by J. L. Lyon
Liz recovered and came at 301, Ignis blazing. Calumnior’s diamond armor reignited just in time to block the attack, and then Liz unleashed a flurry of swings that caught him off-guard. Apparently she had been holding back in training sessions. 301 cried out and unleashed a merciless offensive against her, his fluid movements not slowing until Liz’s Gladius had been knocked out of her reach.
“Captain!” Derek called out from behind him. “Our way is clear! Let’s get out of here!”
301 turned his gaze back to Liz, who stood helpless and unarmed in front of him. Seeing the fire in his eyes, she nodded with sad resignation, “Do what you have to do, 301. Just make it quick.” She winced as his blade came to rest against her neck.
He looked into her eyes—a deep blue ocean of wounded feelings—and spoke so only she could hear, “You spared my life. Now I spare yours.” He withdrew his weapon and took a step toward her. “But before I go there is one thing you need to know: whatever you might believe about our time together, I really did care about you. I could have loved you, Liz, if only you had given me time. I hope you find what you’re looking for, and that when you do, it’s worth what you have lost.”
301 turned on and strode back to the aft railing, where the Halo-4 rose into view drenched by the spray of the sea. As Derek climbed inside 301 looked back to see that Liz had not moved, but watched him with an expression of intense sorrow. He thought he saw a tear slide down her cheek, but couldn’t be sure—after all, he had never seen her cry.
He climbed on board the Halo and followed Derek into the cockpit just in time to see a massive fleet of System hovercraft descend upon the imperial convoy and rain fire upon them. Many on the decks of the enemy vessels met their end that day…but despite everything his only thought was for Liz, and whether her body would be counted among the dead.
6
GRACE SAWYER TRAVELED THROUGH the solemn darkness of the underground, listening to the rhythmic pounding of boots on concrete as Silent Thunder marched back to the Command Center. It had been a long night—successful, but long. And though her body longed for the comfort of a bed, the day ahead would prove even longer than the night.
Few spoke as they drew near their destination. The city was massive, and it felt as though they had walked its entire length twice over. But the victory had been worth it, made sweeter by the fact that it had not cost even a single life. It was more than Grace had thought possible. She could only hope that the commanders felt the same.
Unity in Silent Thunder hung only by the frayed thread left by her father’s death, and she needed something to prove herself capable of leading in his place. That night’s victory was a start, but it still might not be enough. Within the 2nd Battalion, the last of the original four, her ascension had been confirmed unanimously. The loyalty of the other commanders, however, remained in doubt.
Since its inception the commanders of Silent Thunder had been chosen from among the ranks and voted upon by the officers. In a way, it was the last democratic tradition in existence, and most officers considered it a sacred practice. Her election was a moment she would never forget. Sitting at that table surrounded by her father’s most trusted advisors—men she had grown up around, some of whom loved her as if she were their own—and seeing them all stand for her...in the wake of her father’s death, it had been an emotional moment.
But word from the scattered remnants of the other three divisions suggested the remaining commanders were not so confident. She could never be the symbol her father was, she had no illusions about that. But the burden of holding the rebellion together and finishing her father’s mission was now hers. The first two phases of the plan could be completed with the resources of the 2nd alone. The third, unfortunately, could not.
So she must hold on to that thread and keep it from unraveling this fragile union that her father had built. How long? As long as you can, Crenshaw had said.
Crenshaw—yet another uncertain variable in the equation—walked a few paces ahead of her in the dark. She wanted so badly to trust the man, but his unwillingness to tell her his true endgame made her suspicious. He wanted the World System defeated, she had no doubt about that. As to how he planned to get there, the general would reveal only fragments. Yet despite her suspicions, she simply couldn’t afford not to trust him. She needed him: his resources, his knowledge, his skill. And at least for now, he needed her.
She was the gateway to something he needed—or rather, someone.
Grace stroked her forearm self-consciously, tracing the place where her jacket covered the tattoo. The System said it bound her by law to the man who owned it…who owned her. But more than law bound her to 301-14-A. More than a tattoo. More, even, than the history they shared together.
She loved him dearly, and hated herself for falling victim to that fate. She had never thought of herself as cold-hearted, yet she always swore she would never be like those girls in the Wilderness who pined like fools after boys who practiced with the Spectral Gladius—boys who always spoke grandly of their plans to destroy the World System single-handedly. Most never made it past basic training, yet their failure was tempered by the pleasures of female attention—girls who perhaps weren’t intelligent enough to realize they had attached themselves to cowards who played at being heroes.
Jonathan and Lauren Charity were heroes. Her father was a hero. Even Davian, her loyal lieutenant commander, was a hero. These were men and women willing to stand up and fight for what they believed in, rather than simply bragging about it for attention. For that reason she had decided never to fall in love, never to let a man capture that part of her lest he transform her into one of those lovesick fools.
But true love shows no discretion. It attacks and subdues as ferociously as any warrior, until a heart’s walls crumble into ruins. For all her talk of heroes and cowards, she knew beyond doubt that she had been the fool. Those girls had been as helpless against it as she was now. The only difference was that she did not love a coward.
She loved the villain.
The column of Silent Thunder operatives came to a halt; they were home at last. Light streamed down from above as the hatch to the Command Center opened, and Grace waited while the rest of her team ascended the ladder to safety.
Crenshaw came alongside her as the column thinned, “I didn’t see Davian on the return trip. Anything we should be concerned about?”
“He’s fine,” Grace assured. “My father gave him a special assignment before they went into the Weapons Manufacturing Facility, and he got a lead that couldn’t wait. He should be back by morning.”
Crenshaw nodded, and then there was an awkward pause. The question about Davian was a mere lead-in; he probably knew all about the mission her father had given him. Finally, he went on, “How are you holding up?”
She shrugged, “As well as can be expected.”
“Your resilience is impressive, Grace,” Crenshaw said. “But something has been bothering you. Something that goes beyond simple grief.”
“Grief is never simple, Crenshaw. You know that.”
“Yes. I also know that grief is often accompanied by guilt—we who survive have a tendency to second-guess our every decision and how it might have changed things. But there was nothing you could have done…nothing that would have changed what happened.”
“I know,” she said. “You see violence and death all the time in the Wilderness, and growing up without one parent makes you that much more aware that you could lose the other. I have been prepared for this since I was sixteen, Crenshaw. Especially when we chose to return to Alexandria…I knew the risks. I don’t feel guilty that I couldn’t save him. I feel guilty because I lied to him.”
Crenshaw averted his gaze, feigning distraction as the last operative ascended the ladder, leaving them alone. “That was a mistake. But it was mine, not yours. The result of a problem I seem to have developed over the years…of distrusting those closest to me.”
Though she wanted to let Crenshaw take all o
f the blame, Grace knew better. She had to accept responsibility for her own actions and admit that she chose not to tell her father the truth for her own reasons: because if he had known how she truly felt about 301, he would never have let her be part of this mission.
And perhaps he would have been right, she thought. I’m already too close, too emotional, too invested. What if things don’t go the way I hope? If I am forced to choose between 301 and the rebellion, will I be able to do what is necessary?
Grief threatened to overwhelm her. What she needed was her father, who always knew exactly what to say and how to say it, whose advice she had always treasured but would never receive again. She had cut him out of this part of her life and feared she would always regret it.
But the only thing she could do was keep going, and do her best to honor his legacy.
“We share the blame,” she said at last. “And we owe it to him, now, to keep this alliance from falling apart.”
Crenshaw nodded solemnly, and turned to ascend the ladder into the Silent Thunder Command Center. Grace followed, and suddenly she had some idea what a walk to the gallows might feel like. Worry clenched her gut in a relentless grip, aided by poignant self-doubt. She had just come from battle, but this was a fight of an entirely different kind.
Today she had to convince the commanders of Silent Thunder that she was worthy to take up her father’s standard.
A strong hand grabbed hers and lifted her up through the hatch. As her feet found solid ground she looked up, expecting to see Crenshaw. Instead she saw someone else—a familiar face, but not one she was accustomed to seeing.
He was an older man—with a decent few years on her father, even—built as strongly as Crenshaw, with a thin scar that ran back from his forehead through his short gray hair. She knew from her father that the man had received that scar in the very same battle where Jacob had gotten his own—a Spectral Gladius wound from an event they called the Sundering.
“Commander Aiken,” she nodded and automatically gave a salute.
He grimaced, and she immediately realized her mistake. “We are equals now, so I hear. And as this center is under your command, the honor of first salute is mine.” He raised his hand to salute firmly, but followed it with a smile, “Commander Sawyer.”
Grace felt confidence flood through her, as there was no note of discouragement or disdain in Aiken’s voice. Could that mean he was ready to stay pledged to the cause? She dropped her salute and smiled back, “I apologize for that. I’m still getting used to everything.”
“Many of us are,” he nodded somberly. “Your father was a great man, Commander, and he will be greatly missed. You have my condolences.”
“Thank you,” she said. They walked away from the entrance as an operative closed the hatch, and Grace looked around for Crenshaw. He was nowhere to be found, which meant he had probably gone to the planning room to prime the commanders for her arrival.
When Aiken reached a section of the room where it seemed no one would overhear them, he stopped, “Are you ready for this?”
She sighed, “I don’t suppose I have much choice, do I? It just all happened so fast, I haven’t had time to really process that he is gone. Sometimes I find myself watching the door, expecting him to walk through it.”
“War is cruel and doesn’t afford us the time we need to mourn,” Aiken said. “But we find our own ways to mourn those who are lost, knowing that one day we will be reunited with them. Until then, the road is difficult. The life of a Silent Thunder commander is not an easy one, and is certainly not for the faint-hearted.”
“I’m learning that already,” she said, eager to gobble up any wisdom Aiken could give her. He had been Jonathan Charity’s lieutenant commander for a time, and took over the 4th Battalion upon the High Commander’s death. It fragmented like all the others save the 2nd, but Aiken managed to hold at least a third of the men beneath him. Some referred to him affectionately as the “Fifth,” a place of honor just beneath the Four original commanders of Silent Thunder. “My father was a great leader, Commander. Sometimes I worry that I will never measure up.”
“We never do measure up to the dead,” Aiken said. “Because the dead make no mistakes. They are immortalized as heroes, until some forget that they really were simple people, like us, trying to do the best they could with what they were given. I know we are short on time, but I do have a bit of advice for you…coming from a man who has had his fair share of experience in shoes he can never fill.”
“I welcome it.”
“Do not try to be your father,” he said firmly. “You are not Jacob Sawyer, and you will never be Jacob Sawyer. Oh, he raised you, and so you cannot help but be like him, but when it comes right down to it you will develop your own style of leadership. Your men must follow you, not the memory of your father in you. And, if I might be so bold…perhaps those men in there today need to see a bit of the Shadow Heart I hear so much about from my younger operatives.”
She felt heat rising to her cheeks. Just how far had word of her non-existent love life traveled? “Are you saying I need to be cold?”
“Not entirely,” Aiken replied. “But I do want you to understand that you going in there as Jacob Sawyer’s daughter is much different than you going in as his son. If you were a man you could lead with passion, as your father did. But what they need to see is the thing they expect the least: a commander who leads with strength. Don’t mother and don’t coddle, but don’t allow them to patronize you, either. When I look at you I see the strength of your mother and the passion of your father in one, but it is that strength you will need today. Command your troops, lay out your plan, and they will follow you as surely as they followed Charity…and so will I.” He flashed another brief but encouraging smile. “I’ll see you inside.”
Grace watched him go, and took a deep, steadying breath. Lead with strength, the strength of your mother. A mother she had never known, but whose loss she felt painfully every time she was mentioned. Everyone said such wonderful things about her—if only Gloria Sawyer could be there now, to walk her though this.
But she wasn’t, at least not in the physical sense. She could not lean on either of her parents ever again. There was only One she could lean on now, and it was to Him she prayed in those final moments before entering the planning room—knowing this meeting would change both her and the Silent Thunder rebellion forever.
The planning room was packed, as she expected it to be. A makeshift war room to begin with, it consisted only of a long table with a few computer screens along the far wall. However, those screens were now barred from view by black uniforms, some more tattered than others, each with a Spectral Cross emblazoned over the left side.
Twenty commanders and their lieutenant commanders were in attendance, in addition to her and Crenshaw. The table seated ten comfortably, and Grace saw one commander rise and yield his chair to Aiken when she entered. The rest stood at various points around the table, eyes first glued to the empty chair at the table’s head over which Crenshaw stood guard, until she walked in and became the focus instead.
Crushing, the weight of those stares. They watched her with a light of expectation—though whether they expected her to amaze them with her prowess or entertain them with her ineptitude, she couldn’t guess. Her first instinct was to run screaming from the room. Who was she to think she could lead these men? Some were old enough to be her grandfather!
Lead with strength, she commanded herself. Then she took a deep breath, straightened her posture, and strode toward her father’s chair. She opted not to sit, instead standing behind the chair with her hands behind her back.
“Gentlemen,” Crenshaw’s strong voice startled her. “It is my pleasure to present to you, elected by the unanimous vote of the officers of the Silent Thunder 2nd Battalion: Commander Grace Sawyer.”
Applause erupted, a loud and constant thunder in the small room. But the men who gave it had not formed a favorable opinion just yet, she could see it in their
faces. They applauded out of respect, not joy…but that would have to be enough for now.
Once the clapping died down, Crenshaw nodded to her, “Commander, I yield the floor to you.”
Her legs nearly wobbled beneath her, unprepared to hold up the weight that suddenly pressed down on her shoulders. The other commanders stared at her in a hard silence that made her feel both empowered and terrified. She searched for the words she had prepared to say and for a moment could not find them, lost among her myriad fears and self-doubts.
Lead with strength. Command your troops.
Make this a day they will never forget.
Grace cleared her throat and began, her voice surprisingly strong in the small room, “Commanders. I have no illusions that you hold me in the same esteem as you did my father. I know what you see when you look at me—the objections you harbor. Young. Inexperienced. Female. But if you came here today expecting me to ease those concerns, you’ve wasted your time. This meeting is not about me. It’s not about you. We are here to talk about the fate of our country…of our world. And when we are done, you must each decide what part you want to play.”
She gripped the chair in front of her tightly. “My father built this alliance, and I swore to my officers I would do my utmost to hold it together. But while you sit there, complaining to yourself of my age, you neglect to consider the most significant detail about my election.
“I am the first Silent Thunder commander not born in the Old World. Every man here was born under the reign of the United States of America. You grew up there. While I’m sure it had it’s own challenges, you lived in a place where justice was about the rule of law, not about the whims of an old man in a tower of stone. In the end you watched that nation crumble into dust, I understand that. You fought to preserve its ideals, only to watch as they have been systematically stamped out before your eyes. Undoubtedly you have known pain, and perhaps you think that is a weakness of mine. That I have not experienced that kind of loss, have not been tested by that kind of fire.
