“These incredible vessels have one additional capability, he said. “Come, ADIM. We must send a message to the Circuit. All of it.” Cassius led ADIM down the hall toward the command deck of the ark. “Then it is time that we finally pay a visit to Ceres.”
11
Chapter Eleven—Talon
Captain Larana’s gambit to escape the Tribunal ships hunting them worked flawlessly. For a day or two, scanners picked up a scout ship here and there, but all of them were far off and searching aimlessly. After that, they were nowhere in sight, no doubt focusing all their futile efforts on a course toward Uranus.
Talon couldn’t help but be slightly impressed. The captain told him that the systems being so old made the Monarch hard to detect with contemporary Tribunal equipment. He found it ironic. His people spent all their time struggling to keep up with the Tribune just in case, and here Vergents were in a century-old, rusty ship, evading a Tribunal fleet as if it were run by a bunch of blind old men.
They were about a week into their journey, and according to Kitt, they’d reach Kalliope soon. Talon took his word for it. They hadn’t been together long, but he’d come to realize that the Vergents were masters of space, and apparently of recreational games as well. They played a game called chess, moving sculpted pieces of rusty metal across a checkered board. If Talon had anything left of value, he would’ve been cleaned out the first day.
Presently, he was locked in a match with Kitt in the Monarch’s galley. He stared down at the board, dumbfounded. Kitt was still in his teens, but he had what they called Talon’s ‘king’ surrounded. It wasn’t anything like the holocard games Talon was used to playing back in Kalliope, winning hand after hand from brutes and pals. It was a game of strategy, concentration, and silence.
“Checkmate,” Kitt said.
“Again.” Talon sighed. “Wait until you get to Kalliope. I’ll show you a Ceresian game.”
“Lookin’ forward to winnin’ in that too.” Kitt looked up from the board with a wry grin and then cleared it. “Again?”
“I think I’ve taken enough of a beating for today,” Talon said. “My arms are getting tired.”
Kitt regarded his blue-veined hands with concern, and when Talon did the same, he understood why. He wasn’t used to everybody knowing about his affliction.
“Don’t worry, I’m kidding,” he said. “Just need to rest my head.” Rest or not, his limbs were always sore from the blue death. There was no use in complaining about them.
“Insiders.” Tarsis laughed. Being amongst his old people seemed to have him as high-spirited as he could be under the circumstances. He patted Talon on the back and motioned for him to get up. “I’ll show you how it’s done!”
Tarsis’ bulky mechanical suit nearly kept him from fitting, but squeezed in so that the lip of the table was pressed firmly against his chest. He was able to move better thanks to Kitt performing some much-needed repairs. The boy was far more skilled with a wrench than Talon ever would’ve expected from a Vergent.
While they played, Talon walked over to a small circular viewport tucked into a corner by a pair of cabinets. Another member of the Monarch’s crew sat there as well, staring out into the void. A middle-aged woman. She didn’t acknowledge Talon’s presence at all.
It wasn’t an insult. Talon had come to understand that most of the Vergents didn’t feel obligated to converse unless they had to. They mostly kept to themselves, and two Vergents could even go an entire game of chess in complete silence. It was unnerving for the first few days, but having Tarsis around helped him through it. His years on the solar-ark had clearly changed him into something more closely resembling an “insider.”
“Drifting through space for your entire life cooped up in a ship will do that to you,” Tarsis had said earlier when Talon asked why his people were so quiet. “Imagine that they already know everything about each other that they’ll ever need to know. Why waste oxygen? Back in the early days of the Circuit, it could be hard to come by out in the fringes of the Circuit.”
It made enough sense, although it made Talon long for the playful jabbing that was commonplace between him and his mining buddies.
He turned his attention to space and his heart sank. Being amongst a real crew reminded him of his friends. He’d led two of them to their deaths. Sure, he didn’t force them to raid the freighter with him, but maybe if they’d spent less time joking around with each other, they would’ve known his real history with the Morastus Clan. Surely if they’d known the kind of missions he’d run for Zargo Morastus in his heyday, they wouldn’t have followed him.
As the faces of his fallen friends flashed through his mind, Talon opened his eyes as wide as possible to try to keep them dry. An object floated past the viewport. He leaned into the glass and tried to get a good look, when suddenly a body slammed against it. He would’ve fallen out of his seat if the Vergent next to him hadn’t stuck out an arm to brace him.
“By the Ancients!” he shouted. “Did you see that?”
The wide-eyed Vergent beside him nodded.
“What is it?” Tarsis asked, barely looking up from his intense bout of chess with Kitt.
“There’s a body out there!”
Tarsis’ hand slipped over the top of the piece he was about to move. This time he turned his full attention from the game. “A body?”
“I think.” Talon tried to get another look, but whatever it was, it had bounced clear around the aft of the ship.
Kitt got up to his feet and nimbly bounced across the room to join him at the viewport. “I see nothin’.”
“Definitely no rock,” the other Vergent added.
By the time Tarsis was able to lug his mechanically aided frame over to the viewport to join them, Captain Larana’s voice spoke over the ship’s comms.
“Kitt, bring the Keepers up,” she said, sounding increasingly distressed with each word. “They’ll want to see. We’ve reached Kalliope…”
Kitt’s brow furrowed. “I set the route. Should’ve been another hour or so.” He hurried out of the galley, forcing Talon and Tarsis into a jog to keep up.
From what Talon had learned about Kitt in their short time together, he was an even more skilled navigator of drift charts than he was a repairman and chess player. So confident in his abilities, in fact, that being even an hour off meant something had to be wrong. Talon could see it in his face.
Kitt flew through the ship’s corridors as if he were gliding. They could barely keep up. When they reached the command deck, however, they found him standing petrified in the entrance.
Debris was scattered throughout space—pieces of rock and metal that were impossible to distinguish from one another in the darkness. All of it, however, floated in the shadow of a chunk of rock one hundred times the size. It was hollowed out in patches, with visible walkways and structures built into the crags. They were squeezed and distended in places, but they remained intact enough for Talon to know exactly what everything was.
It was surreal. As if a doctor had taken a scalpel to the entire asteroid colony, sliced it open, and preserved half of it as a diagram that said: THIS IS HOW CERESIANS ONCE LIVED.
Not even a light was flickering, but the Monarch’s spotter left little room for doubt. Kitt raced by to take control from Larana and carefully guided the ship close enough for Talon to see the distorted shell of the Elder Muse. It was crumpled up like a sheet of paper, but he’d recognize the entrance anywhere. That was also when he first noticed the countless bodies floating amidst the wreckage. Some of them wore full mining suits; others were in their recreation wear as if they’d been torn from their beds.
Of all the horrid scenes Talon had strolled in on in his life as a mercenary, this was far worse. He leaned over the empty chair beside Larana and swallowed back the contents of his stomach trying to force their way out. All of the faces he’d seen drinking and gambling in the Elder Muse for years were swollen and unrecognizable—dumped like garbage into the great black vacuum.
The first person he thought of was Julius, but at least he knew that he wasn’t designated for another shift in the mines for two months.
“Guessin’ it wasn’t like this when you left?” Larana asked.
“No.” Talon forced the word out.
Tarsis stepped up beside him. “Must’ve been one hell of an accident. Fusion core probably overloaded.”
“That might cook the inside of it, but no way it would break it open like this,” Talon said. “Besides, nothing’s slagged. It’s all cold, like it was snapped in half by a giant. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“He’s right,” Larana said. “Grav generator maybe? I’ve seen ’em get overloaded in old ships and rip ’em apart without a spark.”
“No, you’d need a generator the size of Ceres to break apart solid rock like that,” Talon stated firmly. He’d been on Kalliope once when the colony’s old gravity generator went off. All that had happened was a few broken limbs and cases of the blue death, his being amongst them. Some superficial walls here and there were torn down, but damage to the facility was minimal.
Talon’s fists tightened, and for a moment he imagined the place had gotten what it deserved for taking everything from him. Then the limp arm of a body in space brushed across the cockpit’s translucency and snapped him out of it.
Only fools blame rock and space, he told himself, reiterating words Zargo Morastus had once said after the incident.
“I’ll have suits prepped. Might be survivors,” Kitt said. He reached out to switch on the ship-wide comm system.
“No,” Larana replied. “Attacks on solar-arks. A mining colony split open. Somethin’ tells me it’s all connected. We shoulda never come here, and we shouldn’ linger.”
“But—”
“That’s an order, child!” Larana barked.
“She’s right,” Talon said sullenly. “There’s no one left anyway. The life-support systems were half a century old. If anyone managed to lock themselves up safely, they’ve suffocated by now.”
“Can you get out of here without hittin’ anything?” Larana asked Kitt.
Kitt recovered from his scolding and cracked his fingers. “Of course.” The idea of a new challenge was apparently enough to distract him. He leaned forward and gritted his teeth as he maneuvered the Monarch around a hefty slab of metal, likely the remnant of a residential block. The move brought them closer to the chunk of Kalliope, and as Kitt plotted their course, the console in front of Larana suddenly beeped.
“What’s that?” Talon asked nervously.
“Weak transmission. Comin’ from Kalliope. Comms must still be a bit operational.”
“Survivors?” Kitt asked. His face lit up.
“I…” As she scanned the data coming in through the console, Larana’s cheeks went paler than even when she was staring out at the floating graveyard. “It’s relayin’ through Kalliope from outside. Broadcastin’ to all known frequencies in the Circuit and makin’ sure that’s known—Tribunals, Ceresians, Keepers, us… everyone.”
“Can’t be,” Kitt said. “Only a solar-ark has access to all—” He gasped as he realized the answer to his question. Talon did the same.
He edged as close as he could. Larana switched on the transmission. The question that had been on all their minds since the moment the solar-ark Amerigo was hit was seemingly about to be answered.
The incoming message crackled with interference, but not enough to squelch the potent voice that began speaking. “People of the Circuit, this is Cassius Vale,” he said. Hearing the name sent a chill up Talon’s spine.
“Can you trace the origin?” Larana paused the message and asked Kitt.
Kitt plugged away at his station. He shook his head. “Solar-arks can broadcast without showin’ their location. Layers of encryption only Ancients’d understand. Signal is bouncin’ off every settlement and ship in the Circuit. Comin’ from and to everywhere.”
“It’s meant to keep ’em safe from attack,” Tarsis added.
“Apparently that wasn’t enough,” Talon said.
“Keep workin’ on it.” Larana reached out and set the transmission to resume. Talon knew it was a lost cause, but he didn’t say anything. If the legendary Cassius Vale didn’t want to be found, then he was the type of man who would make sure he wasn’t.
Cassius’ message continued, “Soon word will reach you all of recent affairs, but I will not wait for the truth to be twisted by the New Earth Tribunal. It is no secret that I was once a member of their revered council, and that I fought to establish the relative peace we share today. I have remained loyal since I stepped down from that position, but no longer.
“Recently, I discovered their plans to test a prototype weapon on the mining asteroid 22 Kalliope. Their hope was to strike fear into the Ceresians in retaliation for continued acts of terror throughout their dominion and the commandeering of six transport freighters. Even more deplorable than that, they have slowly been bribing the Keepers of the Circuit with extra laborers and luxuries in order to bring them under their complete influence. This is a deliberate attempt to forsake the ancient oath our ancestors took that the guardians of Earth must continue to provide the Circuit with required resources—that no matter the circumstances, the human race must persevere.”
There was a short pause. Enough time for Talon to take in what he was hearing. The Tribune’s bribery of the Keepers came as no surprise to him, though the Vergents in the room looked appalled. The idea of a prototype weapon, on the other hand, had his heart beating against his rib cage. If that was true, then they were witnesses to its destructive capabilities. Even bombs built using nuclear fusion didn’t have the capacity to so thoroughly break apart a large asteroid like it was made of plastic. Destroying a perfectly operational settlement was something neither the Tribune nor the Ceresians were ever keen on doing, or so he’d thought.
“When I threatened to disclose these secrets, my former comrades attempted to have me killed,” Cassius said. “Their attack of my home on Titan has left Edeoria in turmoil, and I barely escaped with my life. Tribune Nora Gressler wasn’t so lucky…” Cassius cleared his throat. “By the time this message reaches all the corners of the Circuit, 22 Kalliope will likely have been reduced to a few floating hunks of rock. My attempts to disrupt their display of power have failed, but the Tribune, along with those who side with them through these atrocities, will pay. I have commandeered the solar-ark Amerigo. Only when the Tribune admits their role in the desecration of Kalliope will I allow it to reassume its true purpose. And if the other arks are kept from their roles as equal providers for all factions in the Circuit, then I will destroy the Amerigo and hunt down the rest of them. I leave it in the Tribune’s gracious hands.”
The transmission went silent, and Talon allowed himself to release the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Everyone in the cockpit had their mouths ajar, but all of them were Vergent. None of them could’ve known the Cassius Vale that all Ceresians were brought up to know.
Most of Talon’s people suspected that after falling out with the rest of the Tribunal Council, he was killed. Others heard he was exiled to his colony on Titan. Nobody in Ceres knew for sure before the message Talon just heard, but every Ceresian knew what had happened in the Earth Reclaimer War—how Cassius had beaten them into submission.
“Commandeered?” Tarsis grunted, breaking the silence. “Slaughtered!”
“Tribune or not, he has no right to attack a solar-ark!” Larana slammed her fist down on the arm of her chair.
Everything that had happened aboard the Amerigo suddenly made sense to Talon. The Keepers were always going to fight back to defend their ship, so there was no choice but to eliminate them. That was how Cassius Vale operated. Wherever he went, you fell in line or you died.
“Set a course for Ceres Prime,” Talon demanded evenly. There was no reason to argue with the Vergents. Cassius wasn’t the type of man who needed to ask for the right to do anything.
Larana wheeled around, clearly irritated. She stuck her finger into his chest. “This is my ship. You don’t give orders, insider. We’ll drop you at Thalia and be out of this mess.”
Talon didn’t flinch. “And risk the lives of your crew?” he said. “Whether or not anything Cassius said was true, the only thing my people hate more than him is the Tribune. They’ll respond in force, and when they do, our outer colonies like Thalia will quickly be under siege. Ceres is in the heart of the belt. There are hundreds of stations the Tribune’s got to get past in order to reach it. There’s nowhere safer for you right now, unless you feel like braving their entire fleet in a race for Uranus.”
The captain’s cheeks flushed, but she clearly knew that Talon was right. The Monarch was on the Tribune’s list now, and all of the Circuit was about to be crawling with their ships.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “But you’re payin’ for the fuel and anythin’ we can’t trade for.”
12
Chapter Twelve—Sage
Sage held onto Elisha tightly as she guided the freighter through Titan’s thick atmosphere. Friction had the command deck’s viewport wreathed in a fiery skirt. She’d expected the ride to be bumpier, but Cassius’ hull upgrades made the freighter far more than just a conduit-to-conduit transport.
As the ship descended, they found themselves in the heart of a storm. Precipitation lashed across the viewport, and dense clouds obscured her view. With the navigation systems disengaged, it would’ve been impossible to find where to go if she hadn’t made the trip before. She could just distinguish the faint outline of the crater that bore Edeoria, sitting beneath the blurred shadow of the New Earth cruiser Ascendant.
She looked down at Elisha, expecting to see a terrified girl entering atmosphere for the first time. Instead, she was wide-eyed and propped forward like she wanted to swim through the storm.
“Is that water?” she asked, awestruck.
The Circuit: The Complete Saga Page 36
