But if one meant that a single being—one entity, one intelligence—that had directed the enemy attack during the Shattering had now returned, centuries later, to resume his campaign on a galactic scale…well, Falcon wasn’t quite as sure about that. Maybe it was true, and maybe these hostile races were acting of their own volition.
And Hawk’s fervor could, in all honesty, just as easily be ascribed to his desperate seeking of redemption because of the betrayal perpetrated by his earlier self. That could cause him to blow things out of proportion in his own mind.
Falcon groaned audibly. He hated sifting through motives and possibilities this way. It wasn’t what he was good at, what he had been genetically engineered for. That’s what a Condor was for—though probably not the alleged “Condor” they had at their disposal at the moment.
Or an Eagle.
Falcon frowned deeper, thinking about his old friend and commander. Eagle would have cut through all this foolishness instantly—and probably literally, with a few judicious swings of his big, golden sword. Falcon found that, for the first time in a very long time, he missed the guy. Losing both him and the original Hawk at the same time, on the same mission, had been quite a blow. The War of the Shattering had begun soon after, and while he and the remaining Hands had tried to hold on as best they could, they never made the difference they could’ve with Eagle in charge. For whatever reason, the Machine never created another Eagle, and would never respond when asked why not.
Soon after those awful events on Scandana, Raven was killed in action as well. The Machine never replaced her, either. The legions they all had once commanded had been ground down over time, during the war, to nothing. Eventually only a scant few Hands remained, soldiering on individually, acting more like roving cops or security guards than nearly godlike figures commanding fleets of starships and armies of soldiers as they had once been seen by most of the sentient beings of the galaxy. It had all been so very hard to accept, but as the years passed and the Machine grew increasingly recalcitrant and eventually fell silent altogether, there had been no other choice. Thus Falcon, after eventually losing his personal spacecraft in the same incident that had left him a cyborg, had come in recent times to merely wander the backwater worlds, in search of an elusive peace. Peace and quiet.
Leave it to Hawk to come back from the grave a thousand years later and stir things up again.
Falcon inhaled and exhaled slowly, brooding over his many centuries of life and all that he had seen and experienced during that time. From loyal soldier of the Machine to free-roaming vagabond to… what? What was he now? He wasn’t sure.
It had been easy to simply serve the Machine for all those years. He wondered idly if it was still out there somewhere, functioning at all—or if it had merely broken down, as all things do eventually. He didn’t even know where it was, or have any idea of where to look for it. No one did. Possibly the greatest remaining secret in the galaxy was the location of the Machine itself. As far as he knew, no one knew where it was or even who had constructed it. When it had still been active in the affairs of the galaxy, it had operated via agents—agents such as himself, once—and by subspace communications. No one ever traveled to its location and no one had ever produced the slightest reasonable guess as to where that might actually be.
Yes, it had been easy to follow orders as a Hand, and only slightly harder to simply go where the vagaries of fate had taken him, as a nomad. But now—now he knew he had to become something else—a third thing. He couldn’t afford to hide from the universe any longer. Whether he liked it or not, it appeared as if the galaxy needed him again. He knew he couldn’t help but come to its aid. No matter how hard he tried to deny it, that’s who he was.
“Great,” he muttered. “I’ve grown some kind of conscience. Hooray.”
He also understood he could never hope to defeat the opponents he was likely to face alone. Fortunately, he had gained something of an ally in Hawk; clearly the guy meant well and had the best interests of the whole galaxy at heart. Falcon simply worried that the man was so idealistic and so determined to confront the Adversary that he might put himself in a situation more dangerous than necessary. Falcon had lived long enough to understand that pragmatism had its place, too—that focusing only on helping others could get you killed before you could help anyone.
He’s young… he’s a new Hawk… and without full access to the memories of earlier versions to provide a tempering of wisdom, he’s almost like a kid, impetuous and over-eager. I’ve got to talk some sense into him.
Then he thought of Condor.
I don’t know what to make of that guy. He was never a Hand, obviously. And that power he has…. What did he call it? Quantum threads, or something? I’m sure it goes over big when he’s convincing some planet’s population that he’s a Hand, and that they should bow down and obey him or whatever. But just how useful will it be in battle?
And that woman, claiming to be a Shrike? He actually laughed out loud at the thought. Please.
As he laughed, he opened his human eye—he had not, after all, tried to sleep with his eyes open—and saw a square panel in the ceiling, directly over his head, sliding silently open.
He lunged his bulky form hard to the left and tumbled onto the floor, just as a fusillade of silvery blades flashed down from the darkness and into the bed.
Rolling, he came up quick and focused his cyborg eye into the dark square overhead.
Nothing.
Nothing visible via any of the various wavelengths available to him by way of his mechanical eye. It was as if the attack had been launched by a ghost.
Keeping both eyes on the dark opening in anticipation of another attack, he reached for his pistol where he’d left it next to the bed.
It was gone.
How could that have happened? When could someone have—?
No matter. Too late to worry about it now. He reached the other way, grabbing for one of the metal chairs.
This movement saved him. Even as he leaned over to grasp the chair, something hissed just past his neck. A blade, reaching for him from above, he knew. And yet he still could not see anything.
Frustration mounting, he simply hurled the metal chair straight up through the opening.
He was rewarded by a grunt of pain and a crashing sound as something invisible half-fell through the opening, shaking the roof panels around it.
Falcon reached up, felt a human form covered in some kind of cloth, and seized the invisible shape. He dragged it the rest of the way through the opening and down with a thud to the floor.
Now the invisible person was groaning in pain.
Good.
Moving with a catlike quickness that belied his bulky, semi-metal form, Falcon grabbed handfuls of…something…and pulled, rending and shredding as quickly as he could, before the person could recover from their fall.
A shower of sparks flew out, some in Falcon’s face, causing him to grimace and release what he was holding.
When the fireworks were over, the big cyborg found himself staring down at a man clad entirely in black. Some parts of the outfit were super-tight, while others were billowy. A black mask covered all of his face. It was some kind of invisibility suit, apparently. Or had been, anyway.
The attacker had regained his senses by now and scrambled backwards. Falcon was already lunging for him, but the man in black managed to roll out of the way and was up, in a low crouch, a bladed weapon of medium length gripped in his right hand and ready.
Falcon jerked backward as the blade slashed out. It still almost got him. The guy was fast, that was obvious. Invisible or not, he was a dangerous opponent.
The blade sliced out again, and now Falcon realized he already had backed himself against the wall of the tiny room. With no other option he tried to deflect the next slash with his arm, and was relieved when the blade struck metal and not flesh.
Before the attacker could move again Falcon rushed forward, charging his bulky form at the man in
black.
The distance between them was too small for the assassin to have the time to dodge. Falcon crashed into him with tremendous force and drove the man down hard into the floor.
The cyborg’s leather-gloved fist smashed down hard once, twice, both times connecting with the black-masked face. The assassin lost his grip on his long dagger and it clattered to the floor behind him.
But then somehow the assassin freed himself, wrenching his body out from under his opponent’s by way of an acrobatic move the likes of which Falcon hadn’t seen before. Back up on his feet well ahead of Falcon, the man in black produced a short knife from somewhere in his suit and drove it down into the human flesh portion of his enemy’s shoulder.
Falcon roared in pain. In one smooth action he drew the blade out with his right hand while punching the assassin hard in the face with the other. Then he stumbled back a step as a strange sensation washed over him. The assassin waited now, crouching, watching, ready.
Poison, Falcon knew instantly. The blade was poisoned.
He touched a sensor on his right hip and his red and blue uniform jabbed needles into his thigh, testing his blood and quickly attempting to formulate and inject the proper antidote.
But in the seconds this required to take effect, the assassin—apparently sensing what was happening—seized the opportunity and struck out again. He grasped one bent leg of the chair Falcon had first thrown at him in the ceiling and swung it low and hard, catching his still-disoriented opponent across the knees.
Normally the blow wouldn’t have affected the big man overmuch, but in his temporarily weakened state he felt his knees buckle and he went down.
The assassin sensed victory at hand and turned around quickly, locating the long dagger he had dropped moments earlier. He snatched it up and whirled back to face his cyborg opponent, prepared to deal death.
Falcon met him in mid-turn with the short blade he’d pulled from his shoulder. He drove it deep under the man’s chin. The poison that still coated it was not a factor; the assassin instantly fell dead at Falcon’s feet.
Just then the door slid open and Hawk rushed in, pistol at the ready.
Falcon gave him a weary look.
“Nice of you to show up,” he said, before collapsing.
5: Raven
A few minutes earlier, Raven had been about to make her move when Condor strode into the Ring command center and finally noticed her lying on the floor, bound from neck to toe. He stood there, just looking at her, puzzled, his mouth opening and closing, as she stared up at him and met his gaze evenly.
Shrike looked up from one of the control stations and took notice of him and what he was doing. She crossed the room to meet him halfway.
“Who—?” he began, indicating the bound woman. Then he blinked, looked closer at her dark eyes and slender features, and said, “She looks familiar somehow.” He gasped. “Is that a Raven?”
Shrike nodded. “Indeed it is.”
“What is a Raven doing here?” He frowned. “I didn’t think there were any more Ravens, for that matter.”
“You brought a Hawk here, and you’re asking that?”
From her spot on the floor, Raven started. A Hawk? Here? How could that be?
“Okay, then,” Condor replied, looking from Raven to Shrike nervously. “Why is she tied up like that?”
“Because she’s a Raven, obviously,” Shrike said, regarding Condor as if he were a child or an idiot, or both. In a softer tone she added, “And because you and I are not exactly what we profess to be. And because she’s nuts and is driven by her programming to kill anyone who is masquerading as a Hand. Therefore she tried to kill me—wants to kill us both, I’m sure, seeing as how neither of us is a genuine, Machine-created Hand.”
“Does she not understand that her own model was discontinued a long, long time ago? That, technically, she should want to kill herself just as much as she wants to see us dead?”
“I’ve tried to explain that to her a couple of times already, yes,” Shrike answered. “She doesn’t want to listen to me. Maybe she doesn’t believe me. She surely isn’t saying anything.”
Condor absorbed this information and his frown only deepened.
“I see,” he muttered, clearly not happy. “I don’t think this is going to go over well with our two new friends,” he mused.
Shrike suppressed a laugh. “You may not have to worry about them for much longer.”
Condor turned to her to ask what she meant by that—and suddenly alarms blared throughout the command center.
Raven had absorbed everything the two of them had just said and was parsing her way through it, not quite sure what she should believe now, when the alarms shrieked. Her next several moves were already planned out and ready, but with the situation suddenly changing—Condor and Shrike were moving away from her, appearing very concerned about something—she decided to wait a little longer and see what developed.
“Who do you suppose they are?” Shrike was asking as a holographic display shimmered into existence at the center of the big room.
Condor studied the images of a dozen or so spacecraft streaking through the void. The display revealed that they had emerged from hyperspace—dropped out of the Above, most likely—just beyond the orbit of the Ring, and were closing on it fast. And most of the ships themselves were of a design that he found increasingly familiar.
“The Adversary,” he breathed. “Again.”
Shrike turned to offer him a puzzled look. “What are you talking about?”
He pointed a gloved finger at the cluster of streaking vessels. “Those are Skrazzi ships. The insectoid guys we’ve fought a time or two before.”
Shrike nodded. “Okay—yes. I recognize them now.”
“They were once a main player in the armies of the Adversary. They’re the ones who blew up my ship and made us come here prematurely. They’re getting more active everywhere, it seems. Now they’re even here.”
“Fine,” Shrike acknowledged. “But what does that have to do with the Adversary? That was a thousand years ago or more.”
“They’re not all Skrazzi,” Condor pointed out. He indicated three larger ships near the rear of the formation. “What do you make of those?”
Shrike squinted at them and shook her head. “I’ve never seen that design before.” She touched a few squares on the control panel in front of her. “Nothing in the records, either.”
“You’d have to search back farther, to the time of the Shattering. They haven’t been active in more than a millennium.”
“Who are they, then?”
The air in the command center grew colder, as if a cool breeze had blown through.
Condor swallowed hard.
“The Phaedron.”
Shrike blanched.
The air grew colder.
“That’s ridiculous,” the blonde woman said—but her voice lacked its customary force. She could very obviously feel that something was wrong. “I always thought they were just a legend—a myth. Something to frighten children with.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “A race of beings with some sort of psychic powers? Powers that manifest in part as waves of cold?” She scoffed, but there was no questioning that the room was much cooler now than it had been a few moments earlier. Meanwhile the ships in the holo display drew closer to the Ring.
“I’m beginning to think Hawk was right,” Condor said. “Why else would the Phaedron be active again? Why would they be working with the Skrazzi again?” He shook his head, clearly distressed. “It must be true. The Adversary has returned.”
From where she lay on the floor, Raven’s eyes widened as she listened to their conversation. Mention of a Hawk—and of the old Adversary—had her full attention. Increasingly she was coming to believe she had been awakened for a very specific purpose. Too many strange things were happening now for it to be otherwise.
The air was downright chilly in the command center now.
“Well, Adversary or not, these
guys probably don’t know what they’re going up against,” Condor growled. “If they think they’re scary, wait till they see what I can do.”
Condor moved to a nearby control station and seated himself in a low swivel chair. A smaller holographic display instantly formed all around him. Reaching out with both hands, he insinuated himself into the imagery and brought the weapons systems on line.
Seconds passed, with both Raven and Shrike looking on from their very different vantage points as Condor moved his arms and hands like a symphony conductor, manipulating various routines and subroutines. Meanwhile, on the main display, the enemy ships drew closer—now they were almost to the Ring itself.
Shrike looked as if she were about to ask what he was doing, when the sunlight shining in through the building’s transparent walls grew much brighter.
“Here we go,” Condor said to himself, leaning forward and continuing to move his hands in precise gestures.
The sunlight pulsed brighter and dimmer, over and over, for nearly a minute. Then it flared very bright and remained that way for several more seconds.
Raven managed to roll over and raise her head just enough to see the full holographic image that filled the center of the room. The view it displayed had pulled back, apparently coming now from some satellite stationed far out beyond the Ring’s orbit, so that much of the Ring was visible—along with the star at its center. As Raven looked on in astonishment, that star flared, spewing out what had to be a gargantuan column of blazing solar plasma.
“Activating the electromagnetic fields,” Condor noted as he “conducted” the weapon. “Shaping the beam now.”
The plasma flowing out of the sun tightened and refined itself into a singular column of blinding light—a coherent beam many hundreds or even thousands of kilometers in diameter. The beam stabbed out, lightning-like, for only the briefest of instants, beyond the Ring and into the space beyond. Then it faded and vanished—though the afterimage remained for several seconds afterward on everyone’s eyes who looked on, despite the holo display’s automatic filtering.
Hawk: Hand of the Machine (Shattered Galaxy Book 1) Page 25
