Steele widened his smile in sympathy while reflecting that Hurst was the only politician he’d ever met who talked openly about serving her donors instead of the public. “After the incident with the protesters, people are worried.” To put it mildly. “More importantly, investors fear that business might not proceed as usual if democracy is replaced by a command-and-control society.”
“Oh, is that all?”
Her sarcasm almost made him laugh in her face. If she thinks she can disrespect the CEO of Darkstream and remain unscathed, a stern lesson will follow. “Well, there’s also the widespread concern that you’ll favor the colonies where you have business interests, not to mention the incalculable economic activity that simply vanished when you deported millions of aliens. I’m sure the wool can be pulled over the public’s eyes about the former, and the latter we’ll just have to deal with. But when the galactic economy starts to fail altogether…well, that’s a little harder to manage.”
The president’s bravado wilted as quickly as it had sprung up, along with her leathery face. “What do I do, Tennyson? You’ve always had a grand vision for where we’re headed as a species. Anyone who knows you can see that.”
Ah, flattery. A better tack for you, no doubt. He had to admit, he did love being flattered. “Here’s what you do. You declare that the reason you’ve been out of touch with the public is that you’ve been working around the clock to bring to justice whoever gave the order to kill those civilians.”
“But…I gave the order.” Her voice had dropped almost to a whisper, which Steele found comical. Actually, he found basically everything about Hurst comical.
“I know. Even so, you’ll hold a press conference and tell them you didn’t give the order. You’ll say that the cops were acting on their own and will be disciplined proportionately. I’d recommend choosing a scapegoat from within their command structure, preferably someone disliked by their subordinates, to pin it on.”
“That will amount to giving in to the protesters. I don’t give in to economic terrorists, Steele.”
Steele shook his head, and he could feel his neck flesh wobble. “I’m not suggesting you give in to them. This is about repairing the economy, and there are ways to quash protests without suffering the political fallout that comes from killing them.”
“What about the whole dark tech thing? People will never stop protesting if they think I’m catering to a company set to destroy the universe.”
Removing his glasses, he squinted at her, though he kept his smile in place. “I’m sure you’re not suggesting failing to cater to that company.”
Hurst threw up both hands, palms facing him. “No, of course not. That would be absurd.”
“Indeed. Where dark tech is concerned, my advice is to launch a…public awareness campaign, let’s say. Spin the real danger as a conspiracy between Keyes, the Ixa, and scientists who say dark tech is destructive—even government scientists. Dark tech isn’t destroying the universe. Of course it’s not. That’s nothing but a hoax designed to take away people’s freedoms and creature comforts. And people do love their creature comforts, don’t they?”
“Yes. That’s brilliant, Tennyson.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, really. But it should scale the unrest way down, and whoever remains in the streets…well, we can quietly deal with them. I’m sure the media will cooperate.”
“Of course they will. If they know what’s good for them.”
“And they do. They know who signs their advertising checks.” He stood, and Hurst followed suit, her hands clasping before her. “A fine meeting, Madam President,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an economy to carry.”
Chapter 13
Forgotten Instincts
A ghost shark swam toward Ek, and she almost wished it would attack her. The thought shamed her instantly, and only served to highlight how different she was from other Fins, who valued harmony with all ocean life.
Every Fin carried a stunner to repel predators without causing them harm, but today, Ek’s did not become necessary. The ghost shark swam by her, its gray, soulless eyes making it impossible to tell whether it had even noticed her.
She kicked at a rubbery sea fern with her metal foot, and it bounced back to its original position. Curling her hands into fists, she marched on.
The Speakers sentencing her to remain on Spire had clouded her thoughts with anger. How dare they? She was useless here, as useless as they were.
Except, she still had access to the Prophecies. Even if they would not allocate any resources to helping her decipher them.
Ek took out a tablet from her rubber satchel, and it turned on at her touch, illuminating the murk for only a few meters. Her ancestors had not had access to such a device for their scholarly work. They had written on treated rubber paper with the durable ink of the cuttleslug. Ek took a moment to give thanks for the modern tools at her disposal.
After watching footage of the war council between the humans and the Wingers, she had become fascinated with the verses Ochrim had identified, about a phoenix.
According to Flockhead Bytan, Captain Keyes considered the phoenix a reference to his ship, the Providence. But Ek did not feel as sure about that. She could not quite place her doubt, but she considered it well worth exploring, especially considering the verse that warned: Remain, and the tower crumbles. The “tower” had to mean Spire, and if the true phoenix was still here…
Your people need you, phoenix, even as they fall to the scythe.
She expected that referred to civilians getting massacred in front of the Commonwealth’s seat of power, news of which had reached Spire just hours ago. Starbursts in the sky meant the supernovas, clearly, and Fesky had already figured out that Ochrim was the disruptor.
The verses held nothing else for her. Scarlet anger flashed again at the edges of her thoughts, but she pushed it away. There has to be something I am missing.
She began flicking aimlessly through page after page of the Prophecies. Four flicks later, and a passage caught her eye.
Ardent’s chosen let a bird fly free, didn’t they?
Didn’t they.
The bird chased instincts it forgot it had. Didn’t it?
Didn’t it.
Vermin stuffed it in a cage, didn’t they?
Didn’t they.
Birdsong brought down Ardent’s rage. Didn’t it?
Didn’t it.
It struck her, then. The bird from this passage was the phoenix, which did not represent Keyes’s supercarrier at all. It represented Warren Husher, who the Wingers had imprisoned. She did not have to stretch her imagination very far to accept that the Wingers might be called “vermin” by the Ixan Prophecies.
She instructed her tablet to calculate the most efficient route to Flockhead Bytan’s office, and then she ran along it as fast as she could, using her fins and tail to speed her along the ocean floor.
Chapter 14
Suffer His Wrath
Caine checked her action for the umpteenth time before checking around the next corner. Her determination not to let her recovery interfere with her performance had made her overly cautious about everything, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Unless it makes me too slow, and I die while I’m triple-checking that I loaded my gun.
Pairs of marines crept down the branching alleyways to check for enemies, or for anyone who might alert radicals to their presence. Caine’s squad was creeping through Larissa, the capital of Thessaly, and Husher’s squad followed behind, keeping their distance in case Caine ran into trouble and they needed to execute a flank.
A local warlord named Thresh had conquered Larissa, taking advantage of the instability brought by the war, which had diverted the UHF’s attention elsewhere. In normal times, it would have been the Providence’s job to root the warlord out. In normal times. Not now.
The first two marines returned, and Private Simmons reported. “Looks like some of Thresh’s goons are harassing some followers of that new branch
of Ardentism.”
Caine nodded. “I’m going to check it out.”
She saw the skeptical looks that passed between her marines. Ignoring them, she pushed down the alleyway, which let out onto a square. Kneeling in the shadows and holding her rifle at the ready, she took in the scene, sweat rolling down her forehead.
Just as Simmons had relayed, five radicals were shoving around a group of Ardent worshipers. This new branch of the religion promoted peace, even in the face of persecution. The radicals were forcing them to their knees and jabbing them with gun muzzles.
“Ardent frowns on your heresy,” one of the radicals yelled, loud enough for everyone in the square to hear. “I spit on your perversion of his teachings.” The radical spat on the closest pacifist, in case anyone thought he was speaking figuratively, Caine supposed.
Someone knelt on the other side of the alley, and Caine glanced over. It was Husher.
“We’re wasting time,” he said over a two-way channel. He’d been fairly quiet since the incident aboard the Caesar, where Gok had killed his entire squad. When he’d radioed for Caine’s help, she’d been so worried for him that she could barely think. She didn’t like experiencing the anxiety Husher caused her on a daily basis. It angered her, in fact. No one should have the power to make me feel like that. And no one had, not for almost a decade. I have to keep fighting this. I can’t afford to be so preoccupied with anything other than winning the war.
In the square, another radical was yelling. “Denounce your sick interpretation of Ardent’s teachings or suffer his wrath.” She leveled a pistol at one of the pacifist’s heads.
“We gotta help them,” Caine said.
“It would blow our cover.” Husher’s head cocked sideways, and she could see him squinting at her from inside his helmet. “I seem to recall, on our last mission to this planet, you were ready to shoot civilians if they endangered your marines. Which is fair enough, but now you’re ready to risk our mission to help people we don’t know?”
He was right. She’d changed, and it wasn’t just her psychosis that had done it. It was this entire war, and the role they’d been playing in it.
“Isn’t this what serving on the Providence is about?” she said. “I mean, maybe we can’t beat the UHF. Maybe we’ll never stop the Ixa. But we can always do the right thing. Can’t we? Nobody has the power to take that away from us.”
No answer from Husher.
“I’m tired of everyone questioning my judgment just because of what happened to me,” she said. “I’m the same Caine, Husher. I’ve just been through some stuff.”
“You’re right. Pick your target.”
“What?”
“Come on. Who are you going to shoot? These people are out of time, so if we’re rolling the dice, let’s do it now.”
“I’ll take the one on the farthest right. You start at the left. Work our way in.”
“Okay.” Husher switched his assault rifle to fire short busts and raised it to sight along the barrel. “Ready.”
Caine took aim. “Fire.”
The gun shuddered in her hands, and her target went down, jerking backward as her bullet took him in the throat. Smoothly, she lined up the muzzle with the next target to the left and squeezed the trigger. He went down. Caine’s and Husher’s rounds took down the fifth radical simultaneously.
Husher leapt to his feet and rushed into the square as he started giving orders over a wide channel. “I want my squad roaming the area surrounding this square in pairs. Caine’s squad, take up positions on the perimeter. Hopefully we won’t be here long, but until we leave I want to hear about everything that moves.”
She followed him to the group of pacifists, who were rising to their feet, looking shaky.
“We thank you,” said a woman who Caine took to be their leader. No one contested her right to speak, anyway. “Ardent thanks you.”
“Tell him he’s welcome,” Caine said. “What intel can you give us about the way into the inner city? How many of Thresh’s people should we expect to encounter? What defenses have they set up?”
The pacifist leader bowed her head. “I’m sorry. We don’t involve ourselves in conflict.”
“I’m not asking you to involve yourself. I’m asking you to give me information to keep my men and women from dying.”
“It is against our beliefs. We do not provide intelligence to soldiers. We are leaving this city.”
Caine exchanged disbelieving looks with Husher. “Useless,” she said over a two-way channel.
“I guess we’re done here,” he said. “I’ll call back the others.”
As the pacifists trickled out of the square in the direction of Larissa’s outskirts, one of them lingered behind, a young boy. Once the others were gone, he approached Caine.
“Soldier,” he said.
“Yes? You’re not about to try to convert me, are you?”
He shook his head, eyes on the ground. “Thresh has set up a blockade, six blocks from here. They’ve pieced it together from whatever’s around. Cars. Rubble. They have snipers everywhere, and every alleyway is monitored. You won’t make it through.”
I can’t believe that other one kept this from us. “Is there any way to get through underground? A sewer system, maybe? Subway?”
“There is a sewer, but Thresh has filled in several passages with dirt. It will take you days to get anywhere.”
“Okay. Thank you. You’ve done the right thing.”
He nodded and ran in the direction of his fellows. Hopefully they wouldn’t pick up on what he’d done. Judging by their behavior, they wouldn’t hesitate to throw him to the wolves in the name of their beliefs.
Caine switched to a two-way and turned to Husher. “You heard that?”
“Yeah.”
“So…you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Pretty sure I am.” He switched to a wide channel. “All right, marines, proceed with extreme caution. There’s a heavily fortified blockade six blocks ahead, according to a local. I want the first one who sees it to use their heads-up to paint it for an airstrike. We’re gonna blow our way through. You hear that, Condor pilots?”
A squadron of Condors outfitted for aerial bombing runs were standing by in Thessaly’s mesosphere. “Copy that, Spank,” one of them said.
“Let’s move, marines.”
Caine switched back to a two-way channel between her and Husher. “Hey…lieutenant?”
He turned back, eyebrows raised behind his faceplate.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Sure thing.” Turning, he started toward the enemy fortifications, where Thresh’s radicals were waiting to rip the marines apart at their first miscalculation.
Caine followed.
Chapter 15
The Shape the End Takes
Bytan spread her wings in a rare display of irritation. “With all due respect Honored One, I’m not sure what you want me to do. You say Spire is in danger, but we’ve bolstered our orbital defense platforms’ nuclear arsenal since the human warship broke through and crashed to the surface. Our sensors will spot any threat that approaches across the Larkspur system. This is as safe as we can be.”
“It is not,” Ek said. “You can recall the fleet. Including the UHF ships you gained.”
The flockhead’s beak clacked. “Out of the question. They are fighting to keep our colonies from being completely overrun.”
“The colonies can hold their own while you stop your entire species from getting decapitated. Without Spire, the Wingers will be lost. And so will my people.”
“Spire is just as valuable to me as it is to you, Honored One. And the Fins are even more valued, as you know. But I can’t just abandon the strategy we settled on at the war council, with the full Directorate present, no less. At least, if I am to abandon it, I need a better reason than Ixan poetry.”
“You know that it is more than that. It has reliably predicted events.”
“It didn’t predict Lieutenant Hu
sher breaking through to the surface of Spire, or the Providence surviving that battle. I’m sorry, Honored One, but you aren’t even able to tell me exactly what form this threat will take. I can’t formulate battle plans based on flights of fancy. You’re asking something I can’t do.”
Ek bowed her head deeply. “Your words do not anger me, Flockhead Bytan. They sadden me. I have deep respect for you, and it brings me no joy to see you destroyed by the bonds you place on yourself.”
“Honored One…” The Winger’s dark eyes shone, and Ek could tell she felt helpless. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing, and know that it has been a pleasure to know you. I hope you survive what is to come.”
Ek left Bytan’s office, feeling numb since the first time she took to space aboard a battered asteroid miner. I have failed. And now all is lost.
There was one thing she could do. According to the Prophecies.
Your people need you, phoenix, even as they fall to the scythe.
She ran through the Winger army base, alarms blaring even before she left.
“All personnel to battle stations,” a panicked voice said from every loudspeaker. “Talon pilots, take wing. Reserve forces, prepare for transport to your designated orbital defense platforms. A Gok fleet has appeared in-system and is headed straight toward Spire.”
So this is the shape the end takes.
Wingers could reach almost anywhere on land simply by flying, but for more urgent purposes they took a speeder. When Ek reached the vehicle bay, she was relieved to find several of them ready to deploy, their sleek contours glimmering in the dim lighting.
Dashing to the one nearest the exit, she hopped inside and got its systems running as quickly as she could. Then she burst out of the vehicle bay and onto the network of roads.
Traffic was heavier than normal, though that was still fairly light. Wingers preferred to use their wings, and they took the barest excuse to do so. When Ek did encounter other speeders, she simply drifted around them. Back when her legs had been new, before she found a ship willing to take her off-planet, she had spent a lot of time cruising in speeders, and the skills she acquired then proved useful now.
Juggernaut: The Ixan Prophecies Trilogy Book 2 Page 5
