in this context they seemed so ordinary…normal, even. The couple looked up as the ship flew overhead, and Ayel spun around to answer Tien’s question.
