The Fall of Valdek

by P. L. Nealen

  “Come on, Kunn,” Kahane pressed. “You’ve got to have some opinion.”

  “I have never watched the sport,” was all Kunn said, in his usual dead monotone.

  Kahane sighed. “What do you do during your personal time, Kunn?” he asked. “You don’t watch sports, you don’t hunt, you don’t mingle with the other Squad Sergeants…don’t tell me you just sit in your cell and stare at the walls?”

  “I study,” was all Kunn said, turning away to stare vacantly out the window.

  Scalas did not comment. Kunn was strange, but he was not a problem. Not yet. Until he became one, Scalas would not be too concerned with his oddity.

  Even so, he could not help but feel his hackles rise a bit every time he looked in the other man’s strangely blank eyes. He often found himself wondering just what was happening behind that enigmatic stare.

  They were passing under the eaves of the forest. The sleds passed into deep shadows, as the thick, intertwined canopy of branches and spatulate leaves closed overhead. The road soon vanished around a curve ahead, where it began to switchback its way up the mountain.

  Kahane and Solanus continued to debate the merits of various players, while Scalas held his peace and Kunn stayed silent, staring. An occasional ray of golden sunlight or reflected reddish Kaletonan-glow struck the windows, but for the most part, it was a deep twilight under the forest, until the sleds finally broke out onto the pavement cut out of the mountainside before the gates of the Keep.

  The Avar Sector Keep was fairly typical of such Brotherhood fortresses across the Spinward Reaches. Four squat, cylindrical towers were tightly clustered around the central spire. The domed peaks of the towers were currently closed, but housed powerful ground-to-space defensive batteries. They were the last resort, as well; even more extensive powergun and heavy laser batteries were stationed at strategic points in several concentric rings around the fortress. No attacker would find the skies uncontested, even if there were no starships in orbit.

  While the Avar Sector Keep had never been attacked, in almost eight centuries of existence, the Brotherhood had made no shortage of enemies. Defenses were simply common sense.

  The sleds sped toward the gates, which swung open silently, on well-oiled mag tracks, closing as soon as the sleds had entered. Keeping the gates shut was not a matter of an imminent threat; it was simply Brotherhood discipline on display.

  Not far into the shadowed courtyard, the two vehicles glided to a halt, the pitch of their fans changing as they braked. Golden lights, not far off the spectrum of the sun, blazed down on them from atop the towers and the main entrance to the spire.

  A massive figure in the red tunic of a Brotherhood Legate stood at the top of the steps leading into the spire. Even from a distance, there was no mistaking the stature of Brother Legate Michael Kranjick.

  Well over two meters tall, barrel-chested, with arms bigger around than most men’s legs, Kranjick’s sheer presence was nearly as heavy as he was. Everything about the old Brother Legate seemed weighty, from his sheer size, his faintly brutish, battered features, to his slow, ponderous speech.

  But any Brother who crossed his path was quickly disabused of any idea that the Brother Legate’s slowness and look of perpetual boredom meant that he was either dull or ignorant.

  Scalas climbed out of the sled and mounted the steps, halting just below the Brother Legate to render his salute. Kranjick returned it gravely with his well-worn, ancient KT-5 pistol, much as Scalas had returned the novice’s salute. As was fitting; Scalas had truly learned to be a Brother under then-Centurion Kranjick’s command.

  “Report, Centurion,” Kranjick rumbled, as he holstered his sidearm, turned about, and began to plod back inside the spire, motioning for Scalas to walk with him.

  “The mining outpost is secure again, Brother Legate,” Scalas said, as he accompanied Kranjick into the Great Hall. The gothic arches were hung with battle banners from nearly eight hundred years’ worth of engagements across the Spinward Reach. The Brotherhood was old. “The yeheri pirate band has been wiped out; the only survivors of the ground fighting might have surrendered, had the local militia not opened fire on them.”

  Kranjick nodded solemnly. “We cannot always expect the local forces to act with honor,” he said. “Which is why we must always be on our guard. I take it that you did not allow their actions to lead you to violate the Code?”

  “Of course not, Brother Legate,” Scalas assured him. “Though matters grew tense with some of the militia toward the end. There was a single survivor. A pilot, I believe. The militia wished to execute her.”

  “And you prevented them?” a familiar voice sounded as they neared the knot of Brothers waiting in the center of the hall. “Of course you did.” Centurion Joachim Dunstan was standing slightly closer to the doors, his arms akimbo, his hands resting on the impeccably polished pistol belt around his equally impeccably tailored and filigreed tunic. The difference was slight, but Dunstan’s uniform was ever so slightly flashier than anyone else’s in the room, including Brother Legate Kranjick’s. Unlike most of the rest of the Brothers, he wore a thin mustache beneath his narrow beak of a nose. “And what if they had insisted? Were you truly willing to sacrifice Caractacan Brothers’ lives for the sake of a pirate?”

  Kranjick had halted, but said nothing. He simply watched and listened, like a massive, observant, sapient mountain.

  Scalas looked Dunstan in the eye. “Yes, I was,” he replied. “The battle was over, she was wounded, and she was unable to defend herself. The Code is fairly clear on such matters.”

  “And yet she was a pirate,” Dunstan countered. “Condemned to be executed regardless.” He peered around behind Scalas, as if looking for something. “I do not see this yeheri prisoner.”

  “That is because she died of her wounds before we had even cleared the battlefield,” Scalas said levelly, knowing what was coming next.

  “Well,” Dunstan said, raising his voice so that his words echoed from the walls of the Great Hall, “I suppose it is a blessing that no shots were fired in defense of a pirate who was doomed to die, anyway. Certainly not for such a pointless display of ‘honor.’”

  “I should be careful speaking so lightly of points of honor, Centurion,” Kranjick said grimly. He did not seem to raise his voice, yet his slow, ponderous words traveled nonetheless. “The Code is what makes the Brotherhood, after all.”

  “And yet how many Brothers were lost on Pontakus IX because of points of honor, Brother Legate?” Dunstan asked. His voice rolled across the hall, and Scalas’ eyes narrowed as he listened. Dunstan was not speaking extemporaneously; this was a prepared speech. He wondered just what had prompted the other Centurion, who was known to be one of the most outspoken of the New School, the so-called “pragmatists,” in the Legio X, to think that he would have the opportunity to use it at this particular time and place.

  “We might hold dearly to the Code, but our enemies surely will not,” he was continuing. “Disaster was averted this time, but by how close a margin? And why is the Code leading to such rigid thinking as to defend a captured pirate, who deserves nothing but summary execution in the first place? What was the point?”

  “If you really don’t see the point,” Kahane suddenly shot back from behind Scalas’ shoulder, “I wonder how you ever pinned on Centurion.”

  Dunstan pinned Kahane with a glare. “Your superiors are talking, Squad Sergeant,” he said coldly.

  The thickset high-grav worlder folded his massive arms across his chest. “No,” he replied, just as coldly. “Only those who outrank me, apparently by virtue only of time in service.”

  Dunstan’s lips went white, and he took a step forward, one hand dropping reflexively to the sidearm at his side. The atmosphere in the Great Hall suddenly crackled with tension, and he restrained himself, apparently aware that he had stepped over the line. Brothers did not threaten to draw weapons on Brothers.

  Scalas stood motionless, staring Dunstan down. Kranjick
stayed aloof, saying nothing, only watching. Dunstan stood his ground for a moment, shaking with rage, then looked around him, as if only then noticing that all eyes in the hall were on him, and none were particularly friendly at that moment. His lips a thin line beneath his mustache, he abruptly turned on his heel and stalked away.

  “Centurion Dunstan,” Kranjick rumbled. Dunstan looked for a moment like he was going to keep walking, but then stopped and stiffly turned around.

  “I suggest that you study Volume II of Donagan’s History of the Caractacans tonight, Centurion,” Kranjick said, still managing to look and sound bored, though there was a note of steel in his voice. “You seem to have forgotten some things.”

  Dunstan stared at him for a moment, then clicked his heels together and saluted. “I shall certainly look at it, Brother Legate,” he said, as if the words pained him, then he turned and left the hall.

  Scalas watched him go, frowning. Only once Century XXXIV’s commander had left the hall did he turn to Kranjick. “Where did that come from?” he asked.

  Kranjick looked back at him as if nothing particularly of note had just happened. “Dunstan is ambitious,” he said. “As are the rest of the ‘pragmatists.’ It is nothing new.”

  “That was,” Scalas argued. “He was looking for a chance to preach his lack of principle, in front of an audience. Has something happened to embolden them?”

  Kranjick just shook his head as he resumed his advance toward the far end of the Great Hall. “No,” he said. “Dunstan has been a Centurion longer than you have. He wishes a Legate’s tunic, and thinks that challenging you and the Code is key to the kind of notoriety he believes will garner him such a promotion.” The huge man laughed dryly. “Hence why I told him what to study. He has forgotten how advancement in the Brotherhood truly occurs. Popularity in the ranks has little to do with promotion.”

  “So,” Scalas said in disgust, “politics rears its head within the Brotherhood.”

  Kranjick stopped and turned to face him. “Politics is part of human existence, Centurion,” he said solemnly. “Code or no Code, it was always inescapable. The Brotherhood has endured for the centuries that it has because of the Code, and because we are unmatched on the battlefield by human or alien. But we are still human, and still subject to human frailties, including politics and ambition. Pontakus IX was a Pyrrhic victory that scarred the Brotherhood for all time to come. It made many question whether the Code was worth the risk of death, whether honor was truly more important than life. And many of them were bound to pass those doubts down to those they commanded and trained. It is the way of the galaxy. We can only hold fast to what we know is right, and along the way strive to be better than those who would trample on honor for the sake of advancement or advantage. Is that not what you were taught as a novice?”

  Scalas nodded, looking away from his mentor and commander’s deep-set, deceptively placid eyes. “I had only hoped that the Brotherhood was somehow immune from such petty squabblings,” he said. “I had seen little of it, so far.”

  Kranjick chuckled. “That is high praise,” he said, “as I have striven to keep it out of my Legio. But trust me, boy, no one is truly immune. It would have come around sooner or later.” He studied Scalas for a moment, a faint smile on his lips. “Perhaps I should have you do some reading tonight, as well,” he mused. “Perhaps refreshing your memory about the aftermath of the Banash War might grant you some perspective. This is not the first such crisis the Brotherhood has faced. It will not be the last.”

  He straightened, and looked back at the rest of Scalas’ Squad Sergeants. “Get settled back into your quarters,” he said. “We will do a detailed after-action report this evening, and the funeral Mass for the fallen immediately thereafter. What time is it, ship time?”

  “We synchronized with the Sector Keep three days ago,” Scalas said. “We will be fine. I will have the Century assembled for the debriefing in three hours.”

  “Very well,” Kranjick said. “Vigilance and Honor, Centurion.”

  Scalas straightened to attention and saluted. “Vigilance and Honor, Brother Legate,” he replied. Kranjick returned the salute, and Scalas turned on his heel, striding away to make sure his Century was disembarked and back in their billeting in good order.

  Those who had survived.

  Chapter 4

  The battered ship’s Bergenholm fields cut out early. Fully inert, the near-wreck of an Antares III class starship was barely moving fast enough relative to the Tokanan system that it would not fall away from the star.

  The drive did not ignite. The ship just drifted, slowly falling toward Tokanan’s star. Without the drive, or the Bergenholm fields, the ship might pass the star in fifty standard years.

  If it did not fall into the photosphere and burn up.

  But the ship wasn’t entirely dead. Somewhere, a transmitter started beaming a signal deeper into the system.

  ***

  The Legio’s chief Chaplain, Father Corinus, was offering the last blessing over the caskets, committing the fallen Brothers’ remains to the ground, in hopes of the final Resurrection at the end of Time. The surviving Brothers of Century XXXII, and the crew of the Dauntless, stood at attention, flanking the caskets. Nine men had fallen on Iabreton II. Low casualties, considering how many yeheri they had killed in the action. But a grievous blow to a Century.

  Scalas stood at the head of the row of closed caskets, dressed in his formal dress tabard, sidearm on one hip, ceremonial sword on the other. It was said that that very blade had been presented to the very first Centurion of Century XXXII, six hundred years before, by the grateful ruler of Rialexeton VI. He did not know for certain that it was true; enough time had passed that it could have been legend. But none of the other Centurions had a dress sword quite like it.

  A figure appeared in the door of the chapel, dressed in a tech’s uniform, the same as the warrior Brothers’ tunics except blue. The man stood at attention and waited, but Scalas was acutely aware of him until Father Corinus finished the prayers and the caskets were lowered into the vaults below the Keep. Ten stories of vaults carved into the mountain held the Brotherhood’s Avar Sector dead. Those who had been recovered.

  The last casket disappeared into the vaults, and Father Corinus pronounced the final blessing and dismissal. The Century turned on their heels as one, and began to march out of the chapel.

  Not a few eyes turned curiously toward the tech, who was waiting for Scalas and Kranjick as they stepped down from their places just outside the sanctuary and followed the rest of the Brothers toward the exit. As they got closer, the gray-haired tech saluted, which was when Scalas saw he had an artificial right hand. He suddenly remembered the man; Brother Henryk Costas had been one of Kranjick’s senior Squad Sergeants when Scalas had finished his novitiate and first deployed as a front-line Brother. Badly wounded, Costas had been retired from the line Centuries, but had re-trained himself as a tech to stay in service with the Brotherhood.

  Kranjick returned the salute. “What is it, Henryk?” he asked.

  “We just received a transmission from a ship at the edge of the system, Brother Legate,” Costas replied, passing the familiar greeting by. “It is from a Valdekan starship, hight the Mekadik. She is apparently badly damaged, fully inert, and coasting in toward the sun at miniscule velocity. We have yet to locate her precisely, but the crews aboard the Boanerges in orbit believe she is at least three hundred ninety light-minutes out.”

  “Did the message include what she is doing here?” Kranjick asked.

  “Negative, Brother Legate,” Costas answered. “It appears to be an automated distress beacon, and operating on very low power. It was barely decipherable through the background cosmic radiation, never mind Kaletonan’s magnetic fields. There might have been more, but it was lost in the background noise.”

  “Very well,” Kranjick said. He turned to Scalas. “I could send Dunstan or Soon,” he said, “unless you would prefer to take it.”

 
Scalas considered. He knew why Kranjick was offering. The men of his Century would be brooding over the losses they’d taken on Iabreton II, even more so now that the wounds had been reopened by the funeral. Often such situations were handled by ruthless field exercises or similar training, or even by busy-work around the Keep, trying to keep the men’s minds and hands occupied lest they slip too deeply into the dark thoughts that can accompany mourning a fallen comrade. A mission might help the men get some distance from the deaths, giving them time to process the loss without sinking into despair.

  He was tired, and knew that his Century was, as well. They had had days to rest on the transit from Iabreton II, but it had been a hard fight, no matter how quickly it had been over. But he knew that it was better to go than to beg weariness and stay. He nodded. “We will go,” he said, glancing over at Captain Mor. The starship commander nodded his agreement. “It will give the men something to do.”

  “We can be ready to lift in six hours,” Mor declared, stepping forward, even as he signaled his executive officer, Commander Brage.

  “Century XXXII will be aboard and ready to lift,” Scalas said formally. “Now, if you will excuse me, sir, I will need to get the men moving and counteract the usual grumbling.”

  ***

  Scalas stood next to Mor’s acceleration couch on the command deck, fully armored, his mag-boots locked to the deck. “It’s a miracle she made it this far,” he murmured.

  “It’s a miracle that she survived any of that at all,” Mor replied.

  The ship displayed in the holo tank, enhanced by the ship’s computer to be visible in the dim starlight over forty astronomical units from the star, was barely recognizable as an Antares III. Her royal blue, egg-shaped hull was scored and punctured in half a hundred places. It looked like most of her compartments were open to space. The nose actually appeared melted. Her drive cones were dark, even in the infrared. Even her reactor was apparently cold; the neutrino flux was almost nonexistent. Only the continuing, looped distress call had allowed the Dauntless to track her down at all.