“We’ll make it…” she promised as she laid her head on his shoulder. Then she was no longer able to ignore the pain in her arm and fell unconscious.
• • •
Sage gasped for air as if she had been plunged underwater. Her eyes sprung open, but all she could see was a blur of white and silver blobs spinning all around her. The smell of the blood draining out of her arm was so tangible that she could taste it.
She groped desperately with her natural hand, expecting to find a mangled stump of an arm, and then let out a sigh of release when it fell upon the smooth metal of her synthetic limb.
Just a dream, she thought, just a dream. Only it wasn’t. It was a memory from before she was an Executor, one she’d spent years burying deeply in the bowels of her mind. It was that day that convinced her to become an Executor in the first place. She’d hoped that by doing so she’d never fail anyone she loved in the face of adversity again, and that she might one day redeem him in the eyes of the Spirit for what he did. So that he might one day join its essence along with the fallen faithful.
She managed to swing her feet off the edge of a hovering bed, pulling out needles she didn’t realize were plugged in all around her body. The movement caused a sudden pain to shoot up the back of her neck. She lurched and fell forward, her synthetic arm keeping her nose from slamming onto the floor.
Images from her past flashed through her mind, each memory aggravating old wounds. She began drawing long, calming breaths. As she did, she placed the thumb and forefinger of her human hand over her temples to try and force out the rampant thoughts.
Once it started to subside a bit, she used the bed to pull herself to her feet. Her legs were still woozy from being asleep for who knows how long.
Where in the name of the Ancients am I? she wondered.
She began to shuffle along, using the hovering bed as a crutch to bear most of her weight. Her vision was returning and the blur of shapes were beginning to come together. White, plate-metal walls surrounded her, along with HOLO-Screens, IV drips, and countless other medical apparatuses. It was definitely a lab, but not the one on Titan where she last remembered being.
There was a strip of lighting outside of an opening and she headed toward it, the bed sliding alongside her.
“You are still recovering, Executor Volus,” a strangely robotic, feminine voice echoed from somewhere in the ceiling. “Please return to the monitoring station.”
She ignored it. She dragged her legs forward, feeling the strength augment in them with every step. By the time she reached the exit she was able to step away from the bed and out into a corridor. She still needed the wall for support, but at least she could walk.
Everything around her looked familiar, though she couldn’t place why. The sleek, silvery walls and ceiling reminded her of a place she’d been, and the mechanical systems hummed a recognizable melody. She attempted to reach into her suddenly rampant stream of memories and grasp the answer, but it was difficult enough to keep them from showing her Caleb’s death over and over again.
She arrived at a horizontal viewport and paused there to rest. All of the walking had only made her fainter. Placing her hands along the top of the burnished sill, she leaned her sweating forehead against the glass. She took a few deep breaths and looked out through it, having to blink a few times to make sure that what she saw wasn’t just a figment of her imagination.
Wherever she was, she was on a ship floating through space. She expected to see a field of stars like usual, but they only dotted the edges of her view. In the center was a great patch of darkness. It wasn’t a piece of rock. She could make out the lines of plated metal illuminated by faintly glowing, twin ion-engines.
Is that a ship? It’s huge. She leaned in to get a closer look and noticed a shimmering, golden solar-sail reeled in over its blocky bow. A Solar-Ark? She’d never seen one outside of a hologram before. Nobody had. They moved too fast. This one, however, was moving at the same speed as the ship she was on.
She wiped the sweat off of her forehead and squeezed her eyelids shut. Then she opened them again to make sure, one last time, that it was real. This time she noticed her own pale reflection framing the ship and yelped. Her red hair was trimmed and messy, like a boy’s, and wrapped around it was a bandage. It was bloody on the back.
She reached up, her hand trembling, and wove her fingers through the short strands of hair and under the cloth. Her index finger grazed a line of smooth, lumpy skin, and as soon as it did a stabbing pain seized her entire head. Her mouth opened to howl as she crumbled to her knees, but nothing came out.
“Cassius, what have you done,” she mouthed. Then, a needle pricked the side of her neck and she tipped over, unconscious again.
CHAPTER TWO—CASSIUS
Shackles
The White Hand was nearing Cassius’s clandestine base on the asteroid Ennomos, and he wasn’t sitting on the command deck watching the stars race by like he usually did. Instead, he was in the medical bay. Since the White Hand’s construction, only one person had ever laid upon its bed, and presently she was fast asleep. He remembered the first time she’d been there, some years ago, when her arm was little more than a bloody stump.
His gaze unfolded over the synthetic limb that he himself had placed there. His fingers danced, replaying the motions that had set all of its circuits in place—all the plates of dark metal and welded seals. He lost himself in the memory, and didn’t realize he grazed her arm until its powerful hand snapped to life and grasped him by the wrist.
The cold, metal fingers squeezed, threatening to snap his bone in two. He didn’t react. He endured the pain, staring into Sage’s waking eyes.
“Where am I?” she asked, her voice raspy.
“You’re safe, Sage,” Cassius responded coolly. “Safely aboard the White Hand.”
When she heard the name of the ship her grip loosened. She blinked a few times before meeting his gaze. “Don’t be alarmed,” he continued. “You woke too early last time. It was dangerous. You still need some time to recover.”
Her eyes suddenly went wide as if a wave of terrible memories had bombarded her. They were green and bright—verdant as the old forests of Earth. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was she saw, but he didn’t have to think hard to imagine. He’d undergone the same operation when he removed his own implant before leaving the Tribune. It was like having the dust cleared off a thousand old books, bringing a library of once faded memories back into focus.
“What have you done to me?” she questioned.
“I’ve set you free.”
“Liar!” she snapped. Her artificial hand squeezed the side of the bed, crushing its metal frame with ease.
Cassius reached out and folded his hand over her artificial one, his fingers sliding beneath her plated joints. “Trust me, Sage,” he said, leaning in close. “No matter what I’ve ever done. No matter who I’ve ever hurt. Know that I would never harm you.”
Sage massaged her temples with her human hand. “Tell that to my head. I’m getting tired of waking up like this.”
“Hopefully this is the last time, my dear,” Cassius replied. He moved to sit at the end of the bed, making sure to keep his hands resting securely on his own lap. He’d seen enough of how her Tribunal Masters treated her. “The symptoms from the extraction will pass soon.”
“What exactly did you do?”
“Do you remember what we discussed on Titan? What you saw there?”
Her face went pale. “I remember everything. Past, present…everything.”
Cassius turned his head and gestured at the long, jagged scar running down the back of his neck. “As I said there, the Executor Implant was latched on to your brain stem as well as your optic nerves. The Tribune had the power to blow your skull to pieces at any time they wanted when it was active, and they are almost impossible to remove without killing the host.”
“Only you found a way.”
“Yes,” he said, proudly, “I had to. Yours
was a bit more of a challenge. The explosion on New Terrene damaged the device’s connection permanently. Not enough for the Tribune to notice after they assumed they had repaired it, but they lack a certain attention to detail when it comes to technology. It is why, afterwards, you were beginning to become susceptible to the parts of yourself you thought were buried too deeply to ever be rediscovered. Now, however, you have been completely reawakened.”
“What if—” Sage paused and focused on him. “I can see his face, Cassius. No matter where I look he’s there. So clear. And not just him. Everyone I’ve ever lost or killed. What if I wanted to stay asleep?”
“Then you are already lost.”
“Am I? What about you? First seizing freighters and now a Solar-Ark? I saw it out there, Cassius. How can this all be for him?”
“You really think this is solely about vengeance? That nobody could ever really turn their back on your beloved Tribune after suffering their lies?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I want to know anymore. But if you ever had to feel what I feel now, then I am truly sorry.”
“Never apologize for clarity!” Cassius growled.
Sage flinched and turned her gaze toward the floor. “I just want to stop hearing the screams.”
“And you will soon. The mind is like a river. Take down a single dam and it will surge through in a torrent, but soon, after enough land has been carved out, a steady stream will return. Calm.”
“Painful.”
Cassius placed a consoling hand on Sage’s slender shoulder, careful not to let his fingers stray too low. “Of course, but we are meant to feel. You are more than a weapon, Sage Volus. I have seen you smile and love and show kindness. You deserve more than turning into me.”
“Do you expect me to turn my back on my vows just because you claim they were the ones looking through my eyes? I only ever saw the screen in your compound.”
“I expect you to open them for yourself.”
Sage sighed and let her head fall back to rest on her pillow. “They were your vows as well, once,” she groaned. “You took the oath on the surface of the Earth—rubbed your bare hands through the dirt of our homeworld as you spoke them.”
“Twice I made the pilgrimage,” he explained. “Once when I was named an Executor. Again as a Tribune. And both times I let my hunger guide my hands. I conquered colonies, tore ships apart piece by piece, and won the first real war humanity has known since Earthfall.”
“I know.” The corners of her lips lifted into a smile for the faintest moment, and then quickly reverted to a straight line. “Caleb wanted to be just like you.”
“I’m glad he wasn’t. I may have won all my dreams on the field of battle, but they weren’t my battles. Victory takes a heavy toll.”
“One worth fighting for,” Sage added. “It wasn’t just him, Cassius. Every person in the Tribune wanted to be like the great Cassius Vale. I used to see your face on the HOLO-Screens in lower New Terrene when I was a child. After every victory they’d praise you as if you embodied the Spirit of the Earth yourself. The Executor who rose from the shadow to take Earth back from the Ceresian Pact and become a Tribune himself. I wanted to be like you, too. You were the only reason I chose to serve when I was nothing but an orphan girl scrapping for a living in the Labyrinth of the Night.” Her brow wrinkled in pain and vexation. “How could you betray us so easily?”
She’s trying to understand, Cassius thought. She never will. He went over to the HOLO-Screen monitoring Sage. He swiped across the screen a few times, making sure there was nothing out of the ordinary in her readings.
“Cassius?” she asked.
He leaned over the console, staring down at the tops of his hands. They were speckled with liver spots, like shreds of dried leaves had rained upon his pale flesh. The years hadn’t been kind.
“Have I ever told you the real story about why I first became an Executor?” he asked.
“No.”
“I was never close with my father,” he began. “I won’t claim to hate him—it’s been far too long for that, but that’s the truth. You see, while I was growing up on Titan, before the Tribune took over, I, too, wanted to be a soldier. I used to read old stories of the era of conflict before my ancestors united Saturn, dreaming about what it would be like to be in battle. Unfortunately my father barely let me step outside our compound. ‘It is dangerous for a Vale out there,’ he’d say. He was a frightened old man, touched by madness.
“I didn’t listen very well. I’d sneak out whenever I got the chance and wander the terraces of Edeoria’s Shafts. I’d hide my identity and pick fights at the bars, have the guards arrest me, and then force them to keep it a secret once they found out who I really was. There was little else I could do. My father was the Gerent of Saturn, ruling over the ringed planet and all of her moons. I was his only heir.
“The position had been passed down through generations of my family—a bloodline that is said to date back to the very first Ancients who fled Earth to settle the Nascent Cell. We were a mostly peaceful people made up of traders and merchants, gaining our wealth by selling water from Saturn’s Rings to fringe settlements and valuable gases from the planet herself to everyone else. Our shipments filled the cargo holds of the Solar-Arks from end to end! Titan was a true jewel of the Circuit.” Cassius walked back to Sage’s bed and leaned against the end of it, half sitting.
“I was young when the Tribune entered a war with the Ceresians. Jupiter was the first to face the repercussions. All of her moons, many of them once proud, sovereign settlements, were forced to choose sides. It became a constant battleground. The heart of the early Reclaimer Wars.”
“I know the history, Cassius,” Sage groaned. “I grew up under the Tribune.”
“Of course, but most people forget that Saturn did not choose a side in the war. Not until the Tribune set their sights on us. We were in a perfect location to safely prepare an offensive against the growing Ceresian opposition, and we guarded a surplus of vital gases needed to power engines that the Circuit’s neutral shipments couldn’t provide fast enough. My father initially followed the path of the Keepers, declaring his neutrality. But do you think that stopped the Tribune? No. We were all faithless to them, whether we pursued robotics like the Ceresians or not.
“They arrived soon after, and not with emissaries or diplomats. No, I remember that day like it was yesterday. Without my implant now at least.” Cassius closed his eyes. “The stormy skies of Titan went black with shadows as the entire Tribunal fleet descended over us. They didn’t bother to transmit a request for landing until they were already through the atmosphere. I was standing on the terrace outside my father’s quarters, watching ship after ship pierce the clouds. Up to that point in my sheltered life it was the most impressive, terrifying thing I’d ever experienced.
“They came uninvited and in force! I begged my father to stand against them. ‘The Vale’s have always ruled Saturn,’ I told him. ‘They have no right to demand anything from us.’ All he did was stare at the sky and mumble under his breath like a loon. He didn’t even lift a finger to oppose it. Quite a contrast to the seemingly endless, disciplined forces of the New Earth Tribunal flooding into Edeoria.”
“You said you were mostly traders and merchants,” Sage said. “Did you even have an armed fleet? Artillery? What did you expect him to do?”
“To fight with what little we had! Or at least negotiate something resembling terms. Anything! Instead the entire history of my family’s rule was wiped away in an instant. I can’t even remember it. Our markets were jammed with temples and Earth Whisperers, our ears filled with promises of the Spirit’s guidance. An entire culture, gone…like words to space.”
“So it was peaceful then?” Sage countered. “They didn’t fire on your people at all.”
“Peaceful, sure,” Cassius replied bitterly. “Not a single shot. To watch as we were subjugated broke my heart. I decided I couldn’t bear the shame o
f it. If my father was willing to surrender all that our ancestors had built for nothing, then what was the point of me staying? I could either remain and become the future ‘Gerent’ of Saturn in title only, or find my place amongst the Tribune as the soldier I’d always dreamed of being. It was an easy choice for my angry, impetuous young self. I didn’t even bother to say goodbye. I hid my identity, for good this time, and smuggled myself onto a warship bound for Jupiter, vowing that I would never be weak again.”
“Jupiter?” she asked, surprised. “You fought there?”
“I grew up there.” Cassius grinned. “By the time the Battle of Ganymede ended, everyone knew the bastard child from Titan. The Hand in charge of the battle saw my potential and had me trained as an Executor. He was a young, voracious man as well, who soon was named a Tribune when his master fell in a convenient ambush over Europa. Benjar Vakari.
“And the rest is history,” Cassius said. “I wasn’t truly a Vale again until Benjar and the rest of the Tribunal Council required a member hailing from Saturn in order to prevent any discord there and added a fourth seat. Who better to serve than a war hero who just so happened to be the long-lost Vale descendent?”
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Because I didn’t care who I served. Ceresian Pact, New Earth Tribune—it was all the same to me minus the banners. I just chose the side of the first faction at war that arrived at my doorstep. All I wanted was to prove that I was worth more than my gutless father, yet all I allowed myself to become was a tool. Like you, it was partially the Executor Implant keeping me focused, making me care for nothing except for fighting, but I don’t blame it. Not having it wouldn’t have changed a single thing I did until the war was long over.
“My father’s lack of action was what truly left me numb. I was so consumed by my shame that I didn’t stop until I became the greatest weapon the Circuit had ever known. And then, after the battle of Lutetia, when I forced the Ceresians to surrender and the armistice was signed, I was nothing again—a figurehead to be used while we slowly bled out what little remained of our enemies. I realized I could have remained on Titan all those years before with my father and earned the same fate.”
Progeny of Vale Page 2
