Schism of Blood and Stone (The Starfield Theory Book 1)

by Brian Frederico

  At one time, Damien and Reyna had shared a thing, though neither seemed quite sure what it was. They had spent considerable time alone, perhaps more than was proper for Commonwealth royalty and lowborn subject. While most couples might talk about when they first met or whatever gossip they found to their liking, Damien and Reyna reminisced about battles past and discussed military doctrine and tactics with just the same sort of enthusiasm and intimacy. She was intoxicating, he realized, but there was something about her that was oddly out of place. She was highly intelligent, of course, but also possessed something violent, dark and frightening. He wondered, albeit privately, if Aaron had begun to take a liking to her. He would have given them his blessing if they only asked for it, but her secrets ran deep, and like Damien, she owed her allegiance to entities beyond the Commonwealth alone.

  “Perhaps. However, the young man, Archduke Kristoffer I, is an employee of Drayton Logistics and Transportation where he captains a vessel called the MacCleod. He is currently somewhere in the Goteborg system. The Sørensens will shortly be on their way to retrieve him from Goteborg and return him to Magdeborg to begin his duties.”

  “This cannot be,” Aaron whispered, hanging his head. “Even if the Sørensens are telling the truth, why should we obey the orders of this peasant?”

  “He is the son of your liege and you will grant him your fealty and allegiance as you should to your superiors,” Damien snapped at the young knight.

  Aaron scoffed. “I see no reason to obey the child Archduke. He is unfit.”

  “That may well be, but you shall obey him, as will the rest of the Commonwealth,” Damien said harshly, his voice dropping in octave.

  “They would never-” Aaron began.

  “They will when they realize his authority is backed by my armies.”

  Aaron narrowed his brow, confused.

  Reyna crossed her arms over her chest impatiently. “It's obvious you have a plan, Lord General, would you care to enlighten the rest of us?”

  The door to the gym slid open loudly, screeching against the slides that would have made opening in zero-g easier. A huge hulking mass filled the door frame then entered the gym with a swiftness that surprised even Damien. Slader Sten was of a size that rivaled some Azuren and seemed to be constructed by some deranged scientist from the most dangerous parts of human anatomy. Genetic alterations in humans had been banned by the Azuren, but Damien couldn't help, but wonder if maybe that branch of the Sten family found a way around it.

  Slader's huge, scarred face twitched in disappointment as he observed the other occupants. “This is an odd place for a war council, Lord Damien,” Slader huffed.

  “This is not a war council. Do you see any generals?”

  “Only one,” Slader said with a smirk directed towards Aaron.

  Damien resisted berating him even though Slader's disdain for Aaron continued to annoy the young knight-colonel. Aaron was not a full blooded Sten and Slader enjoyed reminding him of his lesser stature.

  “Enough. War council or not, you should be reminded to arrive promptly, Slader. I do not have the time to waste.”

  Damien waited until Slader had settled himself. “My brother, before his death, had two additional children, twins. The male has been awarded the title of Archduke by Lord Dietrich.”

  “Impossible,” Slader scoffed. “Duchess Ciara was in no mental or physical state for offspring. Besides, they're just infants. They'll require a more capable regent.”

  “No, Slader, they're in their twenties,” Damien said exasperated at Slader's mental fallacy. “They have been kept hidden and protected for decades in the care of the Sørensens.”

  Slader laughed loudly. “Sørensen protection? Why are we even discussing this? Give my troops the order and we'll see them both dead.”

  Slader commanded a special forces unit known as the Brimstone, known for its ferocity and tactics typically unbecoming of nobility. Now, as he often did, he discarded the Sten family gray and blue uniform for a black and red one that his Brimstone forces had adapted many years prior. Although he was a Commonwealth knight, he owned no territory and his unit was a bizarre exception in the Commonwealth military. Slader did not personally own the unit in the same sense as other nobles who armed and equipped their own troops, rather, it was a compilation of the best warriors from many units, all assigned to the Brimstone. They operated with Damien's forces on the border, terrorizing the Dominion troops whenever they engaged. Despite Slader's questionable morality and unorthodox tactics, his unit formed part of the backbone of the Commonwealth resistance against Dominion predations.

  Furthermore, Slader's reputation preceded him wherever he went. He was a violent man, Damien knew, who frequently skirted the line between efficiency and brutality. On the battlefield his troops were ruthless, slaughtering entire enemy units and refusing to accept duels between nobles and accepting prisoners and ransoms. Often they hunted down defeated enemies rather than allow them to withdraw as was otherwise traditional. More than one Dominion unit had withdrawn without a shot fired just at the site of the black and red painted forces before them.

  Slader's direct, violent approach prevented him from grasping the finer points of strategy. If it was not a problem that could be solved with force, it was not a problem within Slader's capability of solving. Damien paused and looked to Aaron for a response. Let him learn to deal with pitiful fools. He shall find himself surrounded by them when his time for leadership comes. He must learn to control his cousin or he will never be the leader I need.

  Aaron wiped sweat from his brow and leaned on his sword casually as if lecturing a child. “Don't be stupid, Slader. This is the Archduke of Magdeborg. Killing him puts Lord Damien in suspicion and is, not to mention, treasonous.”

  “And does not accomplish what I aim to do with him,” Damien added.

  “You didn't look as pissed off as I would be,” Slader said.

  Damien bit back a rebuke and continued. “He is far more valuable alive than he is dead, regardless of his age or ability. In fact, in this case, it may help us considerably. Aaron, I need you to go to Legate Ojressi and convince him to lock down the system until we find Kristoffer.”

  “Ojressi will do that for us?” Aaron asked.

  “Doubtful, but I can't have him slip away. Tell him we are looking for a criminal and take Slader with you. Ojressi will believe it more if Slader is tasked with hunting him down.”

  “I don't like it,” Slader grunted. “They are too unpredictable if we leave them alive. Far safer to off the both of them and be done with them.”

  “I need them alive. I cannot take the throne by force so we must use other means that means. I must test their DNA to see if Lord Dietrich's story is actually true. If it is not...”

  “It would mean war with the Sørensens,” Aaron said smashing one fist into his palm with a smack that echoed through the gym. “This is very risky, my lord.”

  “Do you trust me to pull this off?” Damien asked, leveling his gaze at the young knight.

  Aaron nodded firmly. “Of course, uncle.”

  “Now if we did uncover a Sørensen plot, it would mean more than war, it would mean the complete collapse of the Commonwealth,” Damien added with severity. “Now prepare your troops. We will not have much time to react when we receive the distress call.”

  Damien turned to leave, but was stopped short by Reyna's hand on his arm. “My Lord, a moment of your time?” Damien glanced awkwardly at the strong fingers on his bicep, but nodded.

  Aaron snapped his eyes between Damien and his paramour, momentarily confused. She shooed him away with an annoyed look. Aaron let Slader's long legs carry him a fair distance away before he followed in his wake.

  “You should have sent me with Aaron to talk to Legate Ojressi,” she said.

  “Aaron needs to learn for himself. There will come a day when I will be gone and he can't rely on you, a commoner, to help him through difficult situations. He also needs to learn to be authoritativ
e over his cousin. It is a simple task. He can handle it.”

  Reyna frowned in disapproval. She had a diplomatic way with words that often resulted in getting what she wanted. Sending her would have been too easy. Aaron must grow on his own.

  When she hesitated, he asked, “What else?”

  “I got word the other day from Hidelborg. The Administration is not happy,” she warned, referencing the Starfield Theorists' leaders.

  Damien sighed. “They never are. It is not my responsibility to please them.”

  “You haven't been in contact-”

  “I am not their lap dog to come as they call, either!” he snapped. Damien took a breath and calmed himself, envisioning the fire popping and hissing. She is not the problem here, the Administrators demand too much.

  “Nevertheless we are both Theorists and we owe our allegiance to them.”

  “I'm getting tired of their games. They waste their time with petty attacks and empty gestures. It accomplishes nothing,” Damien hissed.

  “There was an execution,” Reyna said calmly, unfazed by the Lord General's outburst. “At Garda just a few days ago.”

  Damien felt his anger seep away like a spilled beverage replaced by a cold rising fear. “Who?”

  “Darren.”

  Damien nodded and closed his eyes for a moment's respect for the dead. “He was so close, but I could not help him.”

  “You were at Remmington. There was nothing any of us could do.”

  Damien frowned. “I was forced to listen to my sister make a fool of herself and Dietrich set up the grounds for a coup d'etat and the Administration blames me.”

  “They didn't say that in so many words...”

  “They twist words just as well as the Sørensens. I don't need their condescension. How did the Azuren find Darren?”

  “The shipment of Azure was a trap,” Reyna explained. “After the bombing of the convoy, they changed the schedule. The ship was there, but it was full of Averi legionaries, not Azure.”

  Damien had never seen the liquid called Azure before. Allegedly the most valuable substance in the galaxy, Azure was believed by the Starfield Theorists to give the Azuren their incredible mental and physical abilities. Supposedly the Azuren replaced their blood with the substance wholesale, but no one had ever seen an Azuren bleed to confirm the myth.

  “There must have been a leak, some sort of tip off that we were coming,” Damien said as his mind raced through other Theorist agents, analyzing their loyalty, searching for possible fifth columnists.

  “There's more,” Reyna continued sadly. “Observers noted scars on Darren's head. They think he may have been indexed.”

  “They wouldn't dare,” Damien whispered. “Such torture is forbidden even on humans by their own laws let alone Amrah's laws.”

  Indexing had been made illegal centuries before and the technology was believed to be lost, but several machines were known to remain in existence. The indexing process changed the electrochemical points of information, or POI, in the brain into code which could be translated into real images, thoughts and words. The Pedant Theorists still had the ability to decode those POI, but Damien didn't believe they had any of the machines themselves. The Azuren certainly possessed a number of them, but using them publicly would have dire repercussions. The use of such machines on a Starfield Theorist however, could easily be brushed away. Theorists were dangerous terrorists, of course, so no one, especially the nobility, cared much what happened to them.

  If Darren had been indexed, it was possible, if the Azuren had decoded the POI correctly, that he had given up the location of the Theorist sect on Hidelborg, Damien's own fief. That will give me new and greater problems than the Dominion, Damien thought. Let's hope the Azuren botched the indexing.

  The process of indexing left the victim essentially mindless. As the POI were pulled and analyzed they were deleted from the brain. The victim did not always die, but rather was left with little or no memory, depending on how well he was able to resist the indexing.

  “One of the Praxis teams tried to recover his body to confirm and failed. Ojressi has been known to be particularly ruthless towards Vagabonds. He was also commanding the response force that crushed the Manderheim rebellion and executed the survivors by spearing them to the ground all over the planet's capital.”

  “I remember,” Damien said. I care little for the Dominion-sympathetic residents of Manderheim, but what happened to them is inhumane. I remember the smell of the bodies roasting in the suns. They could still be there for all I know.

  “How much danger are we in then? How much did Darren know about us?” Damien asked.

  “The time between his capture and execution was nearly two weeks, which means they could have indexed his brain repeatedly. So they either got very little or found him to be a gold mine.”

  Damien exhaled slowly. Most people don't last more than one index. The procedure is so invasive they either break and reveal everything they know or die in the process. “If he was indexed repeatedly, he must have been very resilient,” he said though he doubted it to be true.

  Reyna nodded uncertainly.

  “If the Azuren had gotten anything out of him they'd have moved on us by now.”

  “You must contact the Administration,” Reyna pleaded. “They must know immediately if we have any sort of trouble with Azuren.”

  “I must do nothing, Reyna. I must protect my identity and I must pursue my claim to Magdeborg's throne.”

  “They will expect updates. They already think you spend too much time attending to the Commonwealth's politics-”

  “And not enough to their will and whims. No more. I have my duties to the Commonwealth and my family. I cannot afford to be sidetracked by the Administrators.”

  “But the Azuren's control over humanity must be brought to heel. What use is your throne if you overthrow one overlord for another?” Reyna asked almost soothingly.

  Damien paused, considering her words.

  “I can better fight the Azuren from the throne on Magdeborg than I can isolated on the border,” Damien justified slowly. “Even if the Azuren discovered my identity through Darren they will have far more trouble reaching me as sovereign of an independent state. I can muster the full might of the Commonwealth's armies to crush Azuren influence here and across the entire Core if it comes to that.”

  Reyna smirked at him. “There is that idealism in you again,” she said taking his arm gently. He felt his enthusiasm and vigor drain at her touch. “You were never a revolutionary zealot before. Do you really think the Commonwealth can stand against the Azuren and their allies? We can barely keep the Dominion at bay.”

  “We are not defenseless,” Damien breathed, suddenly feeling weaker.

  “The war with the Dominion has left us depleted. We can barely keep adequate garrisons on the border let alone every world on which the Averi are stationed.”

  “Then we have to end the conflict with the Dominion as soon as possible, crush them on Goteborg and call for a white peace, long enough for me to assume the throne and consolidate the Commonwealth's power to-”

  “Damien, you dream too big,” Reyna said softly. “Always strive for the best, but be content with what you get. It will take generations for the Commonwealth to regain its strength and we still have to defeat the Dominion here.”

  Damien repressed a loud sigh and allowed only for the barest slump of his shoulders. He felt Reyna squeeze his arm reassuringly though it did little to sooth him.

  “Perhaps you're right, my dear, one step at a time. First we must stop the Dominion at Goteborg.”

  As Damien stepped toward the doors with Reyna in tow a younger officer wearing the uniform of Damien's personal unit from Hidelborg rushed in.

  “My Lord!” He cried and managed a hasty one-kneed bow. “Message from the Sørensens.”

  “I've grown tired of Sørensen missives of late. Leave it in my quarters,” he said waving his hand as if dispelling smoke.

 
“But, my lord,” the officer heaved, clearly distressed at disobeying his liege. “It is about Lord Pershing.”

  Damien snatched the the data reader from the officer and read it quickly, his eyes stumbling over the words like a frantic escapee through dense underbrush.

  Reyna glanced at Damien and saw real fear in his eyes that lasted only the briefest of moments. Finally he crumpled up the piece of paper and tossed it into the fire.

  “Pershing is loose,” he said.

  “Impossible!” Reyna breathed. “He was secured!”

  “Apparently not. The worst enemy the Commonwealth has seen in a hundred years is going to be rejoining his armies soon. Goteborg was in danger before, but now I don't know if we can hold it.”

  “What are you going to do?” Reyna asked carefully.

  Damien took a deep breath, his brain whirling through problems and possible solutions. He needed his fire to calm his mind, help him think.

  Finally, his voice nearly quivering, he said, “Perhaps we ought to pray, maybe only the Azuren's deity could help us now.”

  Lady Salena Teton-Sten

  Duchess of Danvers

  19 February, 23,423

  Stargate, Danvers, Magdeborg Commonwealth

  ______________

  “Do you understand the enormity of what you are asking? Such a delay could crash local economies, important medical transfers would have to be put on hold resulting in countless deaths. I cannot stress the impacts enough,” Thessilony the Azuren Legate to Danvers and the Teton family breathed loudly through his nostrils. His face sagged like sack on the verge of ripping and he stooped so badly he appeared deformed. The strand of beads in his hair barely reached beyond his ears, indicating a quiet and unaccomplished career. The gentle glow of his data pad revealed foggy eyes that had long ago lost their blue sheen and his hair had changed from Azuren white to gray death and hung off his spotted head in clumps.

  The very sound was amplified by the tight confines of the receiving room attached to the man's office. Calling it spartan would have done it too much justice. It consisted of nothing, but two uncomfortable chairs and a simple table on which was stacked a number of data pads. The dim lighting bothered Salena's eyes and she doubted the ancient Azuren could even see at all. Clearly, Thessilony did not spend much time here in his role as legate. Dealing with the tribulations of mere humans was too bothersome and distracting for him and his disinterest defined his relationship with Salena and the Tetons for his entire career.