by M. R. Forbes
Ruby had told him that was Thraven’s motivation, once he had finally reestablished communication with her. He had been dismayed to hear that Queenie was missing in action and possibly dead, and more upset to learn General Kett wouldn’t allow anyone to return to Azure to look for her. She was too valuable to waste, but that was exactly what he was doing. Apparently, that was the only thing he was doing. Instead of acting, he seemed to be holding back and waiting to react.
That ambivalence meant it was on Olus to make something happen before it was too late. Eight new Council members were being sworn in within the hour, and soon after the balance of power was going to start to shift further toward the Gloritant. Gyo had tipped him off that Tridium was involved with the Nephilim. If he could find out more, maybe he could give Kett something useful to do with his army.
Olus heard Xalix coming before the Plixian appeared in the room, carrying a hardened suitcase in each of his four hands. He clicked in greetings as he entered, laying the cases on the bed and entering the codes to unlock them.
“Captain Mann,” Xalix said. “I believe you can find whatever you require in here.”
“Thank you,” Olus said.
Pahaliah joined him near the cases. “Where did you get these?” she asked.
“A shipment arrived yesterday. The origin was not marked on the bill. Watchers, of course.”
“Of course.”
Olus glanced sideways at Pahaliah. Her parents didn’t believe in the continued presence of the Nephilim, but she did. She had seen the Children kill, and that moment had changed the entire course of her life. Classical violin became weapons training. Education in finance and business management turned into martial arts and tactical combat. Basic computer competency became high-end hacking. To hear her tell it, she had gone through three years of intense training similar to what a Breaker would undertake and converted herself from a corporate snob to a modern warrior.
“What?” she asked, noticing the way he was looking at her.
“Have you done this sort of thing before?” he asked.
“Not yet,” she replied. “I don’t know if I would be attempting it without you.”
“You wouldn’t be. I’m not even sure I should be attempting it.”
“Goillisi passed me your confidential records,” Pahaliah said. “The ones the Republic buried after you became the Director of the OSI. You killed a warlord in the center of a military compound behind six layers of secure access, and nobody ever knew you were there.”
He tried not to react to the news that the hacker had managed to dig deep enough to surface that part of his past.
“That was a long time ago.”
“And before you had the Blood of the Shard in your veins. It will help protect you.”
“It won’t protect you.”
“I can take care of myself. Don’t worry about me.”
Olus looked into the cases, lifting out a silvery suit from it. “What is this?”
“Seraphim armor,” she replied. “Like a lightsuit.” She lifted the front of her shirt, showing him that she was already wearing one. “Trust me; you’ll want that.”
He looked through the rest of the gear. Another gun like the one Xalix had given him earlier. A pair of glasses with a TCU link. Finger rings that acted as a keypad entry feedback system. It was Breaker gear, modified and upgraded to the next level by the Ophanim.
“This will do,” Olus said, collecting the various bits and pieces he wanted and moving them into a single suitcase, and laying the clothing out on the bed. “Thank you again, Xalix.”
“Of course, Captain,” the Plixian replied.
“I’m not a soldier anymore,” Olus reminded him. “I’m a criminal.”
The destruction at the museum had been pinned on him, using real video footage of his entry into the main exhibition hall through the restricted service corridors and doctored footage of him planting a bomb and setting it off right after fleeing the scene. The feed had made the rounds on every media channel across the galaxy, and when combined with the footage from the Pentagon and the deaths of Gyo and Zoey painted him in a very, very bad light. In fact, if he didn’t know better he would have called himself a traitor.
Fragging Davis.
What bothered him the most about it was that they hadn’t been able to forward any reasonable motive for his attacks. They were pushing it as terrorism for the sake of being terrible and making him out to be a loose cannon who would gun down anyone and everyone out of sheer pleasure. It was stupid and nonsensical, but the masses didn’t care. They didn’t need deep explanations to know he was dangerous or to be looking to claim some of the money being offered for tips on his whereabouts.
“You’re a loyal member of the Republic, Captain,” Xalix replied. “And you fight an enemy of us all. Good luck to you.”
Olus nodded. “If you’ll excuse me. I need to put these on.”
“I’ll meet you upstairs,” Pahaliah said. “The shuttle will be waiting on the rooftop.”
Xalix and Pahaliah retreated from the room, leaving Olus alone once more. He finished up in the bathroom before putting on the seraphsuit. Abbey had always said she could feel the Gift moving beneath her skin, a sensation that had only been eased by the tightness of the suit. He had never felt what she described. He wouldn’t have guessed the naniates were in him at all if he hadn’t healed so quickly. He knew the Nephilim iteration was considerably more powerful, like a star that burned brighter but went out faster.
He hoped that Kett was wrong about Abbey. He hoped she was still out there. Too few knew the truth. Too few had the courage to act. He owed it to himself, to her, and to Zoey and Gyo to be one of them.
He pulled his street clothes on over the seraphsuit and then placed the glasses on his face. He checked himself in the mirror to make sure the armor was hidden. Then he returned to the bed, picking up the case with the rest of his gear and snapping it closed before heading out of the room.
Once more unto the breach.
3
“Try it now,” Gant said, turning toward the terminal that would display the reactor’s power levels.
He couldn’t see when Erlan adjusted the thrust on the battleship, but he could tell that he had by the way the display changed, the engines drawing more power in response.
“Looks good,” he said. “I’m going to wrap things up down here.”
He slid out of the small compartment that led deeper into the reactor, pausing outside to close it up. He had been surprised to find the standard Nephilim warships weren’t much different from anything they had locally. The reactor on this one was a Warhammer Industries Mark Nine, a twenty-year-old model that was plenty powerful enough for the ship it was juicing that had probably been picked up used. It was paired with Outworld manufactured thrusters and a combination of Outworld and Republic based weapons systems, plus essentials like gravity generation and life support. In fact, on this ship at least, the only custom component appeared to be the FTL engines, which according to his readings were using disterium at about half the rate of the other ships in their retinue.
He could only assume the outcome was one based on necessity. The Nephilim needed the FTL range to make it from what they called the Extant to here. Everything else was secondary, and he already knew from Jequn that the enemy had spent thousands of years at war before they had returned their attention back to their roots. They had probably been too busy killing one another to spend a lot of time building up their manufacturing, advancing their scientific research, or otherwise trying to get a leg up on the civilization they were aiming to subdue. Why would they bother anyway, knowing they had access to Lucifer’s Covenant and the grotesque technology outlined within?
The good news was that the Nephilim ships were easy to control and easy to maintain. The bad news was that they didn’t offer any advantages over Republic battleships or Outworld Shrikes, nevermind Thraven’s updated warships. Any scrapes they got into would be won on tactics and skill, not
through any technological advantage.
Not that they would be getting into any scrapes any time soon. General Sylvan Kett, the decorated war hero, was a fragging gedron. And that was the nicest way he knew how to put it.
Kett hadn’t wasted any time commandeering the Brimstone or the escaping Nephilim battleships, sending his superior forces to the ships and quickly subduing the crews, including the Rejects. Dak had been ready to put up a fight, but Gant had talked him out of it. They couldn’t win, and infighting would only weaken everyone against the true enemy.
The General had proceeded to arrange the allegiance of the individuals he inherited, explaining the situation to them and convincing many to join the cause. Unlike Abbey, he hadn’t done it with an all on the same side, all for one and one for all mentality. Instead, he had laid down the law and approached the Outworld soldiers with promises of retribution. It was more join us or die than join us and save the people you love. Even now the soldiers loyal to him were distributed among the ships, keeping an armed “peacekeeping” force patrolling them at all times. That included the Brimstone, which he had of course taken as his flagship, setting up shop in the captain’s quarters where he spent most of his time bitching about how Thraven needed to be stopped while crying over his dead wife and refusing to take any action to actually stop him.
Jequn had tried to talk some sense into him. She had pleaded with him to send a team back to Azure to look for Abbey, which he refused. She had begged him to rally the Ophanim in light of their victory on Kell, which he also refused. She had reminded him that he was the one who said it was time to fight, and he had claimed he was fighting, and they needed to wait for their opportunity.
An opportunity Gant had a bad feeling would never come. Not when the General wasn’t taking aggressive action to bolster their forces. Kett should have started communicating with the other planets of the Outworlds, using the prisoners to vouch for what they had experienced. If nothing else, it might have drawn out Thraven’s loyalists and given them a better idea of the complexion of the Nephilim forces beyond the Republic.
He didn’t want to do that, either.
Whether it was because he had lost Charmeine, or because he had lost Azure, or because he had simply and suddenly lost his will to fight, his inaction was leading them to disaster.
For the moment, the small fleet was hiding in the Fringe, sitting outside normal trade channels but staying close enough to settled planets that supply lines were easy to maintain. A Seedship had been dispatched to search for a lightly populated or otherwise suitable new planet for them to sit on and watch the galaxy crumble around them.
Meanwhile, Gant and the others were growing increasingly restless.
He made his way from engineering, up a few decks and toward the bow. While the ship was made of mostly Republic and Outworld parts, the internal layout had been designed for the Nephilim, who apparently weren’t that big on comfort or privacy. Only a handful of the berths had doors or beds. Most were arranged as empty, open squares stacked a few rows high, more closely resembling the prison block on Hell than a military vessel. Were they intended to hold slaves? Was the Gift enough to keep unwilling workers in line?
He was lucky. He was more accustomed to the hard surfaces and small spaces than the other crew members of the ship they had internally christened the Hellion. He didn’t have trouble sleeping in his berth in the top corner of Block C, which was right above Erlan’s. They were the only two Rejects on this particular ship, with Kett having wisely split them up to keep them honest. The General was astute enough to guess that if he was going to be an asshole, they couldn’t be trusted and had done his best to prevent any trouble.
Too bad his best wasn’t going to be good enough.
The plans had been in motion since Bastion had informed each of them that Abbey had been alive when the Faust escaped the planet. In the middle of a standoff with Thraven sure, but still alive. And when Jequn had told him how she had left an armed teleporter in the Seraphim’s original base beneath the floor of the crater, it had only galvanized their desire to go back and see for themselves. Queenie was strong and resourceful, and until they saw a body, they weren’t going to believe she was gone. They had each decided to stay even after she told them there was no kill-switch, no virus in their brains to kill them. They were committed to seeing this through. They weren’t going to let Kett frag it up.
He reached Block C. Erlan hadn’t made it back from the bridge yet, his shift having only just ended.
“Hey Private,” Gant said, entering the space. Private Front was one of the peacekeepers on the ship, assigned to their Block. He was a generally warm Terran with a fair sense of humor, easy to deal with despite the battlesuit and heavy rifle he wore at all times.
“Gant,” Front replied. “How did it go today?”
“Fixed the power shunt in the main condenser,” he said. “Boring.”
Front laughed. “You say everything you fix is boring.”
“It is.”
He climbed the ladder up to his berth, disappearing over the side. The sparseness made it harder to stash things up there, but he had managed. He pulled the scraps out from under his suit. A tiny circuit board, some wires, and a transmitter. He used his fingers and some adhesive he had stashed in his cheeks to begin connecting the pieces.
“Hey Private,” he heard Erlan say a few minutes later. Other crew members had come and gone, but he didn’t give a shit about them. They weren’t Rejects and couldn’t be trusted.
“Erlan,” Front replied. “What’s the word from the bridge?”
“The Seedship is back. They found a potential landing place for us. It’s a Level Four terraform though, so it isn’t going to be too comfy.”
“And this is?” Front asked. “I’ve got the same accommodations you do, over in Block A.”
“At least the battlesuit is padded,” Gant said, leaning over the side.
Front’s head turned toward him. “It helps a little, but damn, I do miss having a mattress. I’m sure the General will bring some better stuff in once we’re settled.”
Gant leaned back into the berth so the Private wouldn’t see him shake his head. Kett’s people still believed in him, even as he led them to another hidey-hole. It was infuriating.
“Queenie, you had better still be alive out there,” he muttered. “We need you.”
4
Abbey dug her fingers in the ground, into the small space she had worn away after days of miserable digging. The ends of her fingers were raw, the nails broken, her entire body racked with pain. The Gift was gone, the naniates hibernating while they awaited fresh new fuel.
Food.
She was so hungry; she didn’t even feel hungry anymore. There was no water either, and she cursed Jequn again for placing the receiving end of the teleporter behind an impenetrable wall. What the frag had she been thinking?
Abbey knew the answer. If it were too easy to get out, it would be too easy to get in. How could the Watcher have guessed she would be too spent to get herself out? She had done it to protect her, to keep Thraven’s forces from finding her. She knew they were up there. She could hear them moving around. She could feel the vibrations in the ground above. She knew they were looking for her. She knew they would find wherever she was eventually.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so weak and so desperate. Hell had been tough, but this was tougher. She was literally clawing at the floor for her life, trying to increase the space beneath the false wall enough that she could try to lift it. What if she wasn’t strong enough? What if the demonsuit wasn’t strong enough? The Gift was spent, and she was starving and dehydrated. She wasn’t sure she could have lifted a food bar to get it into her mouth.
She wasn’t giving up. She had never given up. Even as her fingers bled and throbbed, she had kept digging. She had kept scraping. She had kept trying. The stone floor had worn away slowly, but it had worn away, and as she turned her hands over and dipped them beneath
the lip of the wall, she found that she could almost wrap her fingers around the other side.
“Not much more,” she whispered to herself through dry, cracked lips.
She clawed at the floor again, ignoring the pain every touch of it sent cascading up her arms. She was almost free. It didn’t matter how much it hurt.
She kept going, pawing faster and faster, letting her fingers scrape open and begin bleeding once more. She didn’t stop, pulling at the ground, tugging at the dislodged dirt and dust. Then she turned her hands over and tried again, smiling wildly when she wrapped it around the bottom of the wall. She moved into a squatting position in front of it, getting the leverage needed to put all her strength into the effort.
She flexed her muscles and lifted.
At first, the wall didn’t move. It felt heavy. So fragging heavy. It was a weight no human could lift. She let it go, taking a step back. She tried again. It still didn’t move.
She stared at it. She wasn’t going to be denied. Not now. She closed her eyes, trying to calm herself. She worked to convince herself she could do it.
“If you’re here, I could use a little help,” she said.
She wasn’t sure who she was talking to. The naniates sleeping in her bloodstream? The Light of the Shard that she had seen a few times already, and that Charmeine had said was the Shard trying to communicate.
She didn’t see the Light again. Even so, she approached the wall with fresh determination and focus.
“The Rejects need me. Hayley needs me. I’m not dying here.”
She put her hands underneath and squatted once more. She closed her eyes, breathing smoothly. Then she lifted.
White light filled her vision as her body exploded with pain. She clamped her jaw closed, fighting every urge to cry out. She felt like she was burning alive.
She didn’t let that stop her.
