Heart of a Traitor

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  “This is boring, I am bored now,” Inami complained. With the back of her hand she slapped the shoulder of one manservant. “Where did the guy with the fan go?”

  “You sent him to go make you a daiquiri,” the chiseled man responded.

  “Well, don’t just stand there; pick up the fan till he gets back.”

  The manservant picked up the bamboo fan and began creating a gentle breeze over Inami, who leaned back and hummed to herself.

  “I just don’t understand why the traitors are here at all,” the manservant observed. “This is a cardinal world, devoted to worship, it has no military value.”

  Inami and Mai froze in place, staring at the man.

  “What? I can’t have an opinion?” he asked.

  Inami smirked lusciously. “You keep feeding me bonbons and you can have all the opinions you want.”

  “That’s a relief,” the manservant said, tugging at his swimsuit uncomfortably, cause I would really like to have back the clothes I was wearing when...”

  “Don’t push it,” Inami warned. “The forces of Bael’Eth are here because this is where the Eagalo Stone is kept and they plan to use it to complete a very large and very terrible weapon.”

  “How could you know about that?”

  “My fiancé told me.”

  “Your what?”

  “Never mind that. All you need to know is that you have nothing to fear while you are with the Seventh Division. I set a very high personal standard and I expect the same out of the professionals that I work with.”

  “I have your daiquiri, ma’am,” the other manservant said as he approached.

  “Ooh, you even put one of those little umbrella thingies in it!” Inami cooed as she took the drink and began sipping it succulently.

  The next day Nariko found herself standing in the middle of a large throng of worshipers. Despite their numbers the crowd was almost completely silent, the air positively alive with energy as they awaited their opportunity to celebrate the Ascension of the Luminarch from his mortal body to the spirit realm.

  Nariko could not help but glance up in awe. The proportions of the cathedral were nothing less than colossal, a testament to the architect’s craft. Five gray spires tens of thousands of meters high with sharp and gothic protrusions, mapped out the five points of a star with a great dome in the center. Through the stained glass windows she could see hints of the exquisite interior, covered with finely painted murals, the marble framed with pure gold and platinum, which winked invitingly when the morning light caught it.

  To the east, nestled between rolling green hills, lay the mausoleum of the faithful, a mile-wide cemetery of marble and silver, which held the entrance to the catacombs beneath. To the south Nariko could see Kall’s Temple of Sanctity, its glass towers glimmering in the morning light, where the Brides of the Luminarch lived and trained. Nariko’s keenly trained mind noted the position of each of these warrior shrine-maidens as they stood in their simple ceremonial armor at the gates and doors, and also identified several of them hidden amongst the crowd. Far to the north, amidst several rocky outcroppings, Nariko could make out the edges of the barrier dome that protected this entire area.

  Getting planet side had been remarkably easy. The Onikano simply entered orbit around the equator, emitting no IFF signature at all. Rather than attacking, both the Confederates and traitors simply assumed that the Onikano was some kind of diversion or trap laid by the other side and refused to engage her.

  Nariko adjusted the simple white robes she was dressed in, making sure to keep the lump of her weapons concealed. The augers used to scan the crowds were newer models that only looked for metal, so getting past them had been relatively easy. Over her left shoulder Nariko caught a glimpse of Sakurako, her silver hair hidden beneath an unflattering black wig. Deeper in the crowd Nariko could make out most of Aka and Kuroi squads. Sorano and Taka had been sent to scale up a rocky hill to the east and set up a fire point. Sorano had built another one of her impractical heavy weapons and had bugged Inami enough that she’d finally given her permission to try it out.

  “Sorano, what’s your status,” Nariko whispered into the communicator hidden under her cowl.

  “Sparrow, here. We need to dig down three more inches to hit rock. Gimme a few more minutes,” Sorano responded.

  How can I give you minutes when Inami still hasn’t given us a countdown?

  Nariko clicked the comm twice to indicate that she understood.

  “Taka, what’s your status,” Nariko asked.

  “Sparrow, here, I’m a little bored, to be honest,” Taka shot back.

  “This is getting confusing,” Sakurako interjected. “I don’t think they should use the codename Sparrow when my codename is already Sparrow.”

  “Why are you all using the same codename?” Nariko asked.

  “You gave them to us,”

  “No, I said I didn’t care,” Nariko clarified.

  “Well, I called dibs so you guys will have to change your codename,” Sorano insisted.

  “You can’t call dibs on a codename!” Taka shot back.

  “I just did, Sparrow out!”

  Nariko sighed and muted her communicator for a moment. She noticed an old man standing next to her; his head bowed silently, his lips moving slightly. He had a simplicity to him that she found immediately engaging. He didn’t need to see the Silver Throne on Holy Terra and kneel before the Luminarch’s coffin. He didn’t need to see the scattered remaining holo-vid fragments from when He lived. All this man wanted was to come out on Ascension Day and give thanks for his freedom.

  Nariko looked around and saw others praying as well. It had been a long time since Nariko had attended a high-day sermon. In a way it felt refreshing, like breathing clean air after months of pollution. The people around her were simple people, but their love and faith were truly admirable.

  The old man finished his prayer and stood taller than he had before. His countenance brightened and his heart seemed to be lighter.

  The Luminarch just responded to his prayer.

  Nariko looked around and saw others commune as well. Deep inside her heart Nariko felt a longing to join them. More than anything, she wished to have what they had.

  How long has it been since I even tried to pray?

  Since she stood head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, Nariko could see over them. Through the southern gateway, her eyes fell upon the sacred altar at the heart of the Cathedral where an enormous statue of the Luminarch stood, carved expertly in a beautiful white marble. Water and light poured down from its hands into the fountain around its feet. At the edges of the fountain, one by one, each person knelt before the Luminarch and placed their hands on the smooth oathstone affixed to a pedestal of purest crystal.

  Without thinking, Nariko abandoned her position and began working her way through the crowd, parting the throng with her lead hand. Sakurako asked her what she was doing, but Nariko didn’t even hear her. All she could think about was kneeling before the Luminarch once more. As she worked toward the edges of the archway, so that she could enter into the Cathedral, she felt a peace growing inside of her, a small calm within the storm of her heart, tranquil and steady.

  This feeling...is it hope?

  As she reached the gateway to the sanctum, Nariko felt a flood of pain and her lead hand burst into flame. With a yelp, she pulled it back and smothered the fire in the folds of her robes. Many of those nearby stepped back in confusion. One man even offered Nariko some water, but she refused. The pain was nearly unbearable and Nariko had to grit her teeth to keep from screaming. After a few moments Nariko regained control of her body and slowly peeled back some of the robe to reveal the skin of her trembling hand, already charred and blistering.

  Nariko looked up at the stones that made up the archway. The stone was carved with hundreds of litanies and prayers. Largest of all sat before her, written in the high-tongue of old. It said: “No demon may enter this holy place.”


  Nariko could only stand by and watch as the crowd pushed past her, entering the Cathedral to worship their Luminarch. She could feel the seal of Drak’Nal burning on her collarbone. A shadow fell over her heart once again and she felt anger begin to burn deeply within her.

  Nearly a mile beneath the Cathedral, at the heart of the underground labyrinth that lay there, four figures, dressed so completely in black that only their eyes and mouths were exposed, squatted in a small shaft as the lead figure attempted to disable a sentry spirit.

  Mai held a small cable in her mouth as she chanted the litany from memory, attempting to create a sensory loop in the spirit’s processor that would allow them to pass. Michi took out her water pouch, only to find it empty. They were six hours behind schedule.

  “You know,” Michi commented, “You’d think that someone would be smart enough to design a ventilation system that people can’t sneak through. I don’t know about you guys, but this is, like, the fifth place I’ve snuck into over the years by going through the air ducts.”

  Mai took out the cable from her lips and began inserting it into the new leads she had installed.

  “Actually,” Mai explained, “to maintain sufficient airflow for the occupants, a ventilation system requires more and more air pressure as the size of the system increases. Beyond a certain point, it’s not possible to pressurize the airflow enough without also increasing the size of the vent shafts. So any sealed structure beyond the size of, let’s say, a small warehouse is going to have vents this size.”

  “It was a rhetorical question, you know,” Michi shot back.

  Mai took her hands off the device and spoke an apology to the spirit of the machine. Holding her breath, she placed her gloved hand on the next section in front of them and gently pressed downwards. When no klaxons sounded, they all breathed in relief and began crawling forward again. In another fifteen meters they would reach another tumbler and have to start the process all over again.

  Keiko ran her roller along the wall of the duct as they crawled forward and its runes changed color as it reached its predetermined measurement.

  Keiko held her hand up silently, signaling that they had reached their destination as she got into a kneeling position and activated the silver gauntlets that she wore on her hands and forearms. Hair-thin lines of energy began tracing their way over their surface and Keiko gently touched the tips of the claw-like fingers into the surface of the floor.

  The floor gave away as she pressed her fingers into it, the material simply falling apart into grains of sand. Pushing down, her fingers struck something harder and her talons entered it far more slowly. The holes forming around each finger merged together and she began tracing out an oval beneath them, the sandy remains falling quietly away down into the darkness.

  Motioning for silence, Mai positioned a small sensor over the hole, which gave her a fish-eye view of the vault below them. An endless tangle of cables and wires, collecting in the center of the vault like an insect’s nest. The thing at its center was barely recognizable as a human anymore, just a few lumps of necrotic flesh, sustained by ancient and arcane machinery. This was the living core of the fortress. Mai made hand signals, indicating that she found seismic, auditory, and motion detectors.

  Michi switched Hachikou to sleep mode and pulled out three coin-shaped disks of metal. When she tapped the sigils on their backs, they uncurled themselves stretching out their fine metal legs and began crawling silently along the floor toward the hole. The robots crawled down through the hole and over the ceiling of the vault. Without making a sound, one of them attached a strand of nearly invisible thread to the ceiling and began descending like a spider. The other two scuttled over to two large cables on the wall opposite the vault door and began quietly cutting through them with their small pincers.

  Intent on guiding the robots with her controller, it took Michi a moment to notice the small ruffling sounds coming from alongside of her. Michi looked up and was horrified to see that Ami was noisily ruffling though a black handbag for something.

  A small metal cylinder of lipstick fell out of Ami’s purse and began rolling along the floor noisily toward the hole. Michi reached out to snatch it, but missed and knocked it spinning out of control toward the hole. As it dropped down into the core, everyone held their breath. The cylinder spun lazily through the air, then landed flatly on a gray hunk of flesh, where it bounced then came to a rest.

  Confused that they heard no alarms, Michi looked back down at her controls. The second robot had finished cutting through its cable, blinding the motion auger.

  Everyone shot daggers at Ami with their eyes.

  “Sorry about that,” She apologized.

  Detecting her voice, the auditory sensor came alive and a klaxon started up alerting the rest of the fortress. Small vents opened up and the vault became flooded with a noxious yellow gas.

  “Ami, you idiot,” Mai yelled as she pulled out her rebreather and positioned it over her face.

  “I’m Sorry!” Ami yelled, even louder, slamming her hands against the floor.

  The four lowered themselves down into the vault and got to work, cutting cables and connections to the core, isolating it from the rest of the fortress. Moments later, the vault door opened and two security officers were hit by concussion blasts, which knocked them back to the floor, unconscious, but otherwise unharmed.

  Keiko searched for the right cable and yanked it out of the quivering gray flesh, then inserted it into the port of her data slate. It came alive with unreadable sigils and patterns and then let out a painful, shrill noise. The screen went black and a fine mist of smoke puffed out of the seams from the ruined memory crystals inside.

  “The attack barrier is still active,” she reported as she threw the ruined data slate to the floor.

  “I’m on it,” Michi yelled as she pulled out a glass syringe and rammed it into what had once long ago been a spinal cord.

  Three more officers appeared at the door, letting off a wild volley of laser fire that singed the walls before being thrown back by another concussion blast from Ami’s rifle.

  “Chusa, the recoil of this gun is hurting my arm,” Ami complained.

  “Deal with it, Ami,” Keiko ordered as she inserted the bronze cable into another data slate. This time the screen came alive with tactical data, showing the layout of the entire valley range and the enemy forces that were already approaching.

  “We’re way behind schedule,” Keiko said, shaking her head. “The traitors have already broken through the confederate line north of the Cathedral. It looks like they are positioning their artillery to bring down the barrier themselves.” Keiko reported. “I count two battalions and several hundred suds just over the north ridge.”

  “Suds?” Mai asked.

  “You know, răcoris, cultists, fanatics,” Keiko clarified as she entered orders into the data slate.

  Outside the vault, voices could be heard as more men gathered. A pair of hands flashed briefly into view as they threw grenades into the room. Irritated, Mai ran over and picked up the grenades.

  “Why would you call them suds?” Mai asked curiously as she threw the concussion grenades back out into the corridor. The men screamed and there was a bang of energy and then silence.

  “You know, cause they’re so brainwashed that they have suds coming out of their ears,” Keiko explained as she pulled out another cable and inserted it into her data slate.

  “Withdraw the barrier so that it protects only the Cathedral itself,” Mai ordered. “That will make it harder to crack and encourage the cultists to go down into the catacombs.”

  Two more officers poked their weapons around the doorframe and began firing wildly and received for their cleverness a concussion blast from Ami that knocked the weapons out of their hands.

  “But, aren’t we cultists, too?” Ami asked as she reloaded her rifle.

  Keiko finished entering the commands and Michi cut the final cable. The air became ionized and they could hear
the faint drone as the barrier powered down.

  “We’re not cultists,” Keiko explained. “We’re heretics. Cultists go to meetings.”

  Outside at the Cathedral, the crowd began to panic when they realized that the barrier was going down. True to their training, the Brides of the Luminarch took charge, instructing the crowds to move into the Cathedral itself.

  “Red sparrow to blue sparrow,” Sorano reported. “The barrier is down.”

  “Yes, I can see that red sparrow,” Nariko grunted as she pushed her way through the throngs of people fleeing toward the gates. She was having trouble keeping her anger in check.

  Who decided I was blue sparrow?

  “Purple sparrow to blue sparrow,” Taka reported. “I can see a whole lot of suds coming over the north ridge and they look hungrier than usual.”

  “We’ve just got to get everyone inside the Cathedral then we help the shrine maidens guard the entrance to the Temple of Sanctity,” Nariko grunted as she picked up a screaming child with her good hand.

  “This is brown sparrow, I can sense confederate reserves coming up from the south. We only need to control the situation for a few minutes,” Sakurako reported.

  A lot can go wrong in a few minutes.

  “This is purple sparrow to blue sparrow, could you tell brown sparrow that it is really creepy when she uses her witch powers like that?” Taka chuckled.

  “Oh yeah, well at least a brown sparrow is a real thing,” Sakurako retorted. “There is no such thing as a purple sparrow.”

  “Purple sparrow to brown sparrow, maybe not on this world, but on some alien world there could be!”

  “Brown sparrow to purple sparrow, if it’s an alien then it’s not really a sparrow, it’s just something that you named a sparrow,” Sakurako corrected.