The Circuit: The Complete Saga

by Bruno, Rhett C.

  She was on a ship in space. She expected to see a field of stars like usual, but they only dotted the edges of her view. In the center was a great patch of darkness. It wasn’t a piece of rock. She could make out the lines of plated metal illuminated by faintly glowing quad ion drives.

  Is that a ship? It’s huge. She leaned in to get a closer look and noticed a shimmering golden solar sail reeled in over a blocky bow.

  A solar-ark? She’d never seen one outside of a hologram representation before. Nobody had. They moved too fast. This one, however, moved at the same speed as whatever ship she was on.

  She wiped the sweat off her forehead and squeezed her eyelids shut. Then she opened them again to check once again that it was real. This time, she noticed her own pale reflection framing the ship and yelped. Her red hair was trimmed and messy, like a boy’s, and wrapped around it was a bloody bandage.

  Reaching up with a trembling hand, she wove her fingers through the short strands of hair and under the cloth. Her index finger grazed a line of smooth, lumpy skin, and as soon as it did, a stabbing pain seized her entire head, so intense it drove her to her knees.

  “Cassius, what have you done?” she wheezed, right before a needle pricked the side of her neck and she tipped over, unconscious again.

  2

  Chapter Two—Cassius

  The White Hand neared Cassius’ clandestine base on the asteroid Ennomos, but he wasn’t sitting on the command deck watching the stars race by like he usually did. Instead, he was in the medical bay.

  Since the White Hand’s construction, only one person had ever laid upon its bed, and presently, she was fast asleep. He remembered the first time she’d been there, some years ago, when her arm was little more than a mangled stump.

  His gaze unfolded over the artificial limb that he himself had placed there. His fingers danced, replaying the motions that had set all its parts in place—all the plates of dark metal and welded seals. All the circuitry.

  He lost himself in the memory, not realizing he’d grazed her arm until its powerful hand snapped to life and grasped him by the wrist.

  The cold metal fingers squeezed, threatening to snap his bone in two. He didn’t react. He endured the pain, staring into Sage’s waking eyes.

  “Where am I?” she asked, her voice raspy.

  “You’re safe, Sage,” Cassius responded. “Safely aboard the White Hand.”

  When she heard the name of the ship, her grip loosened. She blinked a few times before meeting his gaze.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You woke too early last time. It was dangerous. You still need some time to recover.”

  Her eyes suddenly went wide as if a wave of terrible memories had bombarded her. They were green and bright—verdant as the old forests of Earth. Cassius wasn’t sure exactly what it was she’d seen in her now-free head, but he didn’t have to think hard to imagine.

  He’d undergone the same operation when he removed his own implant before leaving the Tribune. It was like having the dust cleared off a thousand old books, bringing a library of faded memories back into focus.

  “What have you done to me?” she demanded.

  “Set you free.”

  “Liar!” Her artificial hand squeezed the side of the bed, crushing its metal frame.

  Cassius reached out and folded his hand over her artificial one, his fingers sliding beneath her plated joints. “Trust me, Sage,” he said, leaning in close. “No matter what I’ve ever done, no matter who I’ve ever hurt, know that I would never harm you.”

  Sage massaged her temples with her human hand. “Tell that to my head. I’m getting tired of waking up like this.”

  “Hopefully, this is the last time, my dear,” Cassius replied. He moved to sit at the end of the bed, making sure to keep his hands resting securely on his own lap. He’d seen enough of how her Tribunal masters treated her.

  “The symptoms from the extraction will pass soon,” he said.

  “What exactly did you do?” she asked.

  “Do you remember what we discussed on Titan? What you saw there?”

  Her face went pale. “I remember everything. Past, present—everything.”

  Cassius turned his head and gestured at the long jagged scar running down the back of his neck. “As I said there, the executor implant also tapped into occipital lobe, allowing the Tribune to see whatever they wanted through your eyes when it was active. They could have detonated it and killed you at any time as well. And they are nearly impossible to remove outside the Enclave without killing the host.”

  “Only you found a way.”

  “Yes,” he said proudly, “I had to. Yours was a bit more of a challenge. The explosion on New Terrene damaged the device’s link permanently. Not enough for the Tribune to notice after they assumed they’d repaired it, but they lack a certain… attention to detail. It is why, afterwards, you were beginning to become susceptible to the parts of yourself you thought were buried too deeply to ever be rediscovered. Now, however, you have been completely reawakened.”

  “What if—” Sage paused and focused on him. “I can see his face, Cassius. No matter where I look, he’s there. So clear. And not just him. Everyone I’ve ever lost or killed. I… What if I wanted to stay asleep?”

  “Then you’re already lost.”

  “What about you? First seizing freighters and now a solar-ark? I saw it out there. How can this all be for him?”

  “You really think this is solely about vengeance?” He scoffed. “That nobody could ever really turn their back on your beloved Tribune after suffering their lies?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I want to know anymore. But if you ever had to feel what I feel now, then I am truly sorry.”

  “Never apologize for clarity!” Cassius growled.

  Sage flinched. Her gaze turned toward the floor. “I just want to stop hearing the screams.”

  He drew a deep breath. “And you will soon. The mind is like a river. Remove a single dam and it will surge through in a torrent, but soon, after enough land has been carved out, a steady stream will return. Calm.”

  “Painful.”

  Cassius placed a consoling hand on Sage’s shoulder. “Of course, but we are meant to feel. You are more than a weapon, Sage Volus. I have seen you smile, and love, and show kindness. You deserve more than turning into me.”

  “Do you expect me to abandon my vows just because you claim they were the ones looking through my eyes?” she said. “I only ever saw the screens in your compound.”

  “No. I expect you to open them for yourself.”

  Sage sighed and let her head fall back to rest on her pillow. “They were your vows as well, once,” she said. “You took the oath on the surface of Earth—dug your bare hands through the dirt of our homeworld as you spoke them.”

  “Twice I made the pilgrimage,” he explained. “Once when I was named an executor. Again, as a Tribune. Both times I let greed guide my hands. I conquered colonies, tore fleets apart piece by piece, and won the first real war humanity has known since Earthfall.”

  “I know.” The corners of her lips lifted into a smile for the faintest moment and then quickly reverted to a straight line. “Caleb wanted to be just like you.”

  “I’m glad he wasn’t. I may have won all my dreams on the battlefield, but it wasn’t my war. Victory takes a heavy toll.”

  “One worth fighting for,” Sage added, sitting back up. “It wasn’t just Caleb. Every person in the Tribune wanted to be like the great Cassius Vale. I used to see your face on the holoscreens throughout New Terrene when I was a child. After every victory, they’d praise you as if you embodied the Spirit of the Earth yourself. The executor who rose from the shadow to take Earth back from the Ceresian Pact and become a Tribune himself. I wanted to be like you, too. You were the only reason I couldn’t wait to serve when I was nothing but an orphan girl in a home.” Her brow wrinkled with both pain and vexation. “How could you betray us so easily?�
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  She’s trying to understand, Cassius thought. But she never will. He approached the screen monitoring Sage. Swiping through a few feeds, he made sure there was nothing out of the ordinary about her vitals.

  “Cassius?” she asked.

  He craned over the console, staring down at the tops of his pale, liver-spotted hands. The years hadn’t been kind.

  “Have I ever told you the real story about why I became an executor?” he asked.

  “No,” Sage said.

  “I was never close with my father. I won’t claim to hate him—it’s been far too long for that—but that’s the truth. You see, while I was growing up on Titan, before the Tribune took over, I, too, wanted to be a soldier. I used to read old stories of the era of conflict before my ancestors united Saturn, dreaming about what it would be like to be in battle. Unfortunately, my father barely let me step outside our compound. ‘It is dangerous for a Vale out there,’ he’d say. The frightened old man.

  “I didn’t listen very well. I’d sneak out whenever I got the chance and wander Edeoria’s earthscrapers. I’d hide my identity and pick fights at the bars, have the guards arrest me, and then force them to keep it a secret once they found out who I really was. There was little else I could do. My father was the prefect of Titan. I was his only heir.

  “The position had been passed down through generations of my family—a bloodline that is said to date back to the very first Ancients who fled Earth. We were traders and merchants, peaceful people gaining our wealth by selling water from Saturn’s rings to fringe settlements and valuable gases from the planet herself to everyone else. Our shipments filled the cargo holds of the solar-arks from end to end. Titan was a true jewel of the Circuit.”

  Cassius walked back to Sage’s bed and leaned against the end of it, half sitting.

  “I was young when the Tribune entered a war with the Ceresians,” he continued. “Jupiter was the first to face the repercussions. All her moons, many of them once proud sovereign settlements, were forced to choose sides. It became a constant battleground. The heart of the early Reclaimer War.”

  “I know Tribunal history, Cassius,” Sage groaned. “I grew up there.”

  “Of course, but most people forget that Titan didn’t choose a side in the war. Not until the Tribune set their sights on us. We were in a perfect location to safely prepare an offensive against the growing Ceresian opposition, and we guarded a surplus of vital gases needed to power engines that the Circuit’s shipments couldn’t provide fast enough for a war. My father initially followed the path of the Keepers, declaring his neutrality, but do you think that stopped the Tribune? No. We were all faithless to them, whether we aggressively pursued robotics like the Ceresians or not.”

  Cassius closed his eyes.

  “They arrived soon after, and not with emissaries or diplomats. No, I remember that day like it was yesterday. The stormy skies of Titan went black with shadows as the entire Tribunal fleet descended over us. They didn’t bother to transmit a request for landing until they were already through the atmosphere. I was standing on the terrace outside my father’s quarters, watching ship after ship pierce the clouds. Up to that point in my sheltered life, it was the most impressive, terrifying thing I’d ever experienced.

  “I begged my father to stand against them. ‘The Vales have always ruled Saturn,’ I told him. ‘They have no right to demand anything from us.’ All he did was stare at the sky and mumble under his breath like a loon. He didn’t even lift a finger to oppose it. Even as Tribunal mechs flooded into Edeoria.”

  “You said you were mostly traders and merchants,” Sage said. “Did you even have an armed fleet? Artillery? What did you expect him to do?”

  “To fight with what little we had!” Cassius bristled. “Or at least negotiate something resembling terms. Anything! Instead, the entire history of my family’s rule was wiped away. I can’t even remember it. Our markets were jammed with temples and Earth Whisperers, our ears filled with promises of the Spirit’s guidance. An entire culture, gone… like words to space.”

  “So it was peaceful, then?” Sage countered. “They didn’t fire on your people at all.”

  “Peaceful, sure,” Cassius replied bitterly. “Not a single shot. And it broke my heart. I decided I couldn’t bear the shame of it. If my father was willing to surrender all that our ancestors had built for nothing, then what was the point of me staying? I could either remain and become the future prefect of Titan in title only, or find my place amongst the Tribune as the warrior I’d always dreamed of being.

  “It was an easy choice for my angry, impetuous younger self. I didn’t even bother to say goodbye. I hid my identity, for good this time, and smuggled myself onto a warship bound for Jupiter, vowing that I would never be weak again.”

  “Jupiter?” she asked, surprised. “You fought there?”

  Cassius grinned. “I grew up there. By the time the Battle of Ganymede ended, everyone knew the bastard child from Titan. The Hand leading the battle saw my potential and had me trained as an executor. He was a young, voracious man as well, who soon was named a Tribune when his master fell in a convenient ambush over Europa. Benjar Vakari.”

  Just saying the man’s name out loud made a bad taste swirl around his gums.

  “And the rest is history,” he said. “I wasn’t truly a Vale again until Benjar and the rest of the Tribunal Council required a member hailing from Saturn-orbit in order to prevent any discord in the region, and added a fourth seat. Who better to serve than a war hero who just so happened to be the long-lost Vale descendent?”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” Sage asked.

  “Because I didn’t care who I served. Ceresian Pact, New Earth Tribune—it was all the same to me. I just chose the side of the first faction at war that arrived at my doorstep. All I wanted was to prove that I was worth more than my gutless father, yet all I allowed myself to become was a tool. Like you, it was partially the executor implant keeping me focused, making me care for nothing except for fighting, but I don’t blame it. Not having it wouldn’t have changed a single thing I did until the war was long over.

  “I was so consumed by my father’s shame that I didn’t stop until I became the greatest weapon the Circuit had ever known. And then, after the battle of Lutetia, when I forced the Ceresians to surrender and the armistice was signed, I was nothing again—a figurehead to be used while we slowly bled out what remained of our enemies. I realized then that I could have remained on Titan with my father and earned the same fate.”

  Sage wrapped her artificial hand around Cassius’ tightened fist. “That’s not true,” she whispered forcefully. “You were a hero.”

  “And a murderer,” Cassius said. “All depends on who you ask. It took the unexpected birth of my son for me to stop trying to prove how great I was, and after removing my implant, Caleb was the only thing I could care about. It didn’t matter that I was a Tribune; I just did what I had to. The rest of the council knew it. They used his existence to control me, and as long as Caleb was alive, I was happy to oblige—to turn a blind eye to everything about them that had begun driving me mad once the war ended.” Cassius swallowed back a dry throat. “And then he was taken from me… and, like you, clarity was thrust upon me.”

  “I loved him too, Cassius,” Sage whispered. “I tried my best to move on back then. Why can’t you?”

  “You did your best to forget,” he spat.

  Sage looked like she’d just been punched in the gut. Cassius knew that she knew he was right. It was the sole reason he believed she’d decided to take her newly installed arm and become an executor. To have the pain almost literally programmed out of her.

  “Maybe I have,” she finally replied, “but do you really think any of this will honor his sacrifice?”

  “Sacrifice?” Cassius asked. “As I said on Titan, humanity has become a species of shackles. Fear of the vacuum all around our tiny contained environments. A need for gravitum we could live without wi
th but a little ingenuity. The solar-arks. And worst of all, Earth. My son gave everything trying to heal that wretched homeworld of ours, and all he got for it was a pathetic plant that the Tribune presents as if it was their faith that made it grow.”

  “The Spirit may have rejected his methods, but that plant shows us that our time is coming,” Sage said. “We just weren’t ready.”

  “We’ll never be ready!” he hissed. “That’s the truth I want the Circuit to realize. That plant grew because my son shared my resolve, not because the Spirit wanted to allow some glimmer of hope to the faithful. He died because Earth is broken, that’s all. It’s just another shackle, just like the Tribune is. And because of my greed, I handed them the entire Circuit on a silver platter. Now I’m going to take it away. I’m going to rectify what I’ve done.”

  Cassius could feel Sage’s legs instinctually wriggling away from him under the sheets. A hint of dread crept into her voice as she responded, “What are you planning, Cassius?”

  “To remove shackles.”

  A bout of silence passed between them; then he stood. “We’re going to arrive soon. You’ll need your rest if you hope to recover.”

  Then, before she could respond, he took a few long strides out of the room and locked the door behind him.

  3

  Chapter Three—Adim

  ADIM stood in the hangar of Cassius’ secret base on Ennomos. His hands gripped the bladelike edge of the Shadow Chariot’s wing as he leaned over it, staring through the cockpit’s translucency where the human child he’d taken from Kalliope to serve as a gift for Cassius had finally awoken. She sat silently, her blue eyes bulging.

  ADIM jumped up onto the chassis of his ship. It dipped under his weight. He crouched and pressed his hands against the translucency to look closer. She remained still, gawking. ADIM tilted his head slightly to the side as he analyzed her to try to get a reading on what her expression indicated. He had never seen a human child up close before, and in his experience, all humans other than his Creator looked upon him with trepidation.