by Josh Leone
Seth knew his chances of escape were zero. Even if he could find a way out of his cell he’d still be surrounded by Legionnaires. His ship, after its exposure to phase space, would be as flight-capable as a penguin. Even if he could get hold of a functioning ship, how far would he get before a few hundred attack ships turned him to dust? Nope, he was up it and there were no paddles in sight.
The occupants of the cells were not that interesting. Maintenance workers who’d tried to steal a spare component to resell, low level grunts who’d run afoul of a higher authority, and a scattering of attitude cases requiring some time to cool their heels and be reminded of their place. The Judgment was so massive and so complex that it had to maintain a significant population of civilian contractors to handle much of the day-to-day stuff. They’d all been carefully vetted of course, but they lacked the indoctrinated compulsion to follow orders that was part and parcel of the Legion PoPros.
The only one of his fellow prisoners Seth couldn’t immediately figure out was in a cell across, and one down, from his own. She was attractive in a hard way. Lean but strong, skin the color of toffee, and eyes that practically burned with intelligence. If Seth were to guess, he’d say one of her parents had been of African descent, the other maybe English, with maybe a bit of Irish. Her eyes turned to him and he suddenly felt like a peeping tom.
“Like what you see, flyboy?” Iyanna smiled her best and most confident smile, one that hopefully hid her fear and misery. Her beautiful ship was gone and she was most likely going to be disappeared as soon as someone got around to making the decision. Yep, the dial on her life had definitely been turned all the way up to suck. At least there was some eye candy to occupy herself with.
“Well,” Seth said, regaining his composure. “You know how it is at these budget places. The vid is broken, the bartender can’t get my drink order right, and the pool is closed for repairs. “
“So you figured you’d check out the action on the dance floor?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but the band left for the night and my dogs are barking.”
“How about some friendly conversation, then?”
Iyanna had to admit, she liked his smile. She’d liked that smile when she’d watched him make the delivery to the colony. She knew that it was her fault he was in his cell. It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots. The Legion wanted him for some reason. She’d tracked him, called in his location, and here he was.
Seth didn’t look much worse for wear. Iyanna had watched him sleep for most of two days after the interns had brought him to his cell. She’d been in her cell for a few hours by then and had come to pretty much the same conclusion regarding escape as had Seth.
“Okay, Q and A. Me first.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“How’d you get on the Legion’s bad side?”
“Long story,” Seth said. “I punched the wrong face, got on the lists, and, I suppose, it all finally caught up with me.”
“Not such a long story after all,” Iyanna said with a gentle laugh.
“Guess not. Seemed a lot longer when I was living it. My turn. What’s your name?”
“Iyanna. But that won’t count, Seth. Ask another one.”
Seth was quiet for longer than seemed needed. Iyanna got uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong? Can’t think of another question?”
“How did you know my name, Iyanna?”
She knew she’d made a mistake. That was two now if she included letting her curiosity get the better of her. Three if she included accepting the job in the first place.
“You know, Iyanna. I wondered how the Legion knew where we were.”
“Seth, it was just a job. You know how it is. It’s not personal.”
“Not personal?”
“Seth, look. I didn’t even know it was a Legion contract.”
“Not personal, Iyanna?”
“Come on, Seth.” Iyanna heard her voice quiver. She was ashamed. She’d taken many contracts. Did it really matter if it was Legion or not? Had she ever concerned herself with the harm her successes inflicted on others?
“I watched my best friend burn, because of you!” Seth was almost screaming the words at her and each one hit like a punch in the stomach.
“I’m sorry, Seth.” But he wasn’t listening anymore. Seth had retreated into his cell and out of view.
Iyanna wanted to crawl into a corner and dissolve. Hearing the pain in Seth’s voice; though she didn’t really know him, it was still like a knife in her heart. How many people just like Seth and his friend had she hurt? How many had suffered because Iyanna hadn’t cared enough to give thought to the consequences of her actions? Too many, and for the first time in Iyanna’s life, she was ashamed.
◊
Assistant Minister Sanweh Johns tried to appreciate the honor bestowed upon him. He tried very hard. Johns’ job was generally quite mundane and could almost always be satisfactorily accomplished in the comfort of his small office. He was only rarely required to leave that bastion of order. His hope was that someday he would be promoted to full Minister and never have to leave his office. Unfortunately, that day had not yet arrived.
This excursion from his beloved office was particularly unsettling as it involved the delivery of bad news. Said news involved the unfortunate death of the wife of an Honored Returned. It pained Sanweh that such hardship should befall such a holy figure. Szoveda Sha was an elevated name, revered by every decent citizen of the Primacy and servant of the Holy Mother Earth. Generations of children, including Sanweh himself, had looked up to Sha as a living instrument of Her divine will.
The little house belonging to the Honored Returned was located in a cul-de-sac containing three other homes. The Legion, as a gesture of respect for the Honored Returned, had insisted on sending a squad of six Legionnaires to accompany Sanweh, to insure that reporters kept their distance. The guards were armed with stun weaponry and heavy riot gear. The hope was that an intimidating presence would dissuade intrusive curiosity. If it did not, then a few shots from a stunner certainly would.
Sanweh rang the quaint door bell and waited. It was not a long wait. Sanweh’s breath caught in his chest as the door opened and the Honored Returned stood before him. For a moment Sanweh was star struck. He’d never been this close to one of the revered warriors.
“Szoveda Sha, Honored Returned, and warrior of the Holy Crusade?” Sanweh’s voice may have been slightly higher than normal, his eyes wider, his hands shaking, but Szoveda Sha was decent enough to ignore such things.
“I am Sha. How may I help you, fellow servant of the Holy Mother?”
“Honored One, it is my sad duty to inform you that your wife has been the victim of a fatal accident. I am so very sorry for your loss.”
“Fatal?” Sha’s mind was suddenly clouded. He knew the usual meaning of that word, but it must mean something else in this case.
“Yes, Honored One. She died as a result of equipment malfunction. From what I understand of such things, it was very quick. She did not suffer.”
“Bring her back.”
“Ah, um, well, as I am sure you know, only Callers and Honored Returned are afforded that privilege.” When Sanweh had first looked into Sha’s eyes, it had been like looking into twin pools of quiet power. Those eyes had smiled and brought a sense of peace to his soul. That was no longer the case. Though it might be near blasphemy to suggest such a thing of one of the Holy Mother’s most favored children, Sanweh would now have described those eyes as tempests of growing insanity. The Junior Minister was suddenly afraid.
“Bring her back.” Sha’s voice was not loud, but there was a quality to it that carried. The Legionnaires heard it and instinct made them turn the power on their weapons to maximum.
“Honored One, I am certain that Captain Meot, as a dedicated servant of the Holy Mother, will receive Her personal attention. She will, no doubt, be reincarnated and live a happy and joyful ne
w life. Please,” Sanweh could hear the note of desperation in his own voice. “Find peace in that.”
“BRING HER BACK TO ME!” The voice of an Honored Returned, like everything else about them, had been designed well. Sha was able to achieve a volume no base-line human could have managed. Sanweh’s ears hurt hearing it.
The Junior Minister clapped his hands to the sides of his head, certain his eardrums had been damaged. The Legionnaires turned down the gain on their helmet mics and, while they did not actually point weapons at Sha, they did bring them into a position from which doing so would require only that they be raised a few inches.
Honored Returned are not barred from having families, from making emotional connections outside of their own rarified ranks. But it is discouraged. Sanweh, in his last moments, realized the logic of that unwritten policy.
A base-line human was quite limited in the amount of damage he or she could personally cause. In an emotion fueled rage an unarmed base-liner might bloody noses, break a bone or two, perhaps fire a weapon of some kind. Even a highly trained base-liner could do only marginally more before he or she was put down.
The rage of an Honored Returned was orders of magnitude more dangerous and destructive. The body of an Honored Returned – and Sha had just recently been Returned to a body with the very latest advancements – was a masterpiece of battle. Sha was many times stronger than an average base-liner. His body, even without nano-armor, was supremely durable. His entire system was suffused with nanites that could heal minor injuries in seconds, more significant damage in minutes. Every major organ system had at least one back up. The list of enhancements went on and on. There was a reason the Honored Returned were two meters tall or more. A body any smaller simply would not have enough room for all the tech.
Another factor to consider, one Sanweh appreciated most acutely in his last seconds of life, was that an Honored Returned was never unarmed. Under normal circumstances the linkblade of an Honored Returned was a reflection of the extreme mental focus of its wielder. Just being able to summon the blade required a mind that had been trained for years to achieve masterful levels of concentration. Sha’s usual blade was crisp and clean, each edge laser perfect. But these were not normal circumstances.
The linkblade, usually formed under careful and thoughtful control, blazed into existence, fueled by Sha’s grief, his rage, and his pain. It was an ugly thing, barely even recognizable as a sword. The blade looked like liquid fire extending from Sha’s hand. It flowed and changed and wavered, more like a flaming snake than an elegant weapon.
Sanweh’s body was wracked with spasms as the blade bisected him from head to groin. The pain was too great to feel as every nerve in Sanweh’s body exploded and tissues burned. The Legionnaires reacted quickly but compared to Sha they may as well have been standing still. Two fell twitching from a single swipe of Sha’s weapon while a third was lifted into the air by a kick to his armored chest. The armor saved his life, but he would not be getting back up any time soon.
The remaining three soldiers separated, hoping to avoid giving the enraged Returned a cluster of targets. All three began firing their stunners on full-auto; the blasts washing over Sha with little effect. The Legionnaire to Sha’s left called in for backup, just before a back-handed slap cracked his helmet and sent him sprawling.
While one of the two remaining soldiers continued to spray Sha with stun blasts, the other one ran for the armored vehicle they’d arrived in. He knew that back-up was only minutes away, and he had to keep Sha contained until it arrived. The Legionnaire scrambled up the ladder mounted to the side of the vehicle and positioned himself behind the heavy blaster mounted on the roof.
He set the heavy blaster to stun, still not willing to risk killing the Honored Returned despite the damage he was causing. The soldier’s partner flew over the vehicle and landed several yards away, forcing the gunner to duck. When he came back up, Sha was moving toward the vehicle. The soldier let loose with the vehicle mounted weapon.
The gun sent hundreds of high powered blasts at Sha. The sheer number of hits the Honored Returned took every second was enough to cause the grass around him to wither and die as the energy was shed over his skin and down into the ground. Unlike the handheld stunners though, the vehicle mounted weapon was having notable effect. Sha did not fall, but neither could he move forward. For almost twenty seconds Sha was held in place by the heavy stun blasts. But then he managed to move one step closer to the vehicle, and another, and another. Most of his clothing had been burned away by the concentrated fire, and his skin had turned a shade of red, as though sunburned.
The gun’s power core was beginning to overheat, lessening the effect of each blast and allowing Sha to make progress. From above Sha, another string of stun blasts began raining down on him from a Civil Authority Police transport. The CAP vehicle was maintaining an altitude of forty feet as it fired down on Sha.
The combined blasts drove Sha to his knees. A third vehicle, another CAP transport, added to the barrage, driving Sha to the ground and causing his linkblade to flare and extinguish. The third vehicle was not firing stun blasts. Instead it was shooting concentrated concussion blasts that hammered Sha down with enough force to pound his body inches into the ground and shatter windows in nearby houses.
Had Sha been of clearer mind he could have triggered his Sending, exploding and devastating the surrounding area out to several yards. But his grief so overwhelmed him that he could not have focused his psi, even if the thought had occurred to him. Instead, he simply lay where he’d fallen and let the stun weaponry render him unconscious. He didn’t want to fight anymore, didn’t want to think, to feel. Sha didn’t want to live. As his consciousness faded, Sha prayed.
“Holy Mother, please take my pain. Let me sleep and never wake.”
Sha did sleep, but his enhanced body was already repairing itself, regardless of his desperate prayer. The body of an Honored Returned was designed to survive, to resist injury. If only Sha’s mind had been gifted with the same cold, efficient resistance. He knew it was impossible, because it had been designed with the same power as the rest of his body, but logic didn’t matter. Sha felt his heart break. Then, mercifully, he felt no more.
◊
Seth rose from his cot as a woman came to stand outside his cell. She wore a Legion uniform that Seth recognized instantly. His body called on old instincts and he had to resist the urge to stand at attention and salute. The uniform was that of an Admiral. There were only five people of that rank in the Legion. One commanded Earth-Base-One, the largest Legion base in existence. That base, despite its name, was actually located on Earth’s Moon. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that EB1 WAS the moon. The entire surface of the planetoid was covered in a single, heavily armed base. That surface layer was only one of several that went deep under the lunar surface. So much mass had been added to the moon that thousands of positional thrusters were required to adjust the planetoids path so it stayed in regular orbit around the Earth.
Another Admiral commanded the forces that oversaw the outer boarders of the Primacy. The remaining three Admirals each commanded a World Ship. The officer standing before Seth was Admiral Karin Simms. Seth knew her bio. She was older than Vig, but thanks to the very best health care the Primacy had to offer, she didn’t look a day over thirty-five. The only indication of her age was a single streak of silver in her otherwise perfect blonde hair.
“Seth Okan,” Simms said, with zero apparent interest in his response.
“Yes, that’s me.” Under other circumstances Seth might have responded with a wise crack. But he was smart enough to know that an Admiral visiting the holding cell of a listed freelancer was, to say the least, unusual. It might mean that Seth’s situation was more malleable than he’d previously thought.
“Smart enough to recognize when to show respect? Well, at least that’s something.” The Admiral remained silent for several seconds, her eyes taking on the far-off look common when a person was
accessing information from neurotech.
“Captain Okan, an opportunity is being offered to you. One I hardly think you are in a position to ignore. The facts of you current situation are grim, to say the least. Your ship is badly damaged. You crewmate is barely alive and will require significant medical intervention if he is to regain normal functioning. You have been observed making an illegal delivery in an attempt to circumvent a lawful Primacy penalty.”
“Sounds bad.” Seth refused to let her make him sweat. At least, he refused to let her see him sweat.
“Indeed it is. As you have been officially excluded from the Primacy it is within my authority to judge you and impose the maximum penalty possible.” For the first time, Seth saw Simms smile. He didn’t like it. “Mandatory droning.”
“Tell me about this opportunity I’m being offered.”
“Glad to see that your intelligence continues. The offer is a simple one, right up you alley, so to speak.”
Simms explained that the Legion needed a person of note delivered to a location in Pash territory and then brought to another place. That was essentially it. A freelancer ship was needed because the Primacy was currently engaged in the delicate process of soothing the Pash’s wounded (and Seth had to appreciate the pun here) pride. It would be bad form to send a Legion ship in just when the Pash were still stinging from their recent surrender.
“Why me,” asked Seth. “Surely there are plenty of freelancers willing take a milk run like that.”
