“It could mean anything,” the big commander stated flatly. “But I will ask Cardinal to look into it.”
Falcon groaned audibly.
“You have something to say, Titus?” Eagle asked, eyeing Falcon narrowly.
The demolitions man returned Eagle’s steady gaze. “Must you get Regulus involved, Agrippa? Doesn’t that red-robed buffoon have enough to do already, sniffing around everyone’s private business and accusing half of us of apostasy with regard to the great and holy Machine?” He snorted. “Next thing you know, the man will have his own Inquisition set up, putting all of us on trial for some imagined violation or other.”
Eagle looked about to say something sharp, but then apparently decided against it. Instead, he allowed himself to reveal a half-smile at the others, and said, “I will ask him to be restrained. And discrete.”
“That’ll be the day,” Falcon scoffed—but he smiled as he said it.
Hawk smiled too, meanwhile watching as the second troop transport set down smoothly a few hundred meters away; Iron Raptors were already marching up the boarding ramp of the first. “I’ll need to speak with Cardinal, then,” he noted. “I was able to record the Dyonari’s words, and I’m sure he’ll want to hear them firsthand.”
Eagle sat up again, tense.
“You did what?” he demanded.
Hawk’s frown grew deeper. He glanced from Eagle to Falcon; the demolitions man’s eyes were wide; he merely shrugged slightly.
“You will erase it,” Eagle ordered. “Permanently.”
“I—but—” Hawk blinked.
Eagle glared at him. Hawk would have sworn at that moment that his commander—his friend—was about to charge at him.
“Of course I will erase it, if that is your order,” Hawk went on. “But—why would you wish that I—?”
“They’re telepathic, just as you stated a moment ago,” Eagle snapped. “There’s simply no telling what psychic time bombs they left hidden within your recording, like viruses in a computer routine.” He exhaled slowly and deeply, his blond brows furrowed as he all-but-glared at Hawk. “Erase it, Marcus—erase it utterly and immediately.”
“I—yes, of course.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then nodded. “It’s gone. Completely.”
Eagle met his eyes again, held them for a second, then nodded.
“Thank you.”
His tone softened a bit. He flashed a half-smile at Falcon and then at Hawk.
“You could have potentially exposed us to any number of malicious telepathic threats, with a recording made in that environment,” he continued to explain. “The risk was simply too great.”
“I understand,” Hawk said aloud, even as he thought to himself, Honestly, I’m not sure I understand anything anymore.
Falcon started to add to the conversation, but then cut himself off before he could speak. He was gazing upwards at something—and his expression was not the same as it had been when the ships coming down to join them were only transports. Curious, Hawk turned around and angled his head back to see what was happening.
A single, small, triangular ship was descending rapidly. It swooped down over their position, curved around gracefully, and set itself down in an open field very nearby.
“Uh oh,” Falcon muttered.
“Is that who I think it is?” Hawk added.
“Indeed it is,” Eagle confirmed. Now he did stand, determined not to be seen lounging around by this latest arrival.
The hatch on the side of the tiny ship slid up and a single figure emerged. As the pilot strode across the field and approached, Hawk could tell that it was a female, not terribly tall by anyone’s standards, but slender and lithe. She wore a uniform that matched in its design elements those of the other Hands present; predominantly red, her boots were blue and her gloves a golden brown. A green seam circled her collar. Her hair was long and dark and her eyes slightly almond in shape. She halted a short distance away and stood there, staring back at them in silence.
“Raven,” Eagle said by way of greeting, inclining his head slightly. Falcon and Hawk welcomed her as well.
She gave each of the three Hands a quick looking over, her expression all the while one of scarcely-contained disapproval.
“We weren’t expecting you,” Eagle said. “I didn’t request—”
“The Machine does as the Machine will do, Eagle,” she interrupted sharply. “You know that better than any of us.”
“You’re here on the Machine’s orders, then.”
Raven didn’t bother to answer that. She gave the three of them one more quick looking over, then began to walk forward again, past their position, toward the city.
“And what did our master send our lovely Internal Affairs agent here to do?” Eagle asked as she passed him.
Raven paused in mid-step but didn’t turn back. Her hand did briefly touch on the hilt of the sword sheathed behind her. After a moment she said, “I’m simply here to make certain everything is being done by the book.”
Eagle nodded slowly at this, casting glances at the other two Hands; they offered barely-disguised looks of impatience and disapproval.
“Well then,” Eagle called back to her, “I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. Everything went as smoothly as could be.”
“We’ll see,” Raven said. Then she started toward the city again.
Behind her, the other three Hands merely watched her walk away in silence.
PART THREE
After the Shattering:
The Nineteenth Millennium
1: HAWK
Hawk opened his eyes as the memory-recording ended.
“That…was instructive. Thank you, ship.”
There was no reply.
“Ship?”
Still nothing.
Hawk continued to frown. He drummed his fingers on the side console. Perhaps five or six minutes passed.
“Ship?” Hawk called out, frustration getting the better of him. “Respond. Now.”
A yellow light on the control panel in front of him began to flash.
“Now what?” Hawk demanded.
“I am detecting a signal,” the ship answered, breaking its long silence.
“Why haven’t you answered me?” Hawk demanded.
“The signal,” the ship continued, ignoring his question, “is being transmitted by….a Hand.”
Hawk’s eyes widened, his annoyance with the ship already melting away as this new turn of events registered.
“A Hand? Another one?”
“I believe so, yes.” The ship’s smooth mechanical voice sounded almost relieved. “It is a distress call, requesting assistance.”
“Alright then,” Hawk said, “bring us out of hyperspace and set a course for it.”
But even as he was speaking the order, the streaking visual effects of the Above as seen through the front viewport vanished, replaced by the mottled blackness of normal space.
“Already done.”
Hawk grunted wordlessly. He didn’t much care for what had just happened. The ship was doing things without being told. That had been acceptable when he had been completely disoriented and injured, and didn’t even know who or what he was… But now—now that he was at least somewhat in control of his mind and body, now the ship had to obey him completely… right?
The disturbing thought came back to him: Maybe not.
With the ship now fully emerged back into real space, Hawk could see a planet looming ahead, nearly filling the forward viewport.
“Taking us down.”
Hawk nodded. He decided not to press the issue, at least for now. So far, the ship was doing what he would have ordered it to do anyway. But, still…
“Do you know yet who specifically is signaling us?” he asked.
A pause as the ship inspected the signal, then, “I believe so. And it is unexpected. They almost never request assistance—or need it.”
Hawk waited, annoyance growing within him. Finally, as if only incidentally
remembering that it had been asked, the ship saw fit to answer him directly.
“The signal,” it said, “is apparently being sent by… a Falcon.”
2: FALCON
Falcon sat within a clearing atop a low hill, some miles outside of the town to which he had recently brought such devastation.
Only a few years earlier, he might have laughed at the notion that he had come to this world seeking only peace and solitude, and now he was leaving it after having destroyed so many of its citizens and property. Yes, once he might have laughed at that fact—but not now. Now the bitter experiences of playing out that role time and again had taken their toll, and only weariness and a grim fatalism remained.
A thin column of smoke off to the south marked the town’s location. Clearly the fires were nearly out now. Perhaps they had not spread too far, caused too much damage.
His eyes, human and augmentic, flickered from the horizon down to the small silver device in his left hand. A tiny red light flashed on its surface.
Still nothing in range. But soon, surely. Soon…
He’d begun signaling for pickup even before he’d planted the explosives in the town. He doubted another officer of the Machine would happen within range and offer transport—it had been years now since that had happened, and he had never encountered another like himself, another Hand—but the old robotic supply vessels tended to cruise through inhabited systems with surprising frequency, and they provided reliable, if not necessarily comfortable, transportation between systems.
A sound in the distance escaped his notice at first, but gradually he came to realize that something was approaching. Several somethings, in fact.
Standing and looking out in the direction of the sound, he activated the telescopic components of his augmetic eye and studied what he could now see.
Hovercraft of some sort. At least four of them. Big, heavy, armed and armored.
So. This planet’s “Inquisition” was nothing if not persistent. They were also likely taking this matter personally now, seeing as how he had been forced to kill so many of their soldiers in the town.
Fine, he thought. Let them come.
He gazed down at the little device in his left hand, still flashing red.
Maybe they will provide me some entertainment until someone comes to pick me up.
The minutes passed and the enemy drew closer. Falcon stood there, waiting for them, a bulky rifle now cradled in his right arm. Then the roaring grew louder. It was coming from two directions, and his telescopic mechanical eye revealed to him another flotilla of hover-tanks approaching from a few degrees further south. They were converging very rapidly on his position.
Eight or nine of them, at least.
The portion of his face that was still human frowned. The situation was growing a bit more precarious.
I am a Falcon, he thought. Not a Condor, or even a Hawk. Everything about me was designed for combat engineering; for demolition work. Not for individual combat against a veritable army of foes…
A third roar came from behind him. This time, he didn’t even bother to look.
Surrounded. Alone, on a bare hilltop.
It doesn’t take a Condor to know that these logistics are very poor.
His half-human face twisting into a scowl, he looked around quickly, locating the closest available cover. Then, rifle swinging in his right hand, he strode rapidly for the tree line.
In his left hand, nearly forgotten now, the red light on the little silver device stopped flashing, and a green light took its place.
3: RAVEN
Raven stood at the center of a broad swirl of the dead.
She leaned forward, her left hand resting on the pommel of her sword, using it like a cane or walking stick to hold herself up.
Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe—to get enough air into her lungs to help her recover from the massive expenditure of energy she’d just endured.
Blood covered nearly every inch of her. How much of it was her own, she had no idea as of yet. She could feel no pain—none whatsoever—other than the bone-tired weariness resulting from her exertions. Her red and blue uniform had injected various chemicals into her body to keep her going well beyond her natural limits, and to keep her from passing out due to her injuries, whatever they might be.
She opened her eyes and looked down, seeing nothing but blood. Her sword as well dripped gore onto the sopping-wet field.
Slowly she raised her head and straightened her body, removing her weight from the sword and lifting it to her side. She shook the weapon once, twice, and the blood slid from its almost frictionless surface to splatter on the ground.
As the effects of the chemicals coursing through her veins—both natural and artificial—started to wear off, a terrible weariness came over her. She ignored it and looked around at her handiwork.
In a circular pattern that spiraled outward from where she stood, the dead lay where they had died—where she had slain them.
Dozens—hundreds—of alien warriors in black and gray uniforms and armored components were piled one on top of the other, each missing a head or arms or legs, or some combination thereof. Chaos, carnage, and destruction: she had visited those things upon her enemies, though the strain of it had very nearly killed her—as had the weapons of her foes, of course.
But now they all lay dead. All save her, there at the center of a maelstrom of destruction.
She gazed out at all that carnage, all that death, and she allowed herself a tiny smile, just at the corners of her narrow mouth.
You have done well, Raven, came the voice in her head—the voice of her ship’s onboard intelligence coupled, it had claimed, with a sliver of the Machine’s old consciousness.
“Thank you,” she said aloud, her voice flat and emotionless.
Now—come aboard. For your mission has only just begun, and a great task lies before you.
Her breathing now level, she started forward, picking her way through the corpses. At one point she realized she still carried what seemed like gallons of their blood on her clothes; the fact that the quantity had not greatly increased in the past few moments indicated to her that it was almost entirely theirs, and not hers. Touching a tab on her belt, she caused her uniform to shimmer momentarily; the gore that covered her instantly slid to the ground, leaving her uniform spotlessly clean.
Now I just have to get it out of my hair, she noted, already planning a very hot shower once she was aboard her ship and it was underway.
Several minutes later, she was indeed aboard her vessel and enjoying the spray of water across her body. Every muscle still ached, including some that she could scarcely remember even using. But the pain was lessening, thanks to the shower and to medications provided by the ship. Victory, too, felt good. Very good.
Emerging from the small shower cabinet, she shook water from her long, brown hair and pulled her uniform back on, knowing that it would absorb all the excess moisture from her skin and slough it off. Then she dropped wearily into her pilot’s seat and looked out the forward viewport.
A blue-white planet filled the window.
“We’re still here?” she asked aloud.
“You must supervise the destruction of the enemy forces,” said a smooth yet clearly mechanical voice from all around her—the ship, choosing to speak audibly rather than over the Aether link.
Raven frowned.
“Destruction? I thought I already destroyed them.”
“You destroyed the scout force that had located and was assaulting the base,” replied the voice. “The main elements of the Adversary’s forces are only now landing on this world, and in full force. They are moving to occupy several key strategic locations.”
Raven took this in, studying the holographic tactical display that appeared in front of her in the cockpit. Several red circles flashed here and there, data spooling out beside each of them, giving troop dispositions and numbers. The numbers were very, very large.
“I take it
they weren’t just after me, then,” she stated.
“No. Though certainly you were one of their objectives, and would have been a fine prize for them. Your elimination would have constituted a major victory for them—whoever they are.”
“That’s good to know, I suppose,” she said with a half-smile. “Makes me feel so important and needed.”
“I understand that this is part of your human need to be flippant and sarcastic,” the voice told her, “and I indulge you in it. But do not doubt your value to the Machine, to the cause, and to this galaxy.”
“We don’t even know if the Machine still exists,” she pointed out.
“We must trust that it does,” the voice replied. Unfazed, it continued, “If this force is not some new manifestation of the Adversary’s legions, it at least appears to represent every bit the threat the old enemy did. Though much of this galaxy lies now in shattered ruins, life yet endures—but for how much longer, if this threat is not stopped?”
Raven sobered and nodded. The fragmentary information that had been injected into her mind prior to her awakening filled in most of the spaces; she “remembered” the great war that had shattered the galaxy, and the armies of the Adversary being defeated and driven away, back into the blackness between the galaxies.
“I understand,” she said.
But, she wondered to herself, did she truly understand? If this enemy was the old Adversary, why had it returned? Why now? And if, as the voice had intimated, very few other Hands remained alive, what could one woman—albeit one woman very skilled at slaughtering the enemy—do against a foe as vast and implacable as that?
Particularly if the Machine itself was silent? And just what did that silence portend?
The ship/Machine intelligence was not privy to her inner musings. It continued on, “Measures are being taken now to remove the enemy’s influence on this world. It will not be allowed to gain a foothold here—not so long as one of our automated weapons vessels lies in space nearby.”
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