No More Heroes: In the Wake of the Templars Book Three

by Rhoads, Loren

  Unwillingly, she said, “I need a ship to get to the Templar tombworld.”

  “You will take Veracity. It will go back in time with you.”

  “Neither Jimi nor I can pilot it,” Raena lied. She did not want to be alone with the Thallian boy. She didn’t trust him to help her do whatever must be done.

  “I will go,” Gisela volunteered. “I’ve been training to pilot the Veracity.”

  “I can fly her,” Kavanaugh said. “I will go.”

  “It’s my ship,” Mykah reminded them. “You’re not going without me.”

  Raena looked at Mykah, Tarik, and Gisela. Any person she took with her was more likely to survive than those she left behind. She’d given Ariel her word that she would try to protect Gisela. That meant accepting her as part of the crew.

  She would have liked to take Haoun and Coni along too, but she suspected the Templar wanted some hostages. It killed her to be so cold, but she couldn’t save everyone.

  The Templar Master cocked its head at Raena. “Raena Zacari, do you accept this crew?”

  “Yes.”

  The gray soldiers converged on them, pulling the human volunteers away and herding them toward the exit from the cloning lab.

  “Wait!” Coni shouted. “Mykah …”

  “I love you!” he yelled at her.

  Raena turned to give Haoun a smile. He nodded at her. They hadn’t talked of love. What they had wasn’t love. She would come back for him nonetheless.

  Vezali flowed through the cloning lab after them. The gray soldiers didn’t try to stop her. At the door of the cloning lab, she said, “Just in case,” and pressed her translator into Mykah’s hand.

  CHAPTER 15

  The grays herded Raena and her crew into a shuttle that would return them to the Veracity, still parked on the planet’s surface. On the ride, Raena looked her crewmates over. Kavanaugh looked none the worse for wear, even if he was old enough to be everyone else’s father. Mykah was taut with resolve, aware he was about to do the grandest thing he’d ever attempted in his life. Jimi’s face was expressionless, but she suspected his thoughts were busy behind the mask. Gisela had gone paler still, practically ill with excitement.

  Raena wasn’t sure whether this Kavanaugh was the real one or the copy. She wasn’t sure if the Templar Master planned to send androids back with them to make sure they got the job done. But if androids could do the job, surely the Templar Master would have already dispatched them. All the same, she decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to test her crew. She’d just have to come up with the right riddles to ask.

  On the planet’s surface, the grays escorted them back onto the Veracity. One of these guards was a copy of Raena herself. “We will escort you to the Templar tombworld,” she said. “If the Veracity deviates from the course we set for you, one hostage will be executed. If the Veracity fires on our ships, one hostage will be executed. If the Veracity does not return from the past, all hostages will be executed. The elimination of the human race will begin in one standard week’s time, unless you succeed in erasing the plague.”

  Raena studied the android. It was hard to see where it differed from her, other than it still bore the scar her mother had given her, the one that bisected her left eyebrow and nearly cost her an eye. Raena supposed that meant that the android had been manufactured before she’d gone to Capitol City and had the scar removed. She wondered what sort of trouble it had stirred up in her likeness. Had it been one of the soldiers she fought outside Mellix’s apartment?

  “We are ready to go, as soon as we can warm the engines up,” Raena said. “Get off our ship.”

  The Raena android smirked at her, but turned on its high-heeled boot and left.

  The real Raena sighed. She hoped she had never flounced out of anywhere like that. It was just embarrassing.

  As Kavanaugh and Gisela went forward to warm the Veracity up, Raena followed Mykah into his cabin. “Question,” she said. “Tell me the ingredients in your nightcap.”

  “Cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, rice milk, and rum.”

  “What’s the secret to making one?”

  He looked at her skeptically. “Pouring the rice milk into the rum from a height, so that the heat of the milk doesn’t boil away all the alcohol.”

  Raena smiled. “You pass. You are not an android.”

  “You think one of us is a spy?”

  “I don’t know. Since Kavanaugh shot me the last time I saw him, I thought it would be a good idea to check.”

  “How do I know you’re not an android?” Mykah asked.

  “Test me.”

  “How did we meet?”

  “That’s too simple, Mykah,” she scolded. “You were working in that restaurant on Kai. I climbed up the cliff from the beach and you were my waiter. After I’d had a couple of drinks, I put the lily from the table decoration over my ear.”

  “What did I tell you about you and Ariel later?”

  “You thought I was flirting with my mother.”

  “You pass. Let’s find Jim.”

  The boy was in the lounge, strapping himself down. He looked up at them. “Am I in trouble?”

  “What was the first photo you sent me?” Raena asked.

  His answer came immediately. “I sent you a picture of me with the sabershark I’d caught. I was trying to impress you.”

  “What did I send you in return?”

  “A holo of you sitting on a jet bike. You had on gargoyle sunglasses. You only let me see the image for a moment, before it evaporated.”

  “He passes,” she told Mykah.

  “Three down,” he said.

  The vibration of the Veracity’s engines began to hum beneath their feet.

  “I don’t know Gisela well enough to test her,” Raena said.

  Jimi suggested, “Ask what her favorite game is.”

  So Raena went up to the cockpit and put the question to the girl. Raena wasn’t sure what she expected, but Gisela said, “We call it Kill By Numbers. We play it in the target range.”

  Raena laughed. “I know it. I used to play with your mom.”

  “You testing us for robots?” Kavanaugh asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Go ahead and hit me.”

  She saw he chose the phrase to tease her. She was pretty sure he was not an android, but she asked, “When we met, we played cards to pass the time. What was weird about how I played?”

  Without hesitation, he said, “You cheated to lose. I couldn’t figure out how or why, but you lost more than statistically plausible.” He looked at her. “So which of us is the android?”

  “No one,” Raena said. “I don’t understand what the Templar is doing.”

  “You’ve got time to puzzle it out. Go strap yourself down. We’re ready to fly.”

  Raena went to her bunk and climbed into the crash web, still worrying about the androids. What was the Templar Master using them for? Why had it been important to let her know he had one that looked like her?

  For that matter, why was the Templar Master trusting the Veracity’s crew to do his bidding back in time? What if instead they decided to kill him in the past? That assumed they could distinguish him from the other Templars of the time, but was there any real reason to let him live?

  She rubbed her temples, still hungry and disoriented from being stunned. If they assassinated the Templar Master in the past, who would unleash the gray soldiers in the present time? Would it make any difference to the galaxy if the grays didn’t hunt her, if she didn’t fight them? She was proud of surviving her encounters with them. She didn’t want to give those memories up. And the galaxy had decided she was a hero now, so score one for humanity.

  She was too selfish to be a hero, Raena decided. She didn’t want to sacrifice who she was to save the galaxy.

  *

  The gray soldiers, in a trio of refurbished Imperial-surplus ships rescued from the wreckage of the Thallians’ hangar, kept pace with the Veracity and made certain it didn’t stra
y.

  Raena put the Veracity under a communications blackout, which was rough on Mykah. She let him watch the news coming in, but forbade him to contact Mellix to consult on the upcoming exposé on Kai. She warned him not to draw the gray soldiers’ attention to Mellix, even through a series of scramblers.

  For similar reasons, she and Gisela didn’t speak to Ariel, either. It was better that they do this job quickly and quietly and didn’t draw anyone else in.

  Mykah cooked to pass the time. Raena worked out with anyone who would join her in the gym. Kavanaugh taught the kids to play poker. Jimi tinkered with the Veracity’s weapons systems. Gisela’s head finally healed up enough that Raena stopped worrying about her.

  *

  Raena was surprised when Jimi Thallian walked into her gym.

  “I never thought I’d miss sparring,” he said. “My father used to pit us against each other. Jain won almost every bout. He didn’t care who got hurt or how. He just wanted the praise our father heaped on him afterward.”

  Raena stopped chinning herself up over the bar to listen.

  “I thought I hated the fights. I never avoided getting hurt, because I didn’t enjoy hurting the others.” Jimi pulled off his heavy engineer’s boots and lined them up precisely beside the door. “But I miss the camaraderie when we all fought against my father, when he was trying to form us into a team.”

  Raena dropped to her feet. “How long has it been since you’ve sparred with anyone?”

  “Since before we saw that video of you flying on Kai. After that, Father was too focused on capturing you to declare the games.”

  “Come at me, then,” Raena suggested. “I’ll only defend.”

  For someone out of practice, Jimi was still in pretty good shape. She recognized a kick combination as something his father had taught him. An intensity came into his gray eyes that took her back: a combination of determination and admiration marked him as his father’s son.

  Raena went easy on him, merely blocking his attacks, but he was fast and lithe and she found herself enjoying the exercise. With her boots on, he was almost exactly her height.

  They were both warmed up when Jimi stepped back. He held up a finger—one of his father’s gestures—as he caught his breath. Then he said, “Teach me something my father doesn’t know.”

  Raena turned a one-handed cartwheel and came up quickly, punching hard with her other hand. “Nice,” Jimi said. “Teach me that.”

  *

  Mykah couldn’t believe how much he’d missed being in the galley. This was his first opportunity ever to cook for a wholly human crew, so he went for comfort food: breaded pork chops, mashed potatoes, strawberry shortcake. He felt like he was recreating an ancestral meal—one none of the others, with their shattered childhoods, had ever had a chance to eat.

  Once they had settled around the table and had a few moments to enjoy the food, Mykah asked, “Do we have a plan?”

  When no one else spoke up, Raena said, “No. I can’t figure out what game the Templar Master is playing with us. I don’t trust him. I don’t think the Templars were ever cuddly, fluffy intragalactic friends. I think they were rigid, brutal, and shortsighted. As much as I think it’s a tragedy they were wiped out, I’m not convinced the galaxy wants them back in charge. This Templar Master has a goal, but he sent back an assassin and a Thallian to see it met. That’s not a peacekeeping team.”

  “He wants us to stop the plague,” Kavanaugh reminded.

  “How?” Raena asked.

  “We know the Thallian family created and manufactured the plague,” Mykah said. “We know Jonan Thallian spread it across the galaxy. Can we stop it at either of those points? Let’s make it simple, try to change as little as possible.”

  “Change as little as possible?” Raena scoffed. “The Templar Master sent us back to stop the plague. That will change everything. If there’s no plague, does the War ever end? If the Empire doesn’t win, do the Templars? Can you imagine them ever making peace with humanity? And on an entirely selfish note, Kavanaugh won’t get me out of that tomb, because the Templars will still be guarding the planet.”

  “You might not be imprisoned,” Kavanaugh countered, “if Marchan couldn’t get down onto the planet to lock you in.”

  “If I vanish suddenly, I guess you’ll know that the Empire decided on a firing squad for me after all.” Raena sawed off a bite of pork and chewed on it meditatively.

  Gisela watched them with a puzzled expression, but Jimi and Mykah clearly understood what she was talking about. Raena could not bear the compassion in Mykah’s expression, so she turned away from it.

  “Marchan got down to the Templar tombworld somehow the first time,” Raena said. “The plague hadn’t been unleashed when they locked me up. The Templars should have still been guarding the planet. But somehow Marchan got me into the Templar Master’s tomb …”

  “You think the conspiracy goes that far back?” Kavanaugh asked.

  They stared at each other. “I don’t know what to think,” Raena said.

  “If we don’t stop the plague,” Mykah said, “Coni and Haoun will be killed. The human race will be wiped out.”

  “The Templar threatened that,” Kavanaugh pointed out, “but how is he going to accomplish it? The galaxy knows about the Outriders and the Messiah drug now. We don’t know how many grays there are, but we haven’t seen enough to crew a warship. What kind of weapon do they have to wipe humanity out? We’re scattered …”

  “A plague,” Gisela guessed.

  “A plague that wipes out humanity,” Jimi said. “That would be poetic justice.”

  “Don’t look to me to solve this,” Raena said at last. “I’m too paralyzed by the enormity of it. I don’t dare make a move.”

  *

  Eventually, they reached the Templar tombworld. “I never thought I’d have any reason to come back here,” Kavanaugh said. He flew over the abandoned bunker complex and the Templar Master’s tomb, for old times’ sake. He pointed them out to Mykah and Jimi, but Raena didn’t bother to look. She made certain her knives were sheathed in her boot tops. If anyone got any ideas about imprisoning her here again, she was going to slit her own throat. Everyone else would have to fend for themselves, but she was taking no chances.

  The grays sent over landing coordinates. The landing zone turned out to be inside one of the mountains. When they reached it, another crew of androids had already opened the cave’s entrance. It was large enough to fly the Veracity inside.

  An android that Raena did not recognize called over a final message. “The device is prepared for you. It is locked onto a time coordinate in the past and keyed to the Veracity’s numerical ID. If the Veracity is damaged, you will have to retrieve its ID signature. No other vehicle number will trigger your return.”

  “What happens when we arrive in the past?” Mykah asked. “The Templars will still be guarding their planet. Will they let us out of here?”

  “Yours is not the first Imperial ship we’ve commandeered,” the android told him. “They will assume you are on a mission from the future.”

  Gooseflesh shivered over Raena’s skin. She wondered again how Marchan had succeeded in locking her into the Templar Master’s tomb at the height of the Human-Templar War.

  “What happens after we succeed in preventing the plague?” Mykah asked. “When we come back here in the past, Templars will still be guarding these tombs. Will they allow us to use the time machine to return?”

  “Play them this message,” the android said. It sent over a fragment of flashing colors: Templar speech.

  “Anything else we need to know?” Mykah asked.

  “For the sake of your species, do not fail.”

  “No pressure, then,” Kavanaugh muttered. He rotated the Veracity around and backed it into the cavern.

  Raena’s head pounded as if it would split, so hard and fast that she feared she would have a stroke. Sweat slicked her whole body. Mykah came over to hold her in his arms. Raena scrun
ched her eyes closed and clung to him. It didn’t help. She felt like she was dying.

  “This is only a panic attack,” he whispered. “I know it feels like it will kill you, but it won’t.”

  “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to be trapped again.”

  “I know.”

  “How will we know when it works?” Gisela asked.

  “The Veracity’s clock will reset,” Kavanaugh said. “It’s linked to GST.”

  The Veracity gave a horrific moan. Raena echoed it.

  The ship’s power shut off abruptly. The Veracity started to fall out of the air. Kavanaugh fought for control as Gisela slapped blindly at switches, trying to regain some kind of spark. Suddenly, independent of anything they’d done, the ship blazed back to life. The engine reengaged. The repulsors caught them before they bottomed out.

  Jimi leaned forward to check the clock. “We’ve gone back,” he said. “The War is on, but the plague hasn’t begun yet.”

  *

  Raena drew a shaky breath and pushed gently out of Mykah’s arms to stand on her own feet again. Her body felt wrung out. She put a hand on the bulkhead, just for stability, and asked, “Mykah, do you have Vezali’s translator?”

  “It’s in my cabin.”

  “Let’s listen to the Templar Master’s message before we play it for anyone else.”

  As he went to retrieve the translator, Kavanaugh asked, “What do you expect it to say?”

  “Kill us all,” Raena said. “The Templar Master can’t let us return to the future, knowing he has a time machine.”

  “What makes you suspect it?” Gisela asked shakily.

  “That we’re not supposed to play it until we get back to the planet. If this trip is straightforward and the Templar in the past would support what we’re doing, why don’t we have a message for them when we come out of the machine now—so they could help us?”