Syndicate's Pawns

by Davila LeBlanc

  Easier humping said than done.

  Phaël slowly and deliberately rolled her back up one vertebra at a time. She ignored the tightening discomfort of her stitches. If she could keep her breathing regular and relaxed then she knew that she was not doing any harm to herself. If she kept up these daily practices, she would be fully recovered soon enough. For the moment she would have to take things very easy. The last thing Phaël wanted was for her stitches to tear. That would require more contact with the rest of the crew and for the moment, Phaël was quite happy spending her time alone.

  She found her thoughts turning to her living skinsuit: Oricia. Carefully packed away in the ship’s arsenal, the suit had been a gift to her from the Elvrid Breedmasters of Uldur. While the suit resembled a hollowed-­out chitinous shell, it was in fact more accurate to describe it as a plant. The relationship between both the user and the suit was a symbiotic one. On its own, the suit was blind, and unable to move. And without the suit’s protective properties, Phaël would have been unable to survive in the vacuum of space.

  Soon enough she would have to don Oricia once more and step outside the ship. The skinsuit derived most of its nourishment from sunlight and by nibbling away at dirt and bacteria on the skin. It was rumored to take years, decades even, to produce but one. And Phaël considered it a tremendous honor that Oricia had chosen her to be its companion.

  Her pointed left ear twitched as she heard the sound of metal footsteps approaching from behind her, bringing her back into the moment. She turned around to be greeted by Chord. “Salutations to you, Phaël Farook Nem’Ador.”

  Phaël delicately felt the stitches behind her. They were all still intact. Itching, but intact. “Healthy greetings to you, Machina Chord.”

  “How are you finding your recuperation?”

  She twisted her face in a grimace as she arched her back as far as she could. “Slow, painful, frustrating.”

  “That would appear to be the standard for biological creatures.” Chord observed her intently. “May this unit be of assistance?”

  “I am fine.” Phaël sat herself back down in her cross-­legged posture and stretched herself forward, letting out a soft grunt as she did. “What brings you down here?”

  Chord sat itself down in front of Phaël in perfect mimicry of her. “This unit had a moment of free time and decided it would come and see how you were doing.”

  “Very sweet of you. If such a word can even apply.” Phaël would normally never have given a Machina any consideration. However, the truth was that during their last mission Chord had saved her life, and she did not know how to express her conflicting thoughts on the matter.

  As if reading this, Chord spoke. “There is a saying that the wolf is responsible for the cub it saves. Up until it had volunteered to serve on the Jinxed Thirteenth, this unit had never had that responsibility.”

  Phaël let out a quick sharp laugh when she heard this. “You’re responsible for me now? Feeling like a Mama-­Machina?”

  “This unit is aware that you are capable of taking care of yourself. It also knows that you were forced to go against your beliefs to survive the mission on Moria Three.” Chord paused, and for the first time since they had met, Phaël thought she could see hesitation playing itself on its polymorphic artificial face.

  “Just say what you have to say, Machina.”

  “This unit has observed that Jessie Madison does not trust it due to the events in her past. It therefore wonders if Phaël trusts it or not.”

  “Well, to be true, Machina Chord, my beliefs and thoughts on this matter are in conflict.” Phaël looked up from her stretch and considered her next words carefully. It was something she was not in the practice of doing. Her old masters would have most likely been proud of this.

  “When I was a little girl, my home of Ador was in the midst of the bloodiest war in its history.”

  Chord nodded in recognition. “This unit was aware that you, Private Lunient Tor, and Morrigan Brent were all former members of the Adoran Liberation Forces.”

  “Yes, but what you don’t know, couldn’t have known for that matter, Machina, was the reason why I was even fighting in the first place.” Phaël paused again and pointed to her right ear. The tip of it was missing and appeared to have been cut off in a perfectly even straight line.

  “I was a little pup living in Denhaven, a wooded village of Wolvers dedicated to the Living Green. I had a ma, a pa and a Seft. One day the war came to our forest. What hope did we have against men and women armed with the newest technology offered by the Pax Humanis?” Phaël paused for a moment. Unlike a Humanis, who would have used this moment of silence to say something or interrupt, Chord waited for her to carry on.

  “When my mother was trying to hide me, a silver metal ball was thrown into our hut. It bleeped and sprang into the air, firing out long red tendrils. They sliced through my mother like she was made out of air and she fell to the ground in pieces. One of those tendrils sliced through my right ear.” Phaël pointed to her flattened ear.

  “The canister was a mono-­film wire grenade. It had the insignia of the Pax Humanis emblazoned on it. My entire Seft was killed by men who wielded those weapons, sold to them by the Pax Humanis to help put down Adoran freedom fighters.” Phaël shook her head as the image of her mother falling into pieces played itself out in her mind.

  “This unit is sorry to hear of your experiences.”

  Phaël shook her head. “The worst part is that my Seft was not involved on either side of the battle. I learned later on that the attack had been staged as an attempt by the Argentine elite to demoralize and discredit the Adoran Liberation Forces.

  “When Morrigan Brent and Lunient Tor found me, I was starving and my wound had become infected. They nursed me back to health and took care of me. Morrigan made it a point to have me learn the ways of my ­people. Those two men are my family and they are the only ­people in the cosmos I fully trust.”

  Chord seemed to be absorbing all this information. “If this unit could offer an observation, it would be that conflict of any kind appears to bring about the worst in those who are drawn into it.”

  Phaël shot Chord a bitter smile. “Isn’t that the Green’s plain truth?”

  “Indeed. This unit will not insist that you answer the question of whether you trust it or not. That being said—­” Chord reached out and touched Phaël’s hand “—­this unit thanks you for sharing your experience with it and hopes that we will both be able to understand each other better.”

  Phaël begrudgingly gave Chord’s metal hand a friendly pat. “You have my gratitude for saving my life, Machina Chord. And given how strange and marvelous the Infinite Living Cosmos can be, who knows? Maybe one day ‘trust’ will be the word that describes the bond between us.”

  Chord pulled its hand away and got up. “This unit would like that greatly.”

  CHAPTER 4

  MORWYN

  The Advent War presented the Humanis and the Machina with a unifying enemy: the false machine god better known as the Pontifex. It was in the wake of its defeat that the eternal peace known as the Covenant was signed, with the intention no doubt being that there would never again be conflict between the Humanis and Machina. Eternity, however, is an unfathomably long time and the Covenant will have to face the greatest enemy of peace: complacency.

  —­Serlena Chol,

  Zerok scholar and author of The Fragile Eternity,

  13th of SSM–04 1445 A2E

  17th of SSM–11 1445 A2E

  “If you had the choice, Lizbeth, where would you travel to?” Captain Morwyn Soltaine was lying on his back beneath one of the main bridge’s consoles and making certain that all the astrocharts and navigational computer wires were properly plugged into their appropriate slots. A month had passed since Jessie Madison’s rescue and subsequent awakening. Normally Morwyn was quite neat and proper, howeve
r, given the fact that the Jinxed Thirteenth was nowhere close to being starflight worthy, he had stopped shaving in the interests of time and now sported three weeks of thin facial hair. Kelthans were not known for their beards. That was the domain of the Wolvers and Thegrans.

  Seated at the helm, with several long black wires plugged into her back and palms, pilot Lizbeth Harlowe gave Morwyn’s question some thought before answering him. “I have always wanted to visit Uldur. Would you believe me if I told you that I have never seen a forest before?” When she spoke, her voice was modulated, almost electronic.

  Lizbeth was a clone from the nation of Lotus, vat grown and tailored from birth to be an astrogator and pilot, with well over half her body replaced by augments and synthetic pieces so that she could better interface with any vessel she was charged with. Harlowe had been donated to the Covenant when it was discovered that she would not use her skills on military operations. Her former owners had thought she was defective. The Covenant had thought differently. She was a thin woman, her head bald, and her eyes milky white. She wore a single silver thermskin suit, and her skin was pale with a cream-­like quality to it.

  “I would believe you.” Morwyn plugged in a fiber-­optic cable and smiled when it glowed green.

  “Our astrocharts are back online.” Lizbeth was visibly happy as she called this out. She would need those charts if there were to be any hope of safe return to Central Point. Plugged into the ship, she was now capable of “seeing” through the various cameras and sensors on board. The Jinxed Thirteenth was effectively an extension of her body. And while Morwyn had a personal neurolink interface grafted at the base of his neck that allowed him to upload situational combat information to any operative under his command once he was plugged in, he could not begin to imagine what it was like to “feel” the entirety of the ship as part of oneself.

  Morwyn pulled himself out from beneath the console. “Good to know we will be able to find our way back to Central Point when we are mobile once more.”

  “Could be a long while before we get ourselves to that point,” a snarky voice barked out over the coms link. Morwyn looked out the main bridge view port to see two shapes walking along the hull outside. One was almost a giant in a clunky orange repair lifesuit. The person in the lifesuit was Kolto, a top graduate from the Engineering Academies of Alexandros. The other, much shorter and in a low-­tech life-­rig made out of fibers rather than composite plastics and metal, was Oran Arterum Nem’Troy, the oldest serving member of the Jinxed Thirteenth and lead machinist.

  “My love and starfire is correct in her assessment, Captain Morwyn,” Kolto added in his deep booming voice, thick with a Thegran accent.

  “Of course I’m right! Name one instance where I’ve been wrong,” Oran snapped back at Kolto. The two of them were presently hard at work repairing the ship’s damaged mobility drive.

  “What new problems have you discovered, Machinist Oran?” Morwyn resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. Nothing was ever simple.

  A little more than a standard year ago, Morwyn Soltaine had been languishing as a Pax Police officer in the violent streets of Barsul, sentenced to uphold the Hegemon’s iron laws in this starkest of ghettos on the world of Ambrosia. Following the council of his friend and mentor Commander Eliana Jafahan, Morwyn had chosen to abandon his claim to Pax Humanis citizenship in exchange for serving the common Humanis good with the Covenant.

  He had been able to gather a skeleton crew for the Jinxed Thirteenth, and Covenant Command at Central Point had given him their blessing. He had then been sent out on his first training mission in End Space. The test was simple enough—­could Morwyn command his crew? Given that they had just barely survived their first rescue mission, his ego-­free assessment of the situation was: he could have done much better.

  “Jinxie’s mobility drive we can fix no prob.” Oran’s voice was sour. She usually sounded as if she were in a foul mood, although Morwyn had seen her smile once or twice when Kolto managed to sneak in a compliment. The two had met during Kolto’s first tour of ser­vice on the Jinxed Thirteenth and had not only fallen in love, but been promptly wed. Having come from the homogenized Pax Humanis, where mixed unions were typically frowned upon, it had warmed Morwyn’s heart to see that these two truly did love one another.

  “What is the problem then?”

  “We ain’t got the parts required to repair the slipdrive,” came Oran’s reply.

  “Once again, Captain Morwyn, my solar flare and I are in agreement. We can repair most of Jinxie from here, but unless we get the parts we need for the slipdrive, namely a new fuel line and regulator, we won’t be able to safely slip anywhere,” Kolto explained, his tone both jolly and surprisingly optimistic given their current situation.

  “If we don’t strain our life-­support any more than we have to, we could probably send out a distress message to Central Point, sit tight and wait for backup.” Lizbeth’s eyes darted left and right as she scanned various holographic data screens being flashed in front of her.

  “The coms array is fully operational. And while we don’t have an InstaNet signal this far out in End Space, we could send out a tight beam on the distress frequency. That would place rescue anywhere from a week to three months.” Morwyn silently listened to Lizbeth’s explanation then pursed his lips a moment in thought.

  These days had been long and incredibly uneventful, and Morwyn was aware that he should be grateful for this. There was no active threat or danger to the crew or his vessel. Rather they would have to be patient and wait. Oran and Kolto were the only two members of the crew, three if one counted Chord, who were qualified to perform any repairs. Morwyn was certain he could have thrown the weight of his command around to make the duo work harder and faster, but what would that have accomplished? Better the task be done slowly and well than quickly and risk being botched.

  Otherwise, there was not a whole lot Morwyn could do, which relegated him to supervising and overseeing the process. “Your proposal is a sound one, Pilot Harlowe. I will send out a message on our tight beam.”

  “I don’t care who you have to suckle to get the parts we need as long as you get them,” Oran grunted. “Until then we’ll just finish this repair job on the mobility drive and spend the next few months with our thumbs up our collective nethers.”

  “Sounds like a very fun time, Machinist Oran. Perhaps I could record the event and upload it on the InstaNet once we’re back home,” Lizbeth replied in a wry tone.

  “Why bless me if the cloner girl hasn’t developed herself a sense of humor!” Oran’s following snort was both rude and dripping in sarcasm.

  “The Infinite is full of miracles, Machinist Oran,” Morwyn said. “Carry on, and be careful out there.”

  “Don’t need your humping concern.”

  Kolto quickly interjected. “It is, however, appreciated, Captain Morwyn.”

  Morwyn allowed himself a half smile. “Do what you must then.” Oran was far from being one for decorum, and given that no one else on the Jinxed Thirteenth knew the ship like she did, this afforded her a certain amount of freedom with regards to niceties. Morwyn made a mental note to himself that one day he would have to ask how a Wolver from the galactic nation of Troy, a world recognized as a practitioner of the Living Green, had come to be so familiar with the complex piece of technology that was the Jinxed Thirteenth.

  “I will send out the tight beam on your command, Captain Sir,” Lizbeth Harlowe called out to him. “Then perhaps we can continue our conversation?”

  Morwyn’s smile grew even larger. He really had appreciated the time spent getting to know Lizbeth Harlowe. Before joining the Covenant, he had been under the impression that all clones were the same. Nothing could have been further from the truth, and he was glad to have been proven wrong.

  While her voice was electronic and most of her body artificial, she was nonetheless, in his opinion, H
umanis. Morwyn had learned that it was Lizbeth’s goal to fly to every world in the Covenant and collect a trinket or memento from each. Who knew, perhaps she would one day accomplish that goal.

  “I would like that very much, Lizbeth.”

  Lizbeth Harlowe nodded and with a wave of her hand brought up a green holoscreen. “I’ve opened up a broadcast line. You can speak whenever you are ready.”

  “This is Captain Morwyn Soltaine of the Covenant Patrol vessel Jinxed Thirteenth. Our slipdrive has suffered a critical malfunction and requires repairs. We are no longer capable of starflight. Requesting any available ships to home in on our coordinates. Necessary part specs will be uploaded on this tight beam. Infinite guide you. Morwyn Soltaine out.”

  Morwyn had been worried that he would not be able to maintain his command without the help of his former mentor Commander Eliana Jafahan or his closest friend Private Beatrix Jarent Dreck, both of whom were presently in carbon sleep. They were not necessary crew, and now that Jessie Madison had been awakened the option to wake either of them was no longer available to him. It hadn’t mattered as he had found everyone, Phaël excluded, to be agreeable with him.

  Rousing Jessie Madison would not have been his ideal choice, but then again, he had not expected her antiquated sleeper tube to short-­circuit either. It had been a miracle that the thing had remained functional for the time that it had. It had been even more fortunate that Marla Varsin had just finished inoculating her before the malfunction in the first place.

  “What are you thinking about?” Lizbeth’s tone was more familiar than he would have expected.

  “Jessie Madison.” Morwyn sat himself down on one of the seats on the bridge and leaned back on it. “I did not consider it at the time, but now that we have nothing but time on our hands . . . well.” Morwyn gave his scruffy chin a scratch. “What are we to do with her? She has no legal papers, no citizenship, nothing.”