Syndicate's Pawns

by Davila LeBlanc

  CHAPTER 12

  MORWYN

  What determines the ultimate winner of any battle is not how many troops, bullets or bombs. Rather it is the quality of the information one has at one’s disposal.

  —­Garthem’s Riddles of Conquest, vol 2

  20th of SSM–11 1445 A2E

  “This is all very good, very good indeed.” Machinist Kolto’s deep Thegran voice boomed off the walls of the Jinxed Thirteenth’s engine room. While the rest of the parts they needed to repair the ship were currently being loaded into the storage bay, machinists Oran and Kolto had taken the parts needed to work on the slipdrive. Morwyn had accompanied the duo to offer them assistance.

  “We celebrate when we got a sky above our heads, my sweet,” Oran replied from beneath the engine. Her tools were strewn across the floor on a long oily cloth, unlike Kolto, who kept his tools in a long metallic arm case.

  Seeing the two working together, Morwyn could not help but feel a tad bit useless, as he was relegated to holding a light puck and flashing it where Oran pointed. At least for the moment he was not the one in charge. Which suited him just fine as long as they could be moving once more.

  “The Ancestors must be watching over us, Captain Sir.” Kolto gave Morwyn’s back a solid clap with his hand, which reminded Morwyn of a Galasian frost bear’s paw, almost knocking him over in the process.

  “I’ll make sure to thank them once we are back on Central Point, mister Kolto.”

  “You and my starfire are much alike. Always too cautious to celebrate.” Kolto ran his intricately tattooed fingers through his fiery red beard and let out a deep bellow of laughter. Like almost every Thegran Morwyn had met in his life, Kolto had hundreds of tattoos inked into his skin, all of them were written in the fine letters of the Thegran alphabet and spelt out the deeds and lineage linked to Kolto’s name. Which was a strong one if Morwyn was to understand the tales Kolto had told him.

  Oran rolled herself out from beneath the engine and glowered at Kolto. She was clearly older than her mate, and there was no mistaking her for a soft person. Her hair was peppered with shoots of gray and she had long white whiskers that went down her cheeks. Her hair was wild, barely contained beneath a dark cap. Like all Wolvers there was a feral-­like nature to her, but no one knew the ship better than she did.

  “Don’t you ever be comparing me to this pup.”

  Morwyn cleared his throat. Oran turned her glare to him. “You ain’t in charge for the moment, Cap, unless you suddenly learned how to repair and maintain my little Jinxie.”

  Morwyn shrugged off Oran’s comment. There was no arguing the truth. “Still, I would appreciate it if you refrained from speaking to me in that manner before the rest of the crew. Commander Jafahan in particular would have some less than kind words if she had just heard you.”

  Oran sneered at the mention of Morwyn’s second-­in-­command. A decorated former Thorn Commando for the Pax Humanis, there were few ­people living who could stand toe to toe with Eliana Jafahan. She, along with the rest of his more combat ready crew, were presently fast asleep in the medical bay’s carbon tubes. Oran alone did not seem intimidated by Jafahan. “Send your muscle my way and see what happens.”

  “You misunderstand me—­”

  “No, I hear you just fine, little captain. You want to run this ship, you do it yourself and not with the help of that former . . . thug for your Pax Humanis.” Oran waved a wrench at Morwyn before pushing herself back beneath the engine. The Thorns were known for playing it very loose with the rules of the Covenant; this had earned them a less than stellar reputation.

  “My solar flare, you—­”

  Oran continued, rudely cutting Kolto off. “Mark my words, Captain, Jinxie don’t need Jafahan’s likes serving. You want to command? Do it yourself.”

  Morwyn looked to Kolto, who merely shrugged apologetically. “I thank you for your thoughts on the matter, Machinist Oran.”

  “Don’t need your false Paxist politeness either, Captain Sir. I wasn’t being nice to you, so you don’t need to be nice back.”

  Morwyn pinched the bridge of his nose and took a calming breath. He was about to add something when suddenly without warning all the main lights of the ship flickered and went off. There was a brief moment of complete darkness before the red emergency lights went on, accompanied by the bleep of an incoming message. Morwyn pulled up his wrist-­communicator and spoke. “What is going on, Lizbeth?”

  “Captain.” Despite Lizbeth Harlowe’s modulated electronic voice, there was no concealing the worry in her tone. “We’ve lost main power. And I’ve just picked up something worrisome on the security feed.”

  “Upload the image into my comm-­link.” Morwyn looked to the thick white plastic bracelet on his wrist and squeezed its edges between his thumb and index finger. The bracelet lit up, and a semitransluscent holographic projection of the ship’s security feed flickered to life in front of Morwyn’s eyes.

  Morwyn recognized the image as the ship’s power core. He saw Private Phaël step into the core, sticking mainly to the shadows and doing her best not to be seen. Morwyn saw her pull out a knife and cut through a bunch of wires.

  Morwyn cursed under his breath as he witnessed this. “Harlowe, do you know where she is right now?”

  “Right now I have her in the storage bay. I can’t access the security feed and am losing inteli-­cam signals all over the ship.”

  What in the name of the Infinite was Phaël up to? Yes, she was a former Adoran freedom fighter and, yes, she had problems with the Pax Humanis, but what could possibly have motivated her to betray the rest of the ship? Her surrogate father, Morrigan Brent, had assured him that they would work under his command. Had Phaël grown tired of taking orders from a former Paxist like Morwyn?

  None of this seemed right, and yet there was no denying what Morwyn was witnessing. “Pilot, lock down the bridge. No one gets in until we’ve resolved this.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Morwyn squeezed his bracelet once more and the holo-­feed blinked out of existence. Kolto and Oran were both looking to him, awaiting their next command. And like that, Morwyn was once more in charge. “Sir?” Kolto asked.

  “That Adoran born runt! I knew we couldn’t trust her or her friends,” Oran snarled, but stopped when Morwyn raised his hand.

  “Right now you and Kolto need to get the power up and running. I don’t want us stumbling around in the dark. I’ll deal with Private Phaël.” Kolto and Oran both nodded to him.

  “What are you going to do when you find her?” There was no masking Kolto’s concern.

  Morwyn was thankful for his officer’s training, which had told him he was to always have his sidearm and stunstick on him while on active duty. He gave both his weapons a comforting pat. “I’ve had the privilege of being trained by the best, machinist Kolto. I’ll try to reason with her, figure out why she did what she did and failing that, I’ll place her under arrest and hope she was acting alone.”

  “What if she wasn’t?” The red emergency lights illuminated Oran’s skeptical face.

  “Then she won’t have to be alone in her holding cell.” With that said, Morwyn pulled out his ser­vice blaster and stunstick and made his way toward the cargo bay.

  CHAPTER 13

  JESSIE

  Rogue machines? That I can handle. Nothing to fear there. Any horror they can conceive of was learned from us, their older Human siblings.

  —­Sefiro Tolum, Darlkhin Crusader

  20th of SSM–11 1445 A2E

  “There are twenty-­two Covenant nations. Which one are you from, Doc?” Jessie sipped down a bitter gulp of what passed for coffee these days. During her maintenance contract on Moria Three she had been treated to the finest roasted espresso beans. What she was drinking right now tasted more like week-­old filter coffee. That being said, it still packed quite the punch. She
had come to enjoy her evenings with Marla Varsin.

  Tonight, while everyone else was hard at work maintaining the ship, Jessie and the doctor were playing a game of cards named Lector’s Grid, the object of the game being to figure out what cards were in your opponent’s hand. Jessie had managed to lose every game she had played, so far.

  “I spent most of my youth in Sol.” Marla Varsin smiled fondly as she dealt out a round of cards to Jessie face down. “More specific, I was born on Mon Mars, the capital of the Pax Humanis itself.”

  Jessie lit up—­Sol was the name given to what could be called her home system as well. “I had no idea! Have you seen Earth?”

  “I’ve been to Terra once or twice, yes.” Marla Varsin spoke the name Terra with a reverence that was almost holy.

  “What is Terra like?”

  Marla Varsin cleared her throat, got to her feet, hummed to herself. Satisfied with her tone, she took in a deep breath and started to sing. “She is holy; she is Terra. We must make a pilgrimage back to our Cradle. We must walk upon her sacred and hallowed soil. We must whisper our tale to her, so she may know what we, her children, have become.”

  Jessie listened in rapt silence and allowed herself to become entranced by the song. Marla Varsin sounded like she was singing a mixture of sea chantey and opera. “We must sing praise and thank her for giving us the gift of experiencing. All of us, Machina and Humanis alike, owe her everything we are, were and will one day come to be. She is the Blue Jewel in the endless sea of nights. She is forever our first Cradle, our first home. She is holy; she is Terra.”

  Once she was done, Marla Varsin blushed as Jessie applauded her. “Bravo! Bravo, Doctor.”

  Varsin shot Jessie a confused look. “I don’t understand that term.”

  “It’s an old word meaning ‘well done.’ ”

  Marla Varsin visibly blushed at Jessie’s explanation. “It has been quite some time since last I had a mood to sing.”

  “I’m glad you took the time to share that with me. What is that song’s name?” Jessie asked as Marla Varsin sat herself back down. Jessie thought that Marla Varsin’s smile made the good doctor look years younger.

  “Ode to the Pilgrims, by one of the greatest pilgrims of the First Expansion—­Icarius Odenshaw. He made the journey from Alexandros all the way to Terra and was illuminated through his travels. He is said to have possessed a voice so fair that even the pirate khans of Galasia were moved by his words into releasing him when they had captured his vessel.”

  “Is the journey to Terra a sacred thing then?”

  Marla Varsin nodded. “Indeed. Many ­people will embark on the pilgrimage, not all will make it. The Infinite is vast, offering many places for one to be lost.”

  “Funny, it will always just be home to me.” Jessie gazed back at the cards spread out before her. Trying to make sense of the symbols drawn on them.

  “Many Machina, like Chord, believe that by completing the pilgrimage they will learn whether they are alive or not,” Marla Varsin added.

  “They’re just machines, no better than toys.” Jessie picked up her hand of cards and looked them over. All known gods, she was going to have to figure out what the suits and symbols meant if she was ever going to have a hope in hell of besting Doctor Varsin.

  Marla Varsin examined her cards before responding. “You and the Wolvers who follow the Living Green would be in agreement on that point.” Jessie was about to formulate a response to Marla Varsin’s comment when the lights abruptly went out, briefly plunging them both in darkness.

  Jessie remained perfectly still as the red emergency lights went on. She looked to Doctor Varsin and was not comforted by the sight of apprehension on her face.

  “I hope this is nothing serious,” Marla Varsin mumbled under her breath in Pax Common, probably thinking that Jessie would not understand what she said.

  The door to the cantina opened and Jessie couldn’t believe that she was relieved to see the familiar shape of Chord stepping in. The Machina gave both Jessie and Marla Varsin a nod before speaking. “Doctor, we are experiencing a power surge.” Chord turned to look Jessie over then back to Marla Varsin. “The captain wants you and our guest in the medical bay until this is all sorted out.”

  There was something odd about how Chord had addressed Jessie as “their guest.” Not once in her entire time on the Jinxed had she ever heard the Machina address her in that manner. More than anyone else on the ship, Chord made it a habit of addressing a person with their full name and, often, title.

  Despite this feeling gnawing at her chest, Jessie tried to convince herself that everything was alright since Marla Varsin seemed to be completely oblivious to this. “Thank you, Machina Chord. Would you mind assisting me with Jessie?”

  “Of course.” Chord took a step toward Jessie and halted as Jessie stood up on her own.

  “That’s quite all right Chord, I think I can walk on my own.” Jessie leaned heavily on her crutch and tested her legs. If she needed to she could manage a weak jog for what—­five, ten feet?

  “If that is what Jessie desires.” There was no mistaking it, something felt off, but how much of this was a product of Jessie’s existing mistrust for Chord she could not tell. Marla Varsin—­and everyone else on the ship, for that matter—­had little to no problem with the machine. She looked Chord over and noticed heavy black singe marks along its chest plate. A quick side glance to Marla Varsin was enough to assure Jessie that she had noticed this as well.

  “Machina Chord, where is the captain right now?” Marla Varsin asked while furtively pointing behind them to the lift that led to the crew sleeping quarters below deck.

  Instead of giving her an answer, Chord let out an uncharacteristic annoyed sigh and turned around to face Varsin. Jessie was torn, but what else could she do? Marla Varsin was also edging her way toward the door from which Chord had entered. Jessie saw what the doctor was doing. She was trying to create as much distance as possible between Chord and the two of them.

  Jessie was by the lift, ready to pull the panel. Her heart was pounding in her chest. This was her greatest fear playing itself out once more: being trapped in a space with an out of control machine she could not trust. Her breaths were quickening.

  “Machina Chord, what is my name?” For as long as she lived Jessie would never forget the mixture of fear and courage on Varsin’s face as she asked Chord this.

  The silence that followed her question was heavy. Once more Chord looked to both Jessie and Marla Varsin.

  “RUN NOW!” Marla Varsin called out to Jessie in English.

  “Hump this charade.” Chord’s electronic voice was strangely impatient. In one quick stride the Machina intercepted Marla Varsin and caught her by the arm. Jessie let out a scream as Chord closed its hand into a fist, clubbed Varsin on the back of the head and let her drop to the floor with a light thud.

  Despite her terror, Jessie did not waste the time Marla Varsin had bravely purchased for her. She quickly pulled at the door latch and stepped past it into the lift. The doors slid shut just as Chord rushed toward her. Behind the Machina she could make out a man in crimson-­colored armor and a grinning skull mask effortlessly hoisting Marla Varsin onto his shoulder.

  Jessie pressed herself against the lift walls as it descended one deck. She then engaged the emergency lockdown switch, to prevent anyone from using it to come down after her. Ironically it had been Chord, during one of their earlier linguistics lessons, who had shown her this. Jessie quickly ran out of the elevator, toward her quarters. And as she reached them her breath caught in her throat and Jessie dropped to the ground, her legs no longer capable of carrying her. She cursed and tried in vain to push herself back up to her feet with her crutch. It was no use.

  Her legs limp, her breathing quick, verging on hyperventilation, Jessie willed herself to get back up. Her legs maddeningly refused to respond. Jessie man
aged sit herself up against the cold wall of the ship. Then, as if matters couldn’t possibly have been worse, Jessie suddenly felt a cramping pain in her abdomen and held back a pained whimper. She could easily have been considered an expert on machines in her time, but she knew nothing about pregnancy and even less about meditation or breathing exercises. But what she did know was that this pain and her panic were directly connected and if she didn’t get control over herself, she could very well lose her unborn child.

  Of course, if Chord found her helpless on the floor, all of that would be a moot point.

  Part 2

  DESPERATION’S ALLIANCES

  CHAPTER 14

  PHAËL

  Division and prejudice are wonderful things; they keep those with no power and those with the illusion of power from ever banding together against their puppet masters.

  —­From the trial of Selieno Whisp,

  former Darlkhin Crusader, 1345 A1E

  20th of SSM–11 1445 A2E

  Phaël’s head was throbbing as her eyes fluttered open. She could feel the cold floor pressing against her cheek. The red flash of emergency lights going on and off and the relative darkness of the cargo bay were not reassuring to her. Having once been a former resident on the Galasian prison colony of Rust, Phaël was no stranger to being on the receiving end of stun-­sticks. This was why she was shocked to wake up so quickly. The reptile woman who’d assaulted her had, like a rank amateur, reduced her stun-­stick’s setting because of Phaël’s small size. This was obviously her first time dealing with Wolvers. Because it was ill-­advised to treat them like weaklings. Wolvers were not the second most prolific race in the cosmos because they were soft.