“You know, like in the stories. They thought she could bring people back from the dead, find lost Earth again. Things like that. The point was, they were the same stories folk tell about J . . . about the Regent.” Don’t slip, Araskar, damn it. You are a faithful black ops agent.
“What happened to the other agent?”
“My fellow agent started to believe. Got compromised. I killed her, took her memories, before she talked.” Even now, I can’t speak of Rashiya without my voice breaking a little. That’s good. It’ll look good, knowing that I killed someone I cared about. “Then the Thuzerians orchestrated the raid on Shadow Sun Seven.”
“To steal back the bluebloods imprisoned there?”
“Exactly,” I say. “A rival Son of Stars, who spares the bluebloods and fits a different religious interpretation—you can see the appeal. They’ve never pledged to John Starfire. Suddenly, every blueblood supporter who used to believe in John Starfire has a new alternative.”
“The Regent’s explicit instructions were to fire on the Thuzerians, no matter what,” Firstblade Vanaliel says. “And kill you in the process.”
I shrug. “It’s possible the Regent decided he didn’t need me after all.”
“Or he wanted us to kill this girl. This rival Son of Stars.”
“I don’t know where she is anymore,” I say. Still sticking close enough to the truth. I do know, but a planet in the heart of the Dark Zone is, as Jaqi would say, crazing talk.
They look at me a long time, and I wonder just about how long it would take for me to reveal how utterly I am lying.
“Where’s the Regent?”
“None of us know.” Vanaliel’s hand clenches on her sword in a way that reminds me far too much of John Starfire. “No one’s heard from him! And suddenly the Shir have attacked four inhabited systems!”
Four. Aranella said three. This is happening too fast. There aren’t enough ships in the galaxy, enough planet-crackers, enough shards, to slow it.
Their silence says that they are thinking the same thing.
“The girl,” I say, knowing what Aranella told me. “She went into hiding. I bet the Regent went after her.”
“Who is your handler?”
I shrug. “I can give you an encrypted node-relay frequency, but not much else.” She nods toward the node-relay, and I enter the code from Rashiya’s memory.
Hope it still goes right back to John Starfire.
And I hope he’s still not in.
There sure is a lot of hope here, considering I’ve used all my luck up.
The node-relay buzzes, but there’s no connection—however, her eyes go wide, and she spins and stares at me. “This is one of the Emperor’s private channels. The only person with access to them would be the Regent himself.”
I spread my hands, try to look as if this should be obvious. “I don’t know who it went to.”
“Your reports went to the Regent himself.” She exhales. “So that’s where he went. To find this rival girl.”
“Yes,” I say. John Starfire’s disappearance is proving very convenient for me. As long as he didn’t actually go after Jaqi.
Shit, did he go after Jaqi? Is it possible he knew? Is that where he’s vanished to?
She turns back to me, and suddenly, face contorting, she half draws her sword. “If you truly believe in the Regent’s cause, then you won’t care if you die to corroborate your story.”
Oh shit. My memories are worth more than my life—the classic cross’s problem. “You might want to tell me what you’re going to do about the Shir first,” I say. “The Thuzerians still believe that I’m an innocent prisoner. You message them and say you need their help to kill the spiders, and you show them you haven’t harmed me. They’ve got at least two working dreadnoughts. How many do you have? Enough to take on the Shir in four separate systems?”
“There is no way the Thuzerians will help us.”
“I have their loyalty. They think I’ve pledged to their Chosen One, remember?”
“You think that’ll mean anything to them? When they see you working with us?”
“You really have another choice?” Now I don’t have to fake my anger. “People are dying! Does the Resistance actually want a galaxy to rule? Lots of good it’ll do you to be in charge of a giant Dark Zone!”
We’re both quiet then, as she stares at me and I stare back.
I force a laugh. “Who else is going to save the universe besides us? We have all the guns.”
She still doesn’t speak. But Kineroth does. “I’ve had this job for ten hours, and it’s the worst job in the universe.”
Vanaliel is quiet.
“I didn’t much like being Secondblade either,” I say. “Listen, just let me talk to the Thuzerians.”
“Then we can take your memories,” Firstblade Vanaliel says.
I spent all that time on Shadow Sun Seven, and didn’t learn a thing about gambling, so I hope I’ve got a good bluff going. “Then you can. For the Regent.”
She sighs and hits a button. “Let the Thuzerians through.”
They’ve been on hold this whole time? I sit back while the monks’ masked faces come through, trying not to show my irritation.
“I did not expect to see your face,” Father Rixinius says, his mask heaving with his breath. Can’t tell through the masks, but Paxin is in the room with them, and at least she looks shocked.
“I didn’t expect to see your, ah, mask,” I say.
Vanaliel hits me from behind. “Talk.”
“They haven’t hurt you?” Father Rixinius says.
“No,” I say. I lean forward. “I remain faithful. They have not yet hurt me, but they are curious about our faith. About our new Saint. And our agreement.”
I focus my gaze on Paxin, although they’re just going to see a holo-projection, not anything meaningful from my gaze.
“We must face the children of giants together,” I say, hoping I’m getting my scriptural references right. I never had much time for the Bible; five years out of the vat and I never even got to finish reading my comic books.
“What do you mean?”
“Ah, the agreement,” Paxin says. Oh, thank God for writers. Someone needs to help me with the stream of shit. “Yes. That no matter our enemy, we would join them against the Shir.”
“What are you—” Father Rixinius stops.
“You’ve heard.”
“Four star systems now,” Paxin says. “On all the rogue channels. They’re saying well over a trillion sentients dead. The official channels don’t have anything, but they never do.”
“Attacks on wild worlds,” Father Rixinius says, and in case the implication isn’t clear, he says, “The Resistance has always known this was coming! They chose to ignore it. You think they care about the wild worlds?”
For a moment, it’s silent and I think he might be right. But then Vanaliel speaks. “We never knew. Of course we didn’t! You think we wouldn’t protect the wild worlds?”
That’s a relief. There’s a part of the plan John Starfire only shared with his loved ones. He didn’t care about the wild worlds, but his people should. “So you’ll put aside your conflict with the Resistance and go into battle together.”
“What?” Before Paxin can help me bluff, Father Rixinius unleashes on Vanaliel. “Your attack killed three thousand Adepts on the dreadnought Faithful Sword and a thousand others between battle shuttles and damage to other ships. You have robbed us of a full generation of the faithful. You violated a truce and agreement to exchange a prisoner. Had you not attacked, we would be able to face the Great Belial at full strength!”
“None of it matters,” I say, standing up. “None of it. The Shir will eat the entire galaxy while we sit here arguing!”
He waits a moment, does a Grevan thing that I haven’t seen before where he lets out three quick exhalations and sucks at his prominent incisors. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly.
“Trust in God,” Paxin
says. “Trust in God, and fight for sentience itself, and the true Son of Stars will appear.”
“Plus, if we don’t stop them, there’ll be no galaxy left to argue over. I don’t read the scriptures, Father, but I’m guessing there are a lot of bits in there about fighting the devil.”
“There are.” He waits a moment. “How is your heavy artillery?”
Vanaliel answers for me. “That was our only planet-cracker back at Llyrixa. I’ve requisitioned three more from Keil, but the factories aren’t even close to their old capacity. Maybe we’ll get two more with the supply. As far as we can tell, the Shir are planting new nests in these systems, which means mothering triads.”
Father Rixinius looks down at his screen, no doubt reviewing the Thuzerians’ information about the Shir. The Thuzerians have sent plenty of brave young monks to die in the Dark Zone over the years, although for them, it was always a choice, unlike the crosses born to it.
The Shir travel faster than light, but their system works differently than the First Empire’s nodes. A mothering triad can generate a faster-than-light envoy, and find a likely planet to host eggs. Once they’ve implanted their eggs, they have a fixed dark node in whatever solar system they’ve attacked.
They implant their superdense eggs in planets, and since the eggs are sensitive to radiation before they hatch, they need the protection of a planet with a decent magnetic field—meaning everything that the First Empire found suitable for terraforming way back when.
Everything inhabited.
“Have the larvae hatched?”
“In the Aria system, by all accounts, they should have,” Vanaliel says. “In Rocina and Varusses, there hasn’t been enough time. If we can launch a three-pronged attack on all three systems, we can kill the eggs in two systems and maybe kill the juveniles in Aria.”
“The Masked Faith does not have the resources for a three-system attack that will attract adult Shir,” Rixinius says. “You saw our entire strength in the attack.”
Vanaliel closes her eyes, sighs. I think she must have been hoping that the Thuzerians were hiding another fleet somewhere. “If we don’t attack all three systems, those juveniles will hatch and quickly begin to form mothering triads.”
“We only have the resources to attack one system, cross.”
“All right,” I say. “We’ll have to just focus on the Rocina system and hope we can cleanse it before the adults arrive. Maybe by then, with all of Keil running at highest Imperial levels, we can still contain those juveniles in the other systems.”
“Give us one Imperial day and we will meet you at the node in Rocina,” Rixinius says.
Kineroth speaks up, marking what I’ve suspected—that the boy is useless. “How do we know you’ll keep your word?”
I don’t recommend ever hearing a Grevan laugh—it sounds a lot like a human coughing out chunks of lung. Father Rixinius bends double with the gagging laugh. “You ask if the servants of God will keep their word? When you pledged to stop the vats, contain the Shir, and restore freedom to the galaxy, and you have done none of these! Do not insult the servants of God and the Saints! How do we know you will keep your word?”
“We need a guarantee,” Paxin says.
“What do you mean?” Vanaliel says. “Why would we turn on you in battle with the Shir to fight?”
“You’ve already turned on us in the middle of a peaceful prisoner exchange. And according to our scans of the battle, you weren’t even unified.”
Vanaliel flushes red. She knows John Starfire gave them a bad order, a countercoup against Aranella, and she followed it anyway.
“We will follow your forces into battle,” Paxin says, coming forward in the holo-view. “As long as Araskar is your commander.”
“What?”
It takes me a minute to realize that I said it, along with the other two crosses in the room.
“We can’t trust any of you,” Paxin says. “Except him.”
“We are not putting this traitor in charge of the Vanguard,” Kineroth spits, but Vanaliel holds a hand up. After a long moment, she says, “We agree.”
I don’t hear most of this, because I am busy wracking my memories of data dumps for information about the Shir, for information about leading not one but an entire fleet of dreadnoughts into battle—oh, God, I’ve only ever led ground squads and one disastrous Moth attack.
Oh, God! I don’t want to be responsible for all these crosses!
That’s what drove me to drugs before!
The connection ends before I can say anything. I stare at Vanaliel.
“If you’re a black ops agent, you’re the best one that ever lived.”
I almost tell her I’m not.
She rips off the emblem of the Firstblade and hands it to me. “Acting Firstblade. Welcome back to the Vanguard. You might as well wear it, or they’ll think we’re not serious. Step out of line and I put the sword through you.”
“I can’t . . .” I look down at the emblem, much like the sword emblem I wore as Secondblade, but with three stars above the sword. “This is insane!”
“I know.” She shoves the patch into my hands. “But I’m only four weeks old, and I’m not gonna lie: I’m in over my head.”
I look between her and the patch. “I’m only five years old.”
“That’s ancient.”
-17-
Jaqi
I LEAVE THE TEMPLE, go through the courtyard, out the main gate toward where our ship is still sitting on the causeway. I’m all ready to find Scurv, and there’s Kalia.
“Kalia? What?” I stand there like a moron, staring at her. “Girl, I told you to stay behind!”
In the light of the new rising sun, she looks like she’s been through a war. Her clothes are torn and stained with blood, and she’s slumped against the ramp of the ship, clutching something to her side.
“What the hell happened?”
“Jaqi!” She stands up. “I’ve been waiting for you to come out of there for two nights!”
“Two nights?”
“You were just standing in the center of that bridge and you wouldn’t answer anything I said. I actually got out a medkit and scanned you and it kept saying there was nothing wrong.”
Huh. I’m guessing that bonding with Kid took a lot longer than I reckoned.
“Where’s Scurv?” I noticed what Kalia’s cradling. Scurv’s guns? What’s she doing with vir guns? “Girl, what happened to Scurv?” I walk across the space to stand next to her.
“Scurv was hired to kill you,” she says. “You and John Starfire both.”
“What?”
“Yeah, vi spoke like you were both being lured here to . . .” Kalia frowns at me. “Was John Starfire in there?”
I don’t answer that, because my head is spinning something evil. Scurv was in on it too. “Where’s Scurv? Vi got away?”
“Vi’s dead,” Kalia says. She holds up the guns. “I didn’t—I didn’t want to, Jaqi, but vi would have killed me.”
“Hush.” I hold her, but there’s no tears from Kalia. Maybe she’s just seen too much to have tears to shed. She leans into my chest and I smell something I recognize from Scurv—a weird smell, like a shard-blaster but richer, like it’s been mixed with decomposing matter like what was on Swiney Niney. Strange smell.
“You killed Scurv Silvershot? The sheriff of the wild worlds?”
“I had to fight back, Jaqi,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“En’t a thing to be sorry about, if vi threatened you. Just . . . didn’t know you had it in you, girl.” I stop, and think about something. “What’s left to eat? What you been surviving on?”
“Protein packs from the ship. They’re all gone. I’m sorry.”
“You . . .” I try not to sound upset. I’m hungry as hell! “You ate all the food?”
“I’m sorry, Jaqi. It’s been two days!”
Aw hell. I wasn’t really worked up about eating more protein, but damn am I hungry.
“John Sta
rfire came after me,” I say. “Scurv must have tattled.”
“Vi said that vi was hired to kill both of you. John Starfire’s wife did it. No more Chosen Ones, vi said.”
That’s one way to do it, I suppose. Get rid of any and all special folk. Would have probably taken that tactic myself, were I not prejudiced in favor of keeping my own self alive. “Then I’m guessing Scurv tattled to Aranella back at the Thuzerians’ planet, and she gave this location to John Starfire to try and distract him.”
“Did you kill him?” Kalia asks.
“You won’t believe this one,” I say, and I tell her what happened, bouncing back and forth between the node to Earth, and the thing what is made of music, and what happened in the temple, except for the bit where I’ve been laden, because she don’t need to know what Araskar and I were doing afore this mission.
“I reckon I must have fulfilled a whole host of prophecies back there, aiya? Everything in that Bible, checked right off.” I figure she’s all ready to talk about prophecy, but instead her face looks like she’s been gut-shot.
“Jaqi, you’re saying John Starfire is still alive?”
“Aiya, yes. He ought to go before the galaxy and tell them how evil he done them.”
“Jaqi, that’s not how it works!” Kalia stands up. “Where’s his ship? There are still lots of crosses that believe in him! You should have let him die!”
“Easy, Kalia,” I say. “You killed one troublemaker, you en’t got to get bloodthirsty.”
“That’s not what this is about, Jaqi! You said you were going to kill him. He’s too dangerous alive.” She looks up at the temple. “His ship’s over there?”
“Yep, just on the other side of the temple. He’s sitting in a vat. I stuck a big hole in his chest; he en’t going nowhere, Kalia.”
“It’s been two days, Jaqi! Come on!”
She don’t say much as we run down the beach. It’s dark as hell without any stars or a moon above, but she holds up Scurv’s guns, letting a shard glow green to illuminate our way.
I’m so hungry it’s actually hard to move. Maybe I’ll find food on Starfire’s ship.
A thing occurs to me.
Something the music told me about the devils. I keep turning it around in my head, over and over. They don’t feel a thing but hunger.
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