Reckoning: The Ixan Prophecies Trilogy Book 3

by Scott Bartlett

  Do I actually believe that? Or am I trying to convince myself?

  The door leading into the execution chamber opened, and a pair of armed guards escorted a handcuffed Warren Husher inside. Behind them trailed a technician in a white coat, carrying a gleaming metal case, which she set on an empty shelf and opened.

  For their part, the guards busied themselves with removing Warren’s handcuffs and settling him into the chair, which they strapped him to. A remote control dangling from the chair’s side lowered it, until Warren lay perfectly horizontal.

  Nanite injection was said to be the most humane method of executing someone ever invented. Tens of thousands of microscopic robots swarmed throughout your body, coating your vital organs. Then, at a command, they burrowed down—into your stomach, into your heart, into your brain. Death in an instant.

  But could any method of killing truly be called humane? Other than the fact of the killing itself, there was no way to know how it actually felt to die from a legion of tiny robots shredding your organs. Not until it happened to you, and you couldn’t exactly describe the experience afterward.

  Caine took Husher’s hand as the needle sunk into Warren’s arm and the technician depressed the plunger. A mere ten seconds later, the technician produced a tablet, which she tapped twice.

  Warren Husher’s entire body surged upward against the restraints—once. Then he fell still, and Husher’s father was no more.

  Chapter 10

  Virophage

  Since Wateridge and the Commonwealth were dragging their heels on actually doing anything to oppose the Ixa, Captain Keyes convened a war meeting without them.

  Husher could piece together his strategy easily enough based only on those present.

  Several UHF captains, mostly old friends of Keyes, sat around the semicircular table, which doubled as a strategic planning console. If they agreed to what Keyes proposed today, that would grant him additional leverage over the Commonwealth, making them more likely to approve the mission. Conveniently, the assembled captains also represented a sizable battle group.

  Korbyn was here, too, who’d recently been promoted to Flockhead. Since the Winger fleet needed no approval from the Commonwealth to act, Keyes only had to convince the cocky alien.

  Also present were Fesky, Caine, Arsenyev, and Piper.

  Keyes opened by gesturing toward the Tumbran. “We’ll begin with some good news, rare enough these days. What Piper’s about to share with you will form the basis of our discussion.”

  Piper inclined his head, gray chin sack drooping low. “I have developed a cure for the virophage infecting the Gok. Tort, the Gok who played a significant role in liberating Captain Keyes, has already been cured.”

  “Yes,” Husher said, rapping his fists on the tabletop in celebration. Everyone turned toward him, but he didn’t care. A victory like this was just what he needed to lift the gloom that had plagued him since his father’s execution, even if it only gave him a moment’s relief. “See? I knew you could do it, Piper.”

  After a brief moment of silence, Piper said, “You thought I could ‘do it’ because I am a Tumbran.”

  “So…what’s wrong with that? Tumbra are smart.”

  “In fact, there are some very stupid members of my species I can introduce you to.”

  “Wait.” Husher withdrew his hands from the table. “Are you honestly upset because I implied all Tumbra are intelligent? It was a compliment.”

  “Actually, no. It wasn’t. It would be a compliment if your confidence in my ability to find a cure for the virophage was grounded in a respect for my proficiency. But it’s not a compliment if your confidence stems from a belief that all Tumbra are proficient. There is a difference.”

  Breathing deeply, Husher felt his cheeks flush at the stern lesson he was receiving in front of all these officers. The UHF captains mostly averted their eyes from the exchange, looking embarrassed, but the Wingers observed it openly.

  “You’re right, Piper,” Husher said at last. “I apologize.”

  Dipping his chin sack once more, Piper said, “I hope you truly have learned this lesson. And I hope the rest of you have learned it by proxy. You will need to use the exact same thinking in your approach to the Gok. The virophage, combined with decades of UHF propaganda and a lack of interaction with Gok have led you to view them as monsters. It isn’t that simple. No species can accurately be summed up by a single descriptor.”

  “I agree,” Keyes said as he skimmed through a list of the strategic console’s assets. Selecting one, he sent an expanded view of it to the table’s center with a flicking gesture. “This is the entire Bastion Sector, displayed as though formed from neighboring star systems instead of ones scattered throughout the galaxy and linked only by their darkgates. This representation is informed only by our most recent sensor data, which aren’t very recent at all. The UHF has largely abandoned the sector, and the Gok took out all our sensor platforms there. It’s likely they’ve done more damage than is shown.”

  “What do you propose, Keyes?” Korbyn said.

  “I think we should push into the sector and distribute the virophage cure as best we can. Once cured, the Gok will be free of Ixan influence and able to make up their own minds about who they want to support.”

  “What if they won’t accept the cure?” Vaghn said, who captained the UHS Firedrake, Husher’s old command. “We can’t very well lob it at them in a missile.”

  “True,” Keyes said. “We can only administer the cure on a voluntary basis. Which is why we’ll need a sizable force with us, in case the Gok turn on us instead. Flockhead Korbyn, I would ask for your aid.”

  “I can spare a single Roostship battle group,” Korbyn answered immediately, as though he’d anticipated Keyes’s request.

  “Are you serious?” Keyes said, his calm demeanor suddenly vanished. Now he leaned forward, teeth gritted, nostrils flaring. “Almost your entire fleet is hanging around Martian orbit, doing nothing! We have a chance to do something, here, Korbyn. The Ixa will feel it if they lose the support of the Gok.”

  “You are wrong, Captain,” Korbyn said, clacking his beak once. “My Roostships are helping to protect the planet where the last Fin is recovering after nearly dying. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m reluctant to let even a single battle group leave its post. I suggest you accept my offer quickly, before I change my mind.”

  Keyes gripped the table’s edge, fixing the Winger with his famous stare. It was one of the few times Husher had ever seen someone withstand that look without eventually wilting.

  It was especially impressive, given how cold and harsh Keyes’s stare had become.

  “Very well,” Keyes said at last, still holding Korbyn’s gaze. “I accept.”

  Chapter 11

  Something Hateful

  The Providence was on its way to the Larkspur System, and Husher was sitting in the crew’s mess nursing a mug of lukewarm coffee.

  Even though, unlike other UHF captains, Keyes allowed wardroom access to commissioned officers from every military branch, Husher still spent a lot of time in the crew’s mess. His command style didn’t involve holding himself above those under him. It involved seeking to understand them instead—their desires, their fears. And that meant spending time with them, whenever possible.

  Admittedly, this morning he was doing a poor job of it. Too lost in the particular set of troubled thoughts this war had granted him today.

  Prominent among them stood the fresh memory of watching the Firedrake leave Mars orbit ahead of Keyes’s supercarrier. Granting the crew access to visual sensors was something else the captain did which wasn’t uniform across the fleet.

  Some captains preferred to let the crew forget about the void that surrounded them. Not Keyes. He didn’t believe in concealing any part of reality from his crew, unless strictly necessary.

  As such, Husher had watched the corvette until it disappeared from normal view, darting ahead to scout the way. The Firedrake had been his,
and they’d taken her away from him.

  He missed her, and he missed her crew. Although he’d come to think of the Providence as home, the sight of the corvette filled him with nostalgia, and it made him remember the decision that had gotten it taken away from him.

  How far had he come, really, since refusing to follow the order to fire on those Winger pirates? He knew that uniting with Keyes had resulted in some major victories, and that humanity’s survival had hinged on at least a couple of them.

  But now, he feared Keyes had lost his way. Not to mention the fact that, judging by the vids from the fall of the Coreopsis System, the Ixan fleet was massive. Even if Keyes managed to recruit every Gok alive, the Ixa would still have the numbers to crush all species that opposed them. Husher simply couldn’t see how to get around that.

  To make matters worse, his father’s death had crept into his dreams, the vestiges of which lingered long into each morning. His mounting horror over allowing them to execute Warren Husher was tempered only by the memory of Sera Caine taking his hand while it happened.

  Apparently even a good experience must be paired with something hateful. That was just the way things seemed to go in this war.

  Elevating voices, which he realized he’d been aware of on some level for a while, cut through his thoughts. Like iron filings to a magnet, his eyes were drawn to the corner of the mess, where Wahlburg and a former Bastion Sector insurgent were trading slurs.

  “Ardent worshiper,” the sniper spat.

  “Commonwealth bootlicker,” the new marine recruit shot back, compensating for her smaller stature with a murderous glare that would have had Husher watching her hands, in case they twitched toward the service pistol she wore in a low-slung holster.

  “Hey,” Husher barked, pushing himself from his seat and marching across the mess in the same fluid motion. “What’s this about?”

  Wahlburg didn’t bring up Davies much anymore, but his period of mourning hadn’t ended with a return to his old self. He’d become a more cynical, more easily irritated man, who cracked none of his old sardonic jokes.

  “This Ixan wannabe refuses to respect her marine commander,” Wahlburg said. “Said she heard the marine commander’s crazy.”

  That caused Husher’s own temper to spike, and he struggled to push it back down. He cleared his throat. “What’s your name?” he asked the woman, unable to keep a note of menace from creeping into his voice.

  “Private Yates.”

  “Is Private First Class Wahlburg telling the truth? Did you call Sergeant Caine crazy?”

  “N-no. I only said I heard it. I didn’t call her that myself.”

  “That’s very lucky for you.” Husher shifted his stare to Wahlburg. “Private, if you can’t get along with the new recruits, then stay well away from them. Though I’d prefer you learn to live with them. You will be conducting ops together, after all.”

  Wahlburg snapped off a crisp salute. “Yes, sir!”

  At least his bitterness came attached with a newfound respect for my authority.

  “As for you,” Husher said to Yates, “next time you hear someone defame your commander, I strongly recommend you correct them instead of amplifying their disgusting message. If I hear of you doing otherwise again, discipline will be swift. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” Yates’s salute was sloppier than Wahlburg’s, but it would have to do, for now.

  Husher returned to his now-cold coffee, devoting a few seconds to meeting Yates’s gaze, which had followed him back to his seat. She looked away.

  He’d tried to resolve the dispute in a way that did the least damage to shipboard morale, and that had involved slightly favoring the sniper. If the others saw him coming down any harder on a good soldier like Wahlburg, for something as minor as a scuffle, it would have caused resentment.

  “I don’t envy you,” said a female voice from behind him.

  Turning, Husher saw Corporal Trish Simpson sitting at the next table over. “I wouldn’t either,” he said. Simpson had joined the Providence marines shortly after Senator Bernard’s death, citing a need to stay active if she didn’t want to go crazy. Simpson was pretty quiet, these days, but she was an effective soldier and she followed orders.

  “Us marines bicker at the best of times,” she said, then took a sip of coffee. “Throw aliens and former insurgents into the mix, in an environment where we’re used to ruling the roost, and you have a recipe for some spitey jarheads.”

  “I’m sure we’ll get through.”

  But Husher worried about Private Wahlburg. He was emboldened in this sort of confrontational behavior by the fact that Keyes had failed to discipline him for his inappropriate conduct on the Vermillion Shipyards. He knew he could get away with it, because all Keyes seemed to care about anymore was obliterating his enemies by any means necessary.

  Wahlburg wasn’t the only problem. When Wingers had first joined the crew of the Providence, to pilot Condors and to fight alongside her marines, Keyes had given a speech about the importance of mutual respect to effective operations. But with the addition of the former insurgents, he’d done nothing of the sort. Husher felt sure that today’s conflict between them and the other marines would not be the last.

  Chapter 12

  For Their Own Good

  “Werner, notify me the moment we have sensor data on all of the colonies in the system, both human and Winger.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Keyes had managed to convince Wateridge to allow him three UHF battle groups to go with the single one the Wingers had offered him. He would have preferred more. The president and many of the old-guard UHF captains saw it as safer to gather most of the human warships around Mars, but Keyes saw that as the least safe option. They were accomplishing nothing there, and if the Ixa hit Sol as hard as they had hit Coreopsis, they’d be able to take out almost the entire human fleet with a single attack.

  “Sir,” Werner said softly, thirty-three minutes after they’d transitioned into Larkspur. “We have sensor data.”

  “And?”

  The sensor operator swallowed. “It appears that Thessaly’s planetary defense group was able to repel the Gok attacks, and what remained of the Winger colony Pinnacle after Carrow’s assault still remains. But every other colony in the system has been utterly devastated.”

  Keyes cursed under his breath. Larkspur had been one of the most populous systems ever colonized, and until recently it had been unique in its cohabitation by three different species—humans, Wingers, and Fins. No more.

  “Any sign of a Gok presence?”

  “Negative, Captain. It appears they consider their work here complete.”

  His sensor operator’s phrasing stoked the flame of Keyes’s anger, and he reminded himself of Piper’s words. The Gok had behaved like monsters, but they were monsters of Ixan make.

  They must be given a chance to make amends. However impossible that seemed.

  “Nav, plot a course for the Yclept System.”

  As they traversed Larkspur, Keyes’s grim silence infected the rest of his CIC crew, and they limited their words to what was necessary for the running of the ship.

  Keyes gave Arsenyev the command while he went to the wardroom to concoct the latest in a long line of terminally lukewarm coffees. After a discovery like they’d just made, of billions of souls lost, an urge to break things would typically have consumed him in the past. There’d even been a time he’d come to the wardroom and made a mess of shattered ceramic and bent cutlery, which there had been no time to clean up himself. The knowledge that a member of the maintenance crew had had to deal with it shamed him for a long time.

  Now, he felt nothing except the same emptiness that had filled him since Hades. The drive to slaughter humanity’s enemies was the only thing occupying that vast hollow inside him. Steele and the others that had tortured him in the orbital jail had cured him of his temper. Even killing Steele hadn’t brought it back. Nor had it resurrected any other emotion except a
cold and steady hatred.

  He returned to the CIC in time for their transition into Yclept. As she had for the entire journey, the Firedrake entered the system first, along with two other UHF corvettes. Then the Providence passed through the darkgate, and Werner had a report for him in minutes.

  “There’s a Gok battle group resupplying from a munitions barge on the periphery of the system, Captain, just nine light minutes away from us. The battle group consists of a destroyer, a carrier, three missile cruisers, three corvettes, and a frigate.”

  “Acknowledged. Nav, move to engage, but Coms, I want you to send a transmission to the opposing flagship informing her captain that we have a cure for the virophage infecting the Gok. Tell it we’re willing to give the cure to them, no strings attached.”

  The Gok captain wasted no time in replying, and the Providence received its answering transmission almost as soon as it was possible to, given the time delays involved.

  “Want no cure from humans,” the hulking, forest-green alien said on the CIC’s main viewscreen, with what Keyes assumed to be the Gok equivalent of a sneer. “Like what Gok have become. See it as true expression of Gok strength. Show you.”

  “The opposing battle group has finished replying,” Werner said. “The munitions barge is moving away, and the enemy warships are moving to engage us.”

  “The virophage must be clouding their judgment,” Arsenyev said. “Their attack is clear suicide, given our superior numbers.”

  “It makes no difference,” Keyes said. “We can’t flee from them simply for their own good. They’d just continue to rampage across the Bastion Sector. If they won’t take the cure, they will have to be destroyed.”

  Chapter 13

  Waste of Life

  “Captain,” Arsenyev continued. “I strongly suggest you send a transmission to all ships of the opposing battle group, and not just its flagship. It’s not only the right thing to do—it could work to our tactical advantage.”