by Larkin, Matt
But the Sentinels would not be broken. They were not just people—they were an idea. A calling to watch over humanity. They stood between mankind and the coming night of oblivion. And only Sentinels could fight Armageddon and hope to win.
It knew his thoughts.
A vision of that hellish universe raced through his mind. Vortices of seeming infinite size tore through red space. Lightning coruscated around the columns as they drifted around nebulous galaxies. Each vortex watched him, like eyes of an angry universe.
“You won’t win.”
We always win. While Angels sealed this universe and cowered in fear, tens of thousands of other universes fell before us. All filled with ships. All coming for you. There is no other way.
“There’s always another way.”
Nothing can stop us, mortal.
“God will stop you.”
We are God.
David laughed. “Aye, thanks. I needed a good jibe to lift my spirits.” He rose from the floor, then had to shut his eyes from the sudden psychic onslaught. Obviously, he’d gotten to them. They didn’t like being mocked.
He tapped his comm. “McGregor to Dana. Call everyone to the war room. I’ve got an announcement to make.”
It was time to change strategies. If humanity wanted to survive, they had to band together. The Angels were gone. Many were frozen in the Ark once again, recovering from Knight’s QEMP. The rest had fled the Local Group. Maybe they would flee this universe. If so, he pitied them. They would be running forever, always in fear of their terrible creation.
Ten minutes later, his inner circle sat gathered around the table. David scratched his head, then stood, placing his hands on the table.
“All right, look at this. Things have all gone to shite. Mizraim is gone, the Sentinels are fractured, and the Conglomerate is a mess. All we’ve got left is the NER and the new Synod, and the Adversary knows it. They are systematically wiping out our support.”
Knight folded his arms and leaned back, glowering at David. Not likely to forgive the pain he’d caused any time soon, but there was nothing David could do for that. And Knight had brought much of this on them, releasing the Adversary. The Gehennan was a fool, but he remained one of their greatest weapons.
“Here’s the thing,” David said. “We, us Sentinels, were created for this day. Somewhere along the road, we lost that. We got so caught up in politics, we forgot what these triangles on our uniforms mean. Honor, duty, justice.” He tapped his suit. “Aye? Well, our numbers are too few now. But where did we come from in the first place? From people who had survived the Exodus. People who bound together to say, ‘never again’. From times like these. So I’m going to put out a call to all of humanity. I’m going to form new Sentinels, this time under the command of the Synod.”
“Uh,” Phoebe said. “It kind of takes years of training to get to where we are, David. I mean, no one really gets to where I am, but, you know, close, even.”
“Does it? Rachel doesn’t have years of training. She has what she’s learned on the job. But she put on the uniform, and she’s fought for mankind. And she’s made a difference, hasn’t she?”
His wife smiled and stared at the table. He’d swear she was blushing.
“How will we know we can trust the people who join?” Leah asked.
It was a question he’d been struggling with all day. He’d like to believe no one would willingly serve Hell. He’d like to say anyone without cybernetic implants could be trusted. But he couldn’t believe that for certain. Men would be tempted, thinking they could bargain or barter for their lives. For those they cared about.
“We have telepaths in uniform already. I guess we’ll have to make delving part of basic training.”
Leah glowered and Phoebe snorted. No one would like it, but he saw no other choice. They needed all the help they could get.
“What about the Gibborim?” Knight said. “Some of them are cybered, but it might be reversible. And they already have training not so very different from Sentinels.”
“Except for major problems with authority,” Phoebe said.
“Which is different from you how?” Knight asked.
“It’s a thought,” David said. “We’ll look into it. And … And there are many people out there who know how to fight. I put many of them away. Pirates, smugglers, Redeemers. Humanity has to be united in this. I’m going to offer a general pardon to anyone who wants to sign up.”
“Whoa,” Phoebe said. “You’re going to empty the prison planets? You think we can trust them in Sentinel uniforms?”
In normal times, never. But they had reached the End of Days. And facing extinction, he suspected even former enemies might have cause to band together. “We’ve already released Caleb Gavet. Why not your brother?”
“Ezra …” Phoebe shook her head. “I want to, but … He has implants. A cybernetic eye.”
“Fine. Give him the chance to have it removed. We don’t have much time. We need everyone we can get armed and with some basic training. Because very soon, the Adversary will come for the Milky Way. And if we lose New Eden, we lose everything.”
“How about you?” Knight asked. “How long can you control it, with those implants?”
David shut his eyes. As long as he had to.
He would never be a pawn again.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE
July 23rd
David’s call has rung through the Mazzaroth. People see him as their resurrected hero, back from the void. And they have flocked to his banner by the billions.
Caleb didn’t deserve a pardon. After all he’d done in service to Apollyon, he knew better. There was no redemption. The Adversary knew it too. It never let him forget.
Tell us where you are.
Caleb shook his head and kept walking down the corridor. Unescorted. How odd. How truly foolish of them. Of course, he would never willingly betray Rachel or McGregor, not now. But he wasn’t certain how much longer he could control himself.
Visions of Hell swarmed behind his eyes until he stumbled against the wall. They burned him, engulfed him in a freezing, fiery nebula of destruction that tore his molecules apart then forced them back together. A warning of things to come.
Give us your location.
Maybe Rachel couldn’t stop the advance of Hell. But now that she had the Ark, she had gotten their attention. He supposed it counted for something. And so Hell tried to use him to gather intel on dwindling forces of the NER. Maybe it knew McGregor was recruiting Sentinels. Maybe it wanted to learn where he was training them.
Caleb should leave the ship. Remove any chance of betraying Rachel.
Except, if the Adversary could use him to gather intel … well, it had to work both ways.
He paused outside the isolation wing of the brig. Sentinels stared him down.
“I need to see her.”
The man didn’t even look him in the eye. “The prisoner is off limits.”
“I have permission from Lieutenant Jordan. Call her.”
The Sentinel grimaced, then tapped his comm, making the call. A second later he stood aside.
Despite himself, Caleb’s heart raced. The bitch had betrayed him in the worst possible way. He should feel nothing for her. He should have her spaced.
And yet …
He entered the isolation wing. Behind smart glass, Rebekah was bound, kneeling on the floor. Mag restraints held her arms out to either side. Her fiery orange hair hung over her lowered head. But she looked up at him as he entered, a coy smile on her traitorous face.
“Caleb.”
A tap opened the smart glass and he stepped inside.
Rebekah—or Naamah, he supposed—licked her lips. Visions seeped into his mind. She lay naked on the floor of his office, legs spread, waiting for him. Her pert breasts begging him too …
God!
He slapped her, the sound ringing through the cell.
“Stay out of my head!”
Naamah groaned, th
en licked a trail of blood from her lip. “I’ve never been anywhere you didn’t invite me, Caleb.”
The worst of it was, it was true. And the damn telepath would know he knew that.
He was sick. This monster had indirectly murdered his wife and children, and still he felt himself harden. Void, she might well have set the bomb herself for all he knew. Still, he had to fight the urge to rip her clothes off and take her in this very cell. And maybe she was telepathically driving him to it—but that weakness had to be inside him in the first place. A weakness of character, a weakness of soul, poor withered thing that it was.
A shuddering breath escaped him, and Naamah smiled wider.
“Come on. No one will know. You know how I like it.”
He ran his index finger along her smooth jaw line. “You told me you were nineteen.”
“My file said that.”
Fair enough. She’d never actually claimed it out loud. “How old are you really?”
“Timeless, my love.”
“I am not your love!” He never was. He was a tool she’d used to unmake mankind. He was a pawn she’d played.
Naamah recoiled harder than when he’d actually struck her. “Of course you are.”
His mouth tasted like sawdust, and he felt his fingers curling into a fist. He wanted to hit her, blacken her eyes. He wanted to fuck her until she shuddered in his arms and whispered her love a thousand times.
“You disgust me.”
“Caleb, I …” The smile had slipped from her face. “You don’t mean that. Yo-you love me, too.”
Heaven help him, could she be serious? Could a creature like her …? No. It was impossible. She was playing him again.
“Please don’t think that.”
He raised his fist toward her face. “Do not read my mind.”
“I-I can’t help it … It’s not easy to shut it out … I’m sorry. Caleb, please.”
It didn’t matter. He couldn’t have brought himself to beat her anyway. Instead, he slumped to his knees in front of her. “Tell us everything.”
“What?”
“You have a connection to the Adversary.”
“Caleb, I …”
He grabbed her chin. “Show me your love, Angel. You know what I have sacrificed. What will you give?”
“I’ll be punished.”
He leaned close to her face so he could whisper in her ear. “You deserve it.”
A tear leaked from her eye and his face was so close to hers, the hot dampness dripped onto his own cheek. Maybe she was the finest actor in the universe. Or maybe, despite a billion years of life, she was still human underneath all that metal in her body.
“Please,” she said, voice breaking. “Don’t hate me.”
“Tell us. Tell us where the Adversary is massing, where their ships are. How many they have. Tell us everything, Naamah.”
She drew a deep breath, then blew it out. “All right, Caleb.” She closed her eyes. “Kiss me.”
He rose and kissed her forehead. That was all she would ever get from him. He had to be strong enough to give her nothing else.
He stepped outside the cell and tapped his comm. “Gavet to Jordan. You should come down here.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-SIX
July 24th
From what I learned from Namaah, we are doomed. She might be lying, of course, but I doubt it.
Knight leaned against the wall in the war room, arms folded over his chest, listening to Rachel explain the details of the Adversary force. According to Caleb’s pet Angel, the Adversary thus far had only brought an advance strike fleet in—some five thousand ships. But if pressed, they could muster tens of thousands more.
As usual, Rachel paced while she lectured. “The Great Attractor is the original gateway the Angels created to give Hell access to our universe. The Adversary has to bring its ship out from there, and right now, those ships are spread through thousands of other universes, doing the same thing they’ve been doing here. So they’re relying on the Asherans as their mortal armies.”
Phoebe sat at the table, but she kept glancing back at Knight. He winked at her. She was scared, but she wouldn’t want to show it. No matter what, he’d never let anything happen to her.
David, Leah, and Caleb all sat around the table as well. Caleb stared at a tablet, Knight suspected to avoid looking any of the others in the eye. The intel the man provided—assuming it was true—made it worth sparing the bastard’s life. Barely.
“Now we know they’ve already moved in on the Sculptor Dwarf. Based on the size of their forces, we might—might—be able to halt their advance. However, Rebekah Norris promises us it would only mean more ships coming out of the Attractor. It’s a reality we’ll have to deal with. As long as the door to Hell remains open, we cannot win this.”
“According to her,” Knight said. “And she’s the servant of our enemy.”
“I’ve been played so many times by her,” Caleb said, “I don’t know what to think. But I guess we have to assume she’s telling the truth and they have many, many reinforcements.”
“Fine,” Leah said. “But you can’t destroy a black hole. So how do you propose to stop them?”
Rachel raised a finger, then pulled up a display on the screen. “Five billion years ago, Angels created seven seals to lock this universe away from any other. Our best chance may be to do the same.”
“We don’t have that kind of tech,” Phoebe said. “I mean, maybe if I had twenty years to work on it.”
Knight pushed off the wall to stand beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve spoken to the Lotan. They held one of the Angel stations since the Vanishing. They studied it for centuries. They think they can recreate the seals.”
“Uh, then why haven’t they? I mean, saving the universe sounds like a good thing, you know?”
Knight looked to Rachel, who cleared her throat. “The Lotan told him they’d have to build the seals near the Attractor itself. They don’t have the ability to create them anywhere, the way Angels did. It would take time, and the moment the enemy realized what we were doing—”
“They’ll come en masse,” David said. “Against their combined armada, we’ve no chance. Even if they don’t bring in reinforcements from Hell.”
“I have the Ark,” Rachel said. “With the Sephirot—”
“It won’t work,” Caleb said. “The Azazel, their flagship, I’ve seen it. Not even the Ark can stop it. It’s bigger and stronger than any other ship in this universe. With the Azazel, they can destroy entire galaxies by causing mass expansion of galactic cores. You can’t fight something like that.”
Knight shook his head. “Anything can be fought. Anything that lives can die.”
“Rebuilding the seals is the only plan we’ve got left,” Rachel said.
Caleb sighed. “A desperate gambit.”
“Aye,” David said. “It is. But they’ll never expect it.”
“Always do the unexpected,” Knight said.
“Because that worked out so well last time,” Caleb mumbled.
Maybe Caleb was right … But then, releasing the Adversary had let them overthrow the Angels. Because the Angels never saw it coming. And the Adversary wouldn’t see this coming, either.
David held up a hand. “Say your prayers, lads and lasses. Tomorrow we’re off to Hell.” The captain rose, his chair screeching along the deck, then left. Knight couldn’t imagine what the man faced. The constant inner battle David—and Caleb—now fought. A war to control their own bodies.
He supposed they all had their personal struggles. Rachel had fought her private war in a universe that never believed her. And Knight himself … well, he was now the most hated man in history. Even the other Sentinels on this ship looked at him with fear and disgust.
Rachel nodded and followed her husband out, and the others began to depart as well. Knight kept his hand on Phoebe’s shoulder and pushed her back down.
“Uh, ninja boy? If you’re planning a las
t romp before the big day, our quarters are a better idea. I mean, I guess there’s something erotic about doing it here in the war room. David’s likely to be pissed as a polar bear getting a buzz cut, though.”
Knight chuckled at the mental image. Phoebe was something else. He’d never met anyone like her in his life. And he never would again. “How’s the baby?”
“Pretty much the most awesome baby ever. I mean, what do you expect? Given his parents?”
He’d be a lucky kid, having her as a mother. “Phoebe … You should get off the ship.”
“Fuck no. It’s cold as the void outside.”
“I mean—”
“I know what you mean. Not happening.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “You were the one lecturing me about endangering the baby when we went looking for the Lotan.”
“Yup. But if this fails, baby’s going to be in danger anyway. You know, what with the End of Days and all.”
“Phoebe, I—”
“Nope.”
“Please—”
“Nuh-uh.” She shook her head. “Not happening, big guy.”
He sighed. He’d known she would never agree, but he had to try. “Then there’s something else I need you to do.”
“Does it involve being naked?”
“No. Well, I guess you could do it naked. Rachel found Raziel’s schematics for the QEMP. Can you begin mass production? I want to make sure every Sentinel strike force is armed with one. If they can take down Angels, they can take down Asherans or fallen Angels, too.”
Phoebe nodded, suddenly serious. Just one more thing to love about her. She could be ridiculous—until it really mattered. Then there was no one he’d rather have on his side.
“We’re going to need as many as you can make.”
“Let’s get some dinner first. Pregnant lady is hungry here.”
