Redemption's Shadow

by Rick Partlow

  She didn’t even move when the door opened. She’d gotten over her instinctive fear of it, which might have been self-deluding, but at least it helped her conserve her energy. She’d just finished her mid-day meal and she expected it to be her guards taking away the trash, but instead, it was Alvar.

  “The Spartan ship has entered the system,” he said without preamble. “They are following the course we prescribed.”

  The baby chose that moment to kick again and this time, the movement seemed more of a warning.

  “If he does it,” she asked him, pushing herself to her feet. She hadn’t gained a significant amount of weight yet, but she could feel the bit of extra strain it took just to stand. “If he gives himself up for me, are you really going to let me go?”

  “No,” he admitted. “I won’t kill you,” he added, “because I promised you this personally. But Jeuta do not make deals with humans and they do not exchange hostages. If I were to do this, I would be removed from my position immediately.”

  “Your Purpose doesn’t have a problem with lying or deception,” she surmised, her voice sounding oddly detached and unemotional in her own ears, given the turmoil insider her, “especially when it’s humans you’re lying to.”

  It hadn’t been a question, but Alvar answered it anyway.

  “Yes, except for a few sacred things, such as the Challenge, it is not against the Purpose to deceive. I have not lied to you, Kathren, and I would not start now. The human ship will not be allowed to leave.”

  She wanted to panic, wanted to scream and rage, wanted to throw her life away in a pointless and suicidal attack on the Jeuta commander. She did none of those things because a still, small voice inside her whispered for her to stay calm and have faith.

  “Things aren’t going to go the way you think, Alvar,” she said instead. She shook her head, almost feeling sad for him, though she couldn’t understand why. “I’m afraid you’re going to die here and no one among your people will remember you. If they look back at what happened here at all, they’ll see it as the beginning of the end of your Confederation.”

  She wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, but they had a visible effect on the Jeuta. He actually took a step back, head going back as if she’d slapped him, and it took him a moment to collect himself.

  “When the shuttle arrives,” he told her, “you will be brought out to witness.” He reached for the door, but hesitated. “If you wish, once Logan Brannigan has been killed, you will be given the chance to end your own life.”

  “I’ll be leaving this place with him,” she said, the words sounding distant to her, as if someone else were saying them. “But not that way. He’ll live to see his son born. But you won’t.”

  Alvar didn’t respond, the look he gave her as he left the room was alien and unreadable.

  The strength went out of her and she sank back down to the floor, a sob wracking her body. It wasn’t a cry of despair, though she’d expected it to be. To her surprise, she felt none. Instead, it was relief, the conviction that her ordeal was nearly over.

  Where is this coming from?

  She was worried the confinement and the loneliness had finally driven her stark, raving mad. And if it hadn’t…

  Well, that worries me even more.

  A harsh, ruddy light filled the cargo bay of the drop-ship, the glow of the system’s primary star filtered through the ash-strewn atmosphere of the moon. He couldn’t see the gas giant, but he knew it slumbered just across the moon’s terminator, asleep for the moment but ever watchful. The volcano, though, that he could see just fine. It loomed over the plain of the landing field, a wispy cloud of smoke wafting away on the evening wind, some ancient, malevolent god demanding worship from the primitive people huddling in terror beneath its slopes.

  Logan kicked his Sentinel into motion, stomping down the cargo ramp of the drop-ship in defiance of the elder gods, in defiance of the company of Jeuta mecha arrayed in a half-circle around the rear of the drop-ship and the company of infantry spread out in the gaps between them.

  They must think I’m one dangerous bastard. Wonder what could have given them that idea.

  A male stepped forward, wearing some sort of official uniform rather the infantry armor the others sported. He held up a hand, then spoke into a microphone at his left wrist and a voice blared out from speakers on the exterior of one of the mecha, an Agamemnon painted a dull grey.

  “I am Alvar, Primus Pilus of Tarpeia. Exit the mech and surrender if you wish to see your wife.”

  Huh. This is the guy from the message, huh? Doesn’t look so big in person. At least not when I’m up in the cockpit of a Sentinel.

  Logan switched on his own external PA system and responded into his helmet mic.

  “I am Logan Brannigan, son of Jaimie Brannigan, husband of Kathren Margolis and the leader of Wholesale Slaughter.” He thought it best to leave off the business of having been the Guardian of Sparta, since the whole thing was a bit up in the air at the moment. “I am also not a giant fucking idiot. I will exit this mech and surrender when I see my wife alive and unharmed.”

  Alvar fell silent for a moment and Logan wondered if it was because he wasn’t sure how to respond, or simply because he didn’t know Basic well enough to understand.

  “Come down and I will take you to the Planning Center, and your wife,” Alvar finally replied.

  “Lead on,” Logan invited him. “You have my word I won’t attack you, but I’m not getting out of this mech until I see my wife.”

  He’d put the Jeuta in a bad spot, and he knew it. They needed to see him, needed to know it was actually Logan and not some disposable junior officer he’d sent in his place.

  “Very well,” the Primus Pilus acceded. “Our machines will be all around you. If you attempt to run or to attack, you’ll be destroyed immediately.”

  “Agreed.”

  The Jeuta paused, looking back at the drop-ship.

  “What about the flight crew?”

  “There is none,” Logan told him. “It was landed via telemetry. You’re welcome to check.”

  They did, eight of their foot-soldiers bounding up the boarding ramp and taking a good fifteen minutes before returning back down it, signaling the aerospacecraft was clear. Alvar stared at him for a moment, as if considering the matter, but finally signaled for them to move out.

  The mecha spread out around him, the Agamemnon taking the lead, while the infantry piled into armored vehicles and followed. The road from the landing field to the center of the Jeuta colony was rough and rocky, and he was almost sure it was easier going in his Sentinel than it was in one of their assault vehicles.

  It was also endless. He knew it was only about five kilometers, but being this close to Katy and not knowing if she was still alive, still safe gnawed at him. It wore away patience and composure with every second and made even the oversized cockpit of the Sentinel seem tiny and claustrophobic.

  When the armored procession did reach the city, it was something of a disappointment. The Jeuta seemed so alien, so exotic, yet their structures were a study in drab utilitarianism, square and featureless and grey from the steady drizzle of volcanic ash. Everything was grey, from the vehicles to the buildings to the streets. He wouldn’t have been shocked if the Jeuta on the planet had turned grey, but they were the usual dark blue, their skin reminding him of the harbor seals he’d seen in the northern oceans of Sparta.

  They watched him from the doorways and covered walkways in front of buildings that might have been homes or businesses or factories or Mithra knew what else. No one really knew how the Jeuta society worked, if they had any sort of market-based economy or some collectivist system. He saw Jeuta children, something he hadn’t even thought about. He knew they had to reproduce, but the idea of the cold-blooded things raising children seemed somehow incongruous. Their brow ridges weren’t as pronounced as the adults’, their eyes wider and more visible…more human. The sight of them made his skin crawl, made him feel vagu
ely an atavistic chill, like baby spiders or snakes, and he found it hard to look away from those wide, white eyes.

  The mecha led him to another grey building, larger than the rest, the largest he could see in the city even from his vantage point fifteen meters up. It was a dome, the only one in a sea of rectangles and squares, at least a couple hundred meters across, with stairs leading up from the street to its main entrance. A small cluster of figures had gathered on those steps, bristling with weapons and bulky with armor, waiting for them. The leading mecha stopped abruptly and he followed their example, not wanting to risk alarming one of them into shooting. Despite his bravado to Alvar, he knew his Sentinel wouldn’t last more than a few minutes against a whole company.

  He waited until the armored vehicles pulled around in front of him, the infantry troops piling out, their oversized rifles looking like personal artillery pieces. He shuddered at the thought of what the slug from one of the things could do to a human body.

  Alvar disembarked from the lead armored car, walking up the steps into the cluster of troops there. They parted before him and he plunged through their midst, emerging with his thick fingers wrapped around the arm of a human. She was dressed in civilian clothes two sizes too big for her and she was visibly pregnant. From fifty meters away and fifteen meters up, Logan almost didn’t recognize her. He zoomed in with the Sentinel’s optics and his breath caught in his chest.

  Katy.

  “Here is your mate,” Alvar said into his armband mic, and his voice echoed loudly from the Agamemnon’s speakers. “Come down now, unless you wish to see her executed here in front of you.”

  A crowd of Jeuta had gathered, not just the civilians—if that was the right word—watching from the streets, but others in what seemed like military uniforms filing out of the dome entrance. This was the big show, what they’d been waiting for.

  Wouldn’t want to disappoint them.

  Logan powered down the Sentinel, killed the control panel and pulled off his helmet before he cracked open the canopy. He coughed and wrinkled his nose at the rotten-eggs sulfur smell of the air, but began climbing down the side of the mech, hand over hand, making sure the Jeuta saw he was unarmed. He could feel the sights of those big-bore rifles tracking him, ready to blast him into hamburger at the slightest provocation. He didn’t give them one.

  When he came off the last rung of the emergency access ladder, he kept his hands raised and was immediately swarmed by the foot-soldiers. Large, powerful hands grabbed at his shoulders and wrists and more of them began searching him, ripping open his fatigue shirt and yanking at his pockets, searching for hidden weapons. They pressed around him, their smell musky and nearly overpowering, their breath hot on his neck, and he had to grit his teeth to stave off an unfamiliar panic.

  When they were apparently satisfied he wasn’t concealing a bomb, most of the hands fell away, just the one at the back of his neck remaining in place, guiding him up the steps. The guard walking him upward had long legs and Logan had to take two of the steps at a time to keep up, and he found himself grateful for the lighter-than-standard gravity.

  Katy was waiting for him when he reached the top and she threw herself into his arms, sobbing. Logan tensed up, expecting the guards to separate them, but apparently, this Alvar didn’t have a problem with tearful reunions. Or maybe he was simply enjoying the false hope he was giving them before he had Logan’s brains blown out all over the basalt steps.

  Whatever the motivation, Logan didn’t begrudge it as he reveled in Katy’s warmth, at the sudden filling of an empty pit in his heart, the relief of a dull ache he’d born for months now. He felt as if he could float away if she weren’t holding him so tight.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” Katy whispered in his ear. “I hoped you wouldn’t. They’re going to kill you, and they’re not going to let me go.”

  “I know,” he said quietly, kissing her. “I love you. I’ll always be here for you. And for our baby.”

  He slipped an arm around her, keeping her close as he turned to face the Jeuta he recognized as the one who’d sent the message.

  “You are Alvar?” he asked.

  “I am,” the male confirmed. “And it is time for you to pay the price for the life of your mate.”

  Logan smiled, and the stretching of lips over teeth felt like nothing so much as the snarl of a wolf about to do battle with a grizzly for possession of a kill. He touched a control on his wrist and the throat mic concealed in his collar linked automatically with the speakers mounted in the exterior armor of his Sentinel.

  “Primus Pilus Alvar,” he said in perfect Jeuta, practiced over and over for hours during the three-week trip from Sparta, and the words echoed out off the side of the dome, off the steps, through the streets to the ears of military troops and civilians alike.

  “I, Logan Brannigan of Sparta challenge you to do battle in the Pit for my life and the life of my wife, and our freedom to leave this place together, according to your laws and the will of the Purpose.”

  Brow ridges concealed their eyes, but hundreds of heads scanned back and forth between the human and the Jeuta, saying nothing, waiting expectantly. When Alvar spoke, it was softly, to himself, and Logan could barely hear the words, but he knew it was in Basic and that the Jeuta was speaking his language to conceal his reaction from the others.

  “Oh, shit.”

  25

  This is ridiculous,” Alvar hissed, huddled close to Praefectus Magnus, his eyes still boring into Logan Brannigan’s back as the human continued to speak to his mate. Alvar wanted to lunge at the smug, arrogant princeling and pound him into a bloody smear on the basalt and only Magnus’ restraining hand on his shoulder prevented it. “He’s a human! He can’t challenge anyone to the Pit!”

  “I’m afraid there is nothing in the writings of the Purpose that forbids it,” Magnus said, keeping her voice low. “I sent a message to one of the Scholars and she intends to research it further, but her initial response was that you could not turn down this challenge without losing significant standing. Someone else will likely challenge you immediately out of obligation.”

  “How did he know?” Alvar raged. “How did he know of the Pit? How did he know I couldn’t turn down his challenge?”

  “We left Olavi and her ship at Revelation to mop up the last of the survivors,” Magnus reasoned. “She has not reported back as expected.”

  “You really think one of our own would have broken under interrogation?” He had a difficult time imagining it. Jeuta weren’t impervious to pain and discomfort, but they could take much more than a human.

  “Does that matter?” Magnus was irritated with him and maybe, he conceded, she had reason to be. “Just accept the challenge.”

  “What?” he snapped, then regretted it at her quelling glare. “I’d look ridiculous!”

  “He’s tiny, scrawny,” she insisted. “With a blade, or a club, or bare-handed, he’ll be dead in seconds. It’s a waste of time, but we have the time to waste, and you are too newly installed in this position to face a loss of reputation.” She formed a shrug. “Besides, we could record it, send it back to the Dominions via their relay ships. It might send an even more effective message to them than simply executing him.”

  He blew out a breath and forced himself to calm down. She was right, as she usually was. This was a farce but he’d have to let it play out. This Logan Brannigan would pay for his arrogance. He’d meant to kill him quickly, painlessly. Now, he would draw the affair out and make the human suffer.

  He moved forward, less than a meter from the human, towering over him by a head.

  “I, Alvar, accept your challenge, Logan Brannigan,” the legatus said, speaking loudly and in Jeuta. “As challenged, I will select the time.” He nearly specified they would meet immediately, but that would be unseemly. Tradition required he delay things at least till the morning. “We will battle tomorrow, when the star rises to mid-day.”

  He wondered if he’d have to repeat it in
Basic, but Logan was nodding his understanding. He was about to instruct someone to speak up as Logan’s second when for the second time in just minutes, he felt profound surprise.

  “You are the challenger, Logan Brannigan,” Kathren Margolis said, her voice loud and carrying, if a little hesitant. Alvar realized in blinding hindsight that Logan must have been coaching her in the phrases while he and Magnus had argued. “By the customs of our people and the writings of the Purpose, you have the choice of weapons. What will be your choice?”

  “Well done, Kathren,” Alvar murmured in Basic and her eyes flickered toward him.

  This Logan, whatever his failings as a weak and arrogant human, definitely had a flair for the dramatic. He swept his arm back at the Sentinel strike mech.

  “I choose mecha.”

  Alvar barked a laugh and he wasn’t the only one.

  “Human, that is not the way the challenge works,” he told Logan, wishing he had an even better command of Basic so that he might imbue the words with all the scorn he felt. “No ranged weapons are allowed in the Pit, only blades or clubs.”

  “The mech is unarmed,” Logan said, again in Jeuta, again amplified by the speakers. “And I believe, if you research the writings of the Purpose, you’ll find there is no stricture against this.”

  “I can send to the Scholar,” Magnus was whispering in his ear, “and have an answer back in…”

  Alvar waved her advice away, finally giving in to rage. This human was making a mockery of their beliefs, trying to cheat, to take advantage of them as humans had always done.

  “Very well!” Alvar roared, his voice echoing off the surrounding buildings with no need for artificial amplification. “I will meet you here, in front of these very steps tomorrow, and I will show you and your puny, human gods that whether in a mech or with our bare hands, Jeuta are the superior species! I will cut your human machine out from beneath you and I will peel its metal shell from around you and then…”

  His voice choked up, his throat overwhelmed by the rage and the volume. When he resumed, his tone was lower, less out of control but even more threatening.