by Tom Julian
Timberwolf didn’t respond.
Gray continued, circling him. “You did! Then you know the spider was using you. All this time! It tears you up, because Timberwolf Velez is no one’s tool!”
“No one should have this place.”
“Well damn, all this is yours, Timber! Penny gave it to you. You feel honored the machine felt you were worthy? You really need to fix up the joint.”
“It’s rustic.”
“Timber, is Kizik still there? Is the spider, still there?” Gray tapped his temples, taunting him.
Timberwolf didn’t answer.
“It is! After all this, he didn’t let you go! And let me guess, he kept Relaund. He’s got you both now!” Timberwolf stared daggers through Gray.
“Emmanuel, please! Even God cut away Lucifer,” Michael implored, impatient with all this talk.
Gray’s anger with Michael finally reached a place where it had nowhere to go. “You took a choice from me before, Michael.”
“He’s alive. He always lives,” Michael spat out the side of his mouth.
“Your story is ending, friend.” Gray fired a burst into Michael’s side, between a gap in his armor. The man fell to the deck, his rifle clacking away. Michael spit up blood as he crawled after his weapon, Gray stepping in front of him. The wound had ripped through his organs and would be fatal in a few minutes.
“You’ve always taken choices from me, Michael. When you disobeyed me over Enceladus, when you questioned this crusade. I told you that if Timberwolf was to die, that you’d follow soon after.”
“He’s not dead!”
“Well, looks like you’re jumping the line.”
“What about forgiveness?” Michael coughed, his lungs filling with blood.
Without another word, Gray fired a burst into Michael’s temple, killing the man instantly. He chewed over what he’d just done as the platform’s superstructure groaned.
Timberwolf stumbled backwards, struggled for words for what he’d just seen. “After all this, you kill him? Why not me?”
“I can’t have my choices taken away.”
They stood without speaking for a long moment. “Timber, I need you to know the whole testament.”
Gray took out Izabeck’s book and transmitted it to Timberwolf. “Why do I have to understand you?” Timberwolf asked.
“It’s about forgiveness.”
“I don’t need forgiveness!” Timberwolf grabbed him by the shirt.
“No, you don’t understand.” Gray shook free, rubbed his eyes. “I sent you down to meet Kizik and I knew what it was going to do to you! That it would connect to your mind if it let you live. I offered you up. Doctor Tier asked me to help her end the war.” Gray took a long breath. ‘“Who’s your best guy?’ she’d asked me. ‘Who’s your best guy?’ It was those damned words that started it.”
Timberwolf steadied himself. He always blamed Gray for sending him down against Kizik, but he thought it had just been a poorly planned mission. That Gray had ignored the intelligence reports like Dr. Tier had told him. But the truth was that Jackhammer had gone off perfectly and Gray and Dr. Tier had been partners in the whole affair.
“You and Dr. Tier? That was Jackhammer? I was the mission?” Timberwolf stumbled backwards. “I was the mission?” he asked, almost to himself.
“We had no way to communicate with them. Dr. Tier wanted to find a peace with the Arnock, but I thought that you might be able to help us sniff them out, kill them all.” Secondary explosions went off below the platform. “The truth is I need you to understand. I need you to be forgiven so that…”
Timberwolf stopped him. “So that you can be forgiven? There is no forgiveness. For anyone. For anything. There’s no higher power high enough, Bishop.”
“But we can make good! We finish this war and we can make good on all the sins! Go for broke.”
“You’re not a Believer. You don’t care about God. You just want to pick up a weapon and go have your war!”
“So then throw off the damn talk and just kill me. You know plenty of ways to. You were a killing animal before Kizik got in your head and you’re still an animal.” Gray pulled down his collar. “How about this? Shoot me in the neck. Toss me down there into the fire or just pound on me with your damned fists. Think I care how it’s done?” Gray’s voice was almost hoarse and he breathed heavily out of his nostrils.
“It’s gone,” Timberwolf said matter-of-factly.
“What’s gone?”
“Kizik’s not in my head anymore. I just noticed.” Timberwolf turned, looking out over the burning wreckage below. Gray was right, he could have killed him easy, the moment he saw him, but Timberwolf did the calculation, weighed what was right against what was smart.
His ear bud crackled. It was Salla. “Timberwolf? Timberwolf? You there?”
Gray deserved to die for everything he’d done, whether it was for exposing Timberwolf to Kizik or the massacre on Nova Turin or the disaster here on Highland. But at this moment, Emmanuel Gray was the most valuable item on this entire world and Timberwolf needed to buy something.
“So just shoot,” Gray demanded.
Timberwolf raised his gauntlet and sent a weak plasma burst into Gray’s chest, crumpling the man over. He pushed him into an empty Sabatin pod nearby and slammed it shut. Gray pounded from within, demanding that Timberwolf finish him.
Timberwolf watched as the box shook. He approached it. A red light on top blinked, indicating there was no life support flowing. In just a few minutes, Gray would use up all the oxygen trapped inside. He considered just stepping away.
“You there? I’ll try you in five,” Salla crackled over Timberwolf’s ear bud again.
“I’m here,” he responded.
“There’s a tower for medical extracts. Not far.”
Timberwolf looked up and saw the scaffold tower. “Got it.” Before leaping away, he activated the life support on Gray’s box, turning the light to green.
THE NEEDLE
Timberwolf pulled himself up over the side of the tower above the landing bay. The fires below raged now. Highland’s environmental controls were breaking down here too, a heavy snow suddenly blowing in. The wind spread the fires now and the power cells from wrecked lifters exploded and burst. The tower shifted as flames began to crawl up towards him.
In the distance, he saw a speck of light growing closer. He attached his suit to a hook atop the tower and winched it up into the air for Salla to snatch. The tower shifted and groaned as Salla got closer. Just a mile away now, Timberwolf could make out the wings of the lifter. “I’m threading the needle here,” she said, trying to sound cool and calm.
“No hurry,” he said. The tower leaned forward in a way that seemed final. She was just a few hundred yards out now, but coming in way too fast. If she missed, there was no coming back around.
But she didn’t miss. The lifter snagged the hook.
Timberwolf was in the sky then, trailing the lifter by a cable, the tower collapsing behind him. The snow and the wind whipped him about as they ascended through the layers of clouds. Maybe he was seeing things, but in the clouds, Timberwolf swore he saw faces, expressionless and vague. There was one face that tracked him as he went by, one of an old woman that seemed to almost smile as he passed.
He closed his eyes for a few minutes and then he was arching over and weightless. He let himself enjoy having no burdens for a few minutes as the clouds turned to black. He would have enough burdens soon.
CARAVEL
Salla looked up above the dashboard and a plaque read that the lifter was named Caravel. She exhaled slowly, somehow still alive. She decided not to think about how lucky she’d been. After a moment she rose and activated a winch at the back of the cabin. It whirred. The cable attached to Timberwolf pulled into a clear box.
“Timber, we made it. Is Gray dead?” she asked, getting no response.
With a jerk, the winch stopped. She worked it and it spun free, but there was nothing connected
to the cable anymore, the frayed end whirled.
“Timberwolf? Timberwolf?” she called into the com link, getting silence in return.
Timberwolf hid amongst the debris from the destroyed Arnock ships, his suit darkened and giving off no energy. Come on; get out of here! He clenched his teeth, knowing that if he called Salla and told her to leave, she wouldn’t. The wreckage crackled and sparked around him and he watched her pass by in the lifter, again and again, sensor beams reaching out. Her scans washed right over him and continued on.
An icon glowed in his heads-up. He’d dismissed it a dozen times already. Its officious title blinked in front of his eyes.
Third Holy Testament
Finally, he opened it up and let it play. Golden words began to scroll by in front of him. He expected a text that elevated Gray’s efforts, that painted him as a prophet and portrayed the events here as sacred. What he got was something else. Just seventeen words that repeated over and over.
We were knights of the third testament. We followed Emmanuel Gray here. We were forsaken, forsaken, forsaken.
That was it. Gray’s story was gone, overwritten in Izabeck’s final act. Gray’s testament was reduced down to an S.O.S. from abandoned souls. Timberwolf laughed gently. This was better than the bomb in your arm, Izabeck.
Timberwolf saw something very big on the edge of his proximity scanner. It could only be one thing—Archangel. Salla traversed the wreckage and was close to him now in the debris, still searching.
“I’m dead. You get out of here!” he finally barked at her over the com link.
“You’re here?” she responded.
“Didn’t think you’d keep trying to find me.”
“You should have known better.”
“Go! You don’t want this.” Archangel ground towards them, its huge shadow overtaking them. “I might not be able to protect you!”
“From Doctor Tier? I don’t know her and she’s already on my bad side.” A bright white tractor beam grabbed Caravel, a deep bass warbling filling the cabin. Salla winced and covered her ears.
The front of Archangel opened like a whale’s mouth, taking Caravel and Timberwolf in its maw. The outer door shut with a humongous clang. Timberwolf floated outside the windscreen of Caravel. He looked in at Salla and turned his faceplate transparent so she could see him. “Couldn’t you leave somebody behind, just this once?” he asked.
She put her hand to the glass. “Guess not.”
TITHE
D.P.E. Archangel—Over Highland
“There’s too much going on for this, Doctor.” Captain Tirani stood in the doorway of Dr. Tier’s quarters, Capote behind him.
“I’ll just be a minute. I swear this is urgent.” He crossed his arms and waited. “I’ve been given some information.” He huffed. She wasn’t supposed to have contact with anyone. He assumed that whatever it was, Conrad had gotten it to her somehow. “I need you to release me. Timberwolf is aboard. I must speak with him.”
“No. You may not. You’re in no position to ask for things.”
“Delaine Darcy Nevins,” she said to him.
Tirani entered the room, closed the door and left Capote in the hall. “You fucking with me?”
“Sister Nevins is a Believer evangelist. Real hard-core stuff. You’ve sent her money.”
“I’ve dropped in a collection envelope once or twice.”
“You tithe to her! Ten percent of your pay.” Captain Tirani hung his head. It was true. He had tried to have it both ways, holding onto his religious beliefs while having a career in the secular D.P.E. “You delete your report about the Terecine,” she said. “And I get to see Timberwolf, right now.”
“Does this stay quiet?”
“Of course it does, Les.” She smiled.
INTERROGATIONS
Salla sat across the table from Conrad. She noticed his haircut was perfect and his fingernails were manicured. She stared at him and he looked back vacantly, with no signs of compassion.
There was a two-way mirror on one wall and this was clearly an interrogation room, but he asked no questions. “Want me to tell you what happened?” she asked.
“We already know,” he responded.
“So, we just sit here?”
“This needs to take twenty-five minutes. It’s your rights.”
“Are you going to put me away?” As soon as she asked that, she realized that they could make her disappear in other ways as well. She imagined this man dragging her to an airlock and opening the outer door.
Conrad looked to his watch. “Twenty-two minutes left.”
In an identical interrogation room, Timberwolf sat across from Dr. Tier, his hands shackled in front of him and bolted to the table. She went through a litany of failures. “Highland is dripping with radiation. The A.I. is offline. Production capabilities are destroyed. The Dacha brothers are all dead. Your mission included us getting control of Highland.”
“There isn’t much I haven’t failed at,” he said, agreeing with her. “Oh wait, I did manage to get Kizik out of my head.”
“Well, fucking congratulations.”
“That cleans up your mess. That cleans up Jackhammer.”
Her mouth dropped open just a little bit. He knew. Gray must have told him! She never thought he would have the guts. “Do you care what happens to you?”
“No,” Timberwolf said genuinely. “I don’t care about me.”
“Salla Birdwing, vice governor from The Outpost. You should have disposed of her.”
“Slipped my mind.”
“She’ll have to be put away. Long and good.”
“Hell no.”
“She’s the one witness to all this!”
“She goes on her way.” Timberwolf took in Dr. Tier’s severe features and large, soulless eyes. He was about to make her difficult job immeasurably harder. “I’ve got something down there for you. There’s not much time.”
He beckoned her to come closer. “What?” she asked.
“The machines can’t hear this.” Timberwolf spoke in her ear and her eyes went wide.
DEATH BENEFITS
Salla rested with her head on the table. She thought she had about five minutes left. Conrad picked his fingernails. Dr. Tier burst in and Salla sat up, weary.
“Amnesia. After The Outpost you drifted in a lifter until you were picked up near Tep Nine-Fifty. You don’t recall a thing. I cashed out your death benefits and put them on this card.”
Dr. Tier handed Salla a credit card that had her name and picture on it. She took the card and turned it over. Under her photo, it read deceased.
“I’m done with this?” Salla asked.
“You’re a dead woman. None of this matters to you. Don’t let anyone look too closely at that card. Turn it into cash.”
“But why? Why are you letting me go? What happens to Timberwolf?” Outside the door, Salla saw Timberwolf led past by security, his hands shackled behind him. They locked eyes for a moment and she knew he’d paid for her freedom.
Dr. Tier looked down on her with a pity in her eyes that said, just go. “Timber?” Salla called to him, but he was gone.
Just a few minutes later, Salla was aboard Caravel again. The maw of Archangel opened and a puff of air pushed the ship outwards. She looked back at the hulk of Archangel through the windscreen, her beautiful and raw face close to the glass. Exhausted, she closed her eyes and fell into the pilot’s seat. As it had been programmed, Caravel fired its thrusters and made towards Tep Nine-Fifty. “Finally left somebody behind,” she said to herself. She wondered if she would ever see Timberwolf again. “This is nothing, Timber. I’m gone, so take the gloves off. I’ll see you soon.”
Less than an hour later, Dr. Tier sat opposite Timberwolf in the belly of a lifter about to drop from Archangel. With them were techs in radiation-proof rigs, along to try to salvage whatever was left of the facility. Dr. Tier had less than fourteen hours before the first of the Assault Corps ships arrived. The chatter out of Tach-One w
as off the charts now. Secretary Bozeman himself was issuing orders. There had already been reports of Assault Corps attacks on D.P.E. facilities and vessels and vice-versa. A shooting civil war had started.
“Timberwolf, if you’re lying and Gray’s not down there, you’ll rot forever,” Dr. Tier said to him. “Think Salla Birdwing was worth it?”
“My personal life has got to be the least of your problems, Thea,” he responded. She nodded, tightening her lips. “Better hurry, doc. There’s not a lot of air in his box.”
THE PRECIOUS THRONES
Cardinal Jacob stood in front of the doors to The Coffers on Highland. In the commotion while Timberwolf had been taken aboard Archangel, he and his two personal guards had borrowed a lifter and descended on their own. Behind the doors were the fortunes that Highland had collected from customers and, according to the deal he had made with Dr. Tier, now belonged to him.
A figure was huddled in front of the doors, covered by a radiation blanket. “Hello?” Cardinal Jacob asked.
The figure stirred and pulled the blanket away. An old man with one foot hobbled upright. “Can you open this?” Warner asked. “It’s safe in there!”
“We’re headed inside,” Cardinal Jacob responded, amused by the hunched old soldier.
One of his guards worked an electronic device and placed it next to the lock on the door. The doors opened with a click, spreading outward, and a second pair of doors within did the same. They went inside, pulling the doors closed behind them to keep the radiation out.
