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

by Rhoads, Loren

  Raena hadn’t realized Jonan’s murderous streak had applied to his nephews as well. She felt a pang of sympathy for his son. How had he survived more than a decade with his father?

  She relented and answered Jim’s question. “Jonan liked to look at the stars. He taught me to name them. He loved anything that gave him the illusion of flight: zero g, jet packs, free fall, wings. His favorite color, unsurprisingly, was crimson. He loved the flavor of blackberries and the scent of lilies.”

  Jim nodded, trying to digest all of that. “Did you ever know him when he was sane?”

  “Never. He left home to fight for the Empire because his ambition was bigger than to rule one family on one planet. He was willing to do anything to other people because no one else was ever real to him. He lived alone in a universe peopled with ghosts.”

  “You were real to him,” Jim pointed out.

  “Only after I ran from him. Then he knew what he’d lost.”

  The boy considered that. “You think he was cruel to us because we weren’t real to him?”

  She turned that question around. “Do you know what happened to Jain?”

  “Mother said they made him stand on a parapet with a noose around his neck. Jain hung himself.”

  “That’s true,” Raena said. “Jain revealed my position to the family. When your brothers attacked me, I killed them all as Jain watched. Jain hung himself afterward. Your father did not face me himself until he’d sent everyone else against me. Everyone but your mother, whom he’d already forgotten. Even after your brothers were dead, he didn’t grieve for them. He collected their bodies together to serve as guests for our wedding feast. Alive or dead, his family was all the same to him.”

  Jim sighed shakily, but did not start to cry. Raena wondered if he had liked any of his brothers, if anyone had ever been kind to him, beyond Revan and Eilif.

  His next question was unexpected. “Do you think that Father was crazy because something went wrong in the cloning process? My family meant to create a hyena, but they got a shark instead?”

  “I think that’s very possible—but I don’t want to give Jonan an excuse. I watched him learn to love torture. It saddened me, but didn’t surprise me, to discover he’d carried out the genocide. He may have been born broken, but he chose to do evil.”

  *

  Once they reached Drusingyi, the Thallians sent ships to meet the Veracity and escort it through their satellite defenses in the asteroid belt. Kavanaugh flew carefully, noting landmarks in case they needed to blast out of there in a hurry. Luckily, it seemed that most of the defenses faced out toward the galaxy instead of in toward the planet. Still, if the Veracity made a big enough ruckus when they left, he was sure things could be quickly reconfigured. While the rest of the crew were busy on the planet, Kavanaugh would make it his job to figure out how to escape the satellite net.

  Raena was in the galley, eating the huge meal Mykah had prepared especially for her and Jim. Kavanaugh heard Raena laughing, a wonderful sound, full of life. He didn’t see how she could survive being a prisoner of Thallian’s family, but now that her death was imminent, she seemed to have shed her fear.

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me who she really was?” Gisela asked quietly from the copilot’s chair.

  “Because she isn’t that person any more,” Kavanaugh answered.

  The girl thought about that answer, before asking, “Did you know her before the War?”

  “No. When I met her, she was already running from Thallian. She wasn’t too much older than you are now.”

  “And her back … ?”

  “Yeah, Thallian had already scarred her.”

  “How can she sound so happy?” Emotion choked Gisela’s voice, so similar to Ariel that it was hard for Kavanaugh to remember that the two of them weren’t actually blood. “Doesn’t Raena know what’s going to happen to her?”

  “She has a better idea than any of us do,” Kavanaugh explained. “She’s taking all the pleasure she can in the time she has left.”

  He glanced over at Gisela. Tears sparkled in her deep blue eyes and she looked more like a child than ever. What the hell was she doing here? Anger rushed over him: that there could be such innocence in the galaxy while Thallian was busy plotting genocide in humanity’s name. Kavanaugh hoped the crew could protect Gisela from the madman, whether or not they accomplished anything else.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he said, “but Raena needs you to be strong right now. She can’t worry about us while she’s facing them. I want to say goodbye to her, but if you can’t do it, go hide in your cabin until she’s gone.”

  Gisela nodded and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “I can do it. Give me a minute.”

  “Good.” Kavanaugh gave her some time to calm herself, then pressed the intercom and said, “We should be landing in an hour. Raena, would you come up before then?”

  *

  “I guess I’m wanted.” Raena took one last mouthful of the honey wine Mykah had opened for her. It tasted like summer, like the flowers in the sunny garden at Ariel’s villa. “Thank you for that meal, Mykah. It was perfect.”

  He swooped down to grab her up in a hug. Raena clasped her hands behind his neck and pulled herself closer, eyes shut to make the moment last.

  “I hugged you for luck the last time you went down to face the Thallians,” he reminded.

  “And that turned out pretty well,” she remembered. “Don’t worry about me.”

  He squeezed her, then leaned over to set her feet on the floor. “I know you can take care of yourself.”

  “I’ll do my best,” she promised.

  Jim stood at attention beside the table. Raena offered him her hand. The boy looked surprised, but he took it.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  “You, too.”

  She gave his fingers an extra squeeze, then turned to go forward.

  Kavanaugh stood when she entered the cockpit. He opened his arms, so she pressed herself into them and kissed his cheek.

  He grinned at her. “Give ’em hell.”

  “That’s my plan.”

  Gisela climbed awkwardly out of her copilot’s chair. Her lower lip trembled.

  “Don’t cry,” Raena said. “You’ll ruin my hero moment.”

  Gisela laughed and blinked hard.

  Raena gave the girl a quick hug. “Make your mother proud.”

  Gisela nodded, unable to speak.

  Raena went back to her cell and changed into Jain’s jumpsuit. Like a prayer, she buckled on her silver-heeled boots. Then she lay down on the bunk. She had recalculated Thallian’s dosage of the Doze gas so that it would knock her out, but not for too long. She didn’t want to spend any more time unconscious in the Thallians’ detention than was absolutely necessary.

  *

  Kavanaugh set the Veracity down gently on the pad the Thallians had lit up for him. The last hours of night engulfed this part of the Thallian homeworld, which struck him as fitting. Dawn was barely an hour away.

  Mykah met Kavanaugh outside Raena’s cell. They peeked at her through the window in the door. She was out cold, mouth open and eyes rolled back. Mykah hit the remote in his pocket to release the restraints she’d used as crash protection on the way down. Her limbs sprawled bonelessly.

  “Did you vent the cell already?” Kavanaugh asked.

  “Yeah. It should be clear now.”

  “Got the prisoner transfer paperwork?”

  “Gisela does. I’m glad Jim dug up that antique datascreen.”

  They stood there awkwardly, until Gisela commed back to them. “There’s a welcoming party forming up outside,” she reported. “A heavily armed welcoming party.”

  “You okay?” Kavanaugh asked her.

  “I’m under control,” the girl promised.

  Mykah looked curious, but he didn’t ask. Instead, he tugged his uniform jacket down and asked Kavanaugh, “Ready?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Mykah opened the door
and Kavanaugh went in to sling Raena over his shoulder. She weighed little more than a child.

  *

  Jim met them at the hatch with the restraints. He and Gisela pinned Raena’s arms behind her back, then hobbled her at knees and ankles.

  Mykah tugged the uniform jacket down one last time and nodded to Gisela to open the hatch. He stepped out of the Veracity first, followed by his “aide.” Kavanaugh came last, with Raena slung over his shoulder. Jim stayed hidden aboard the ship.

  Ten Thallians stood on the landing pad. All but one stood at attention. The last, dressed in silver and black brocade, was Aaron Thallian, head of Thallian family security.

  Raena had drilled Mykah on how to behave. Any Imperial officer, she said, believed himself superior to any planetary officer. Mykah was to hold himself graciously, managing neither to condescend nor be too familiar. He was better than the Thallians, but the character he was playing still wanted a favor from Jonan and, by extension, his family.

  “Thank you for taking her off our hands, Lord Thallian.” Mykah reached out to Gisela, who placed the datascreen in his hand.

  Aaron seemed in no hurry to take it. “She doesn’t look very threatening, Captain Chen.”

  “Not now,” Mykah agreed. “However, I’m sure your brother has apprised you of her criminal record.”

  A moment ticked past and Mykah understood that Jonan Thallian had done no such thing. He changed the subject. “With your kind permission, we will await the arrival of the Arbiter here. We have some necessary repairs to make before we resume orbit.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope.”

  “The last time we allowed her to become conscious, Zacari managed to kill two more of my men, Lord Thallian. We have a hastily patched hull breach to attend to.”

  Aaron Thallian looked back at Raena. Mykah had suggested that she simply pretend to be sedated and attack the Thallians on the landing platform, but Kavanaugh pointed out that they couldn’t assume the Thallians would shoot to stun, especially once she started killing them. It was better, Raena agreed, that they underestimate her—even if that would insult Mykah’s character’s vanity.

  Aaron Thallian took the datascreen and signed off on the prisoner transfer. He signaled one of the clones to step forward and take Raena from Kavanaugh’s arms.

  Mykah kept his face impassive as he accepted the datascreen back. “Do we have your permission to make our repairs?”

  “Yes,” Aaron said grudgingly. “Let us know if you require assistance.”

  *

  As Jim watched the security detail go back into the city, he studied the city’s defenses. Not surprisingly, the wall had a genetic lock, which Aaron overrode to take Raena into the city. She would need that same code to get herself out.

  The boy had yet to set foot in the city where his family lived before the War. He’d seen its ruins from a distance, of course, but even a decade after the bombing, the rubble had still been too contaminated to explore.

  In that future, Uncle Revan had believed that the boys should know their history, so he had taken it upon himself to model the city for them—in hopes that someday the boys would be able to bring it back to life. Jim wasn’t alone in believing Uncle Revan was deluded about ever living on the planet’s surface again. Even so, family history had interested him. He’d been an attentive student.

  After daybreak, when family members started to come and go into the city, Jim combed his hair a final time and checked the shine on his boots. Then he slipped out of the Veracity.

  His first real test would be the gate in the city wall. Jim approached it casually, aware that Kavanaugh and Gisela were hidden behind him on the mountainside, watching his progress through snipers’ rifles. Gisela promised that if anything about Jim triggered the city’s defenses or alerted the guards on the wall, she would give him time to run.

  No alarms went off. The city recognized him as a Thallian.

  Jim turned left inside the gate and walked to the boys’ barracks. Luck was with him. He didn’t have to wait very long before a boy about his age came back from breakfast alone. Jim waited until he was sure which locker belonged to the boy, then snuck up behind him and slapped the palm needle into the back of his neck. Raena was right. The saxitoxin worked almost immediately.

  Jim caught the boy as he collapsed. He dragged him over to an unused locker and tucked him inside. Raena had warned that while the toxin would make his victim docile, it would also make it difficult for him to breathe. He had to be propped up somewhere, or he’d suffocate.

  Jim hadn’t thought he would care. He had loathed his family members with varying degrees of hatred. This kid was a stranger who merely shared his likeness. But now, facing his doppelgänger, Jim couldn’t help identifying with his cousin. The boy shared Jim’s gray eyes and jawline, the blue-black hair and the long straight nose. Maybe he was a victim of his elders’ abuse, just as Jim had been. Something like pity trembled through Jim. Before he left, he would try to leave the kid where someone could find him and give him the antitoxin.

  Then Jim took a deep breath, shut the locker door, and returned to the kid’s own locker. He stole the boy’s clothing, datascreen, and security passes. Jim hoped that any adults he encountered would be too preoccupied to examine him closely. Despite what the Veracity crew believed, the clones were adept at telling each other apart. Jim was glad Gisela had cut his hair to be less distinctive.

  Jim left the barracks and entered the library next door. Inside, after roaming a bit, he found a quartet of isolated study carrels. Because his family’s tech never progressed after the War isolated them, Jim knew what to expect from the city’s computer systems. He’d come prepared. After a few minutes, he had his anachronistic handheld connected to a terminal. Opening his translation of the Templar Master’s formula, he called on the city’s databanks to begin analyzing it, taking pains to keep the data flowing into his handheld, not the other way around.

  The handheld lit up with an initial screenful of information. He’d been right: it indicated a foundation of human genetics plus viral manipulation. Unfortunately, it was at a much higher level than he could comprehend. He asked the computer to begin a deeper analysis and attached the handheld to the underside of the desk to let it process without interruption.

  Jim moved to the carrel adjacent and cabled another handheld—Mykah’s—to the terminal there. This handheld contained nothing but a modification of Coni’s kill-switch program. He readied it to run as soon as he finished his analysis of the Templar formula. Once started, the program would begin to multiply itself, overwriting the city databanks with random bytes and destroying all of the family’s research.

  Jim settled into the next carrel and turned on its terminal. He poked through the research reports in his family’s files. Some of what he found was familiar: projects that had been built upon while he was living at home. Other things, especially the art and musical experiments, had been abandoned after the War.

  Something strange caught his attention. There were references to his father’s last visit home and the “animals” he’d brought along. Jim hadn’t known that the family ever kept a menagerie beyond the beasts they bred for food.

  He suspected the handheld decoding the Templar’s message would be working a while longer. He had time to take a walk and see what had captured his father’s interest.

  *

  When Raena woke, she lay on a smooth white block of stone. Assaultively bright light filled the cell. In place of its fourth wall hung a forcefield so steady and seamless as to be invisible. Outside it stood a gray-eyed man with strict military posture.

  Raena looked up into the Thallian clone’s face. This one looked much more like Raena’s memories of Jonan than the man she’d set on fire in his bed. This clone wore a short black beard, cut close to emphasize his jawline, but his eyes glowed the same hard silver as she remembered Jonan’s did.

  “Tell me why my brother wants you kept alive,” the clone said.

  Raena sm
iled. “I used to work for him aboard the Arbiter. I served as his aide.”

  “Past tense?” he asked.

  “I objected to his treatment of a Coalition prisoner,” Raena said. “Your younger brother put a bounty on me when I left his service.”

  “Not a reason for your continued survival, then.”

  “This is: as far as Jonan knew, I was still imprisoned in the Master’s tomb on the Templar tombworld. He will want to know how I escaped. I consent to be your prisoner until he comes to reclaim me.”

  “You consent?” the clone scoffed.

  “Yes.”

  That fazed him enough that he left without a response.

  *

  Jim stopped inside the building’s doors to let his eyes adjust. At the heart of the darkened bunker, several clones of his father’s generation had gathered inside a plastic-sheathed room. Beneath hyper-bright lights, they were garbed in surgical robes and wore breathing masks.

  Jim tried to look like he had a purpose as he drew nearer. He traced the pipes running into the surgical tent. One was labeled as cyanogen, a hot-burning gas he had used for dismantling ships. Jim glanced around, seeing stalls instead of machinery. He stared at the surgical suite, trying to figure out what they were doing here.

  Inside the tent, something spasmed, something deep brown and covered with wiry whiskers. It took Jim a moment to identify it as the hind leg of a Templar.

  “Lock that down,” snarled one of the clones. Jim shivered at the familiar tone of command.

  Another clone restrained the flailing limb.

  A third clone sparked a cutting torch. Jim could smell it, poisonous and hot, before they cut into the Templar. The scent abruptly went putrid.

  “That’s lighting it up good,” the first clone said. “Keep on with that.”

  Swallowing hard against the bile that burned his throat, Jim walked with measured steps out of the bunker.

  He marched over to the vehicle depot. Using his stolen ID, Jim checked out a jet bike. He’d concocted a story about where he was going, but the bored clone manning the garage didn’t care. It was a beautiful sunny day. That was excuse enough.