The Shattering: Omnibus

by Van Allen Plexico

  “It has to be a coincidence. I just woke up, myself. So maybe whatever was causing us to be in comas was—I don’t know, wearing off. Maybe it was due to wake us all up right now.”

  “Maybe so,” Nakamura replied. He looked back at Ling, Keefe, and Torval, all of whom were now up and moving. A little further past them, Stanishur and the other two Inquisitors were likewise now awake. Tamerlane had touched each of them, and each of them had come to full consciousness mere moments afterward. Of the flame effect that had manifested when he’d touched Nakamura, however, there had been no further signs.

  “There’s something else I don’t get,” he told the general. “You and I and the rest of us were out of it for nearly two months, but the Emperor and the others who went through the Eye of Hell with him are all fine and apparently were never even knocked out.”

  “They say the ship exploded,” Nakamura said aloud, as if simply trying to comprehend the basic concept. “The Monrovia exploded around us—though I have no recollection of that at all.” He turned then and gazed levelly at Tamerlane. “Why aren’t we all dead, Ezekial? How could we possibly have survived something like that?”

  “The official report is oddly free of specifics and details,” Tamerlane stated.

  Nakamura nodded. “I discovered that, too. I must admit, it makes me wonder.”

  “It makes me nervous, is what it does to me,” Tamerlane replied. “It makes me nervous to think what’s being hidden—and by whom.”

  The general said nothing in response to that.

  “But I got a tiny bit out of our doctor,” Tamerlane went on, “and I was able to use the Aether to access some unofficial notes left by eyewitnesses from some of the support vessels, not included in the report.”

  “I’m assuming that by ‘access’ you mean ‘hack,’” Nakamura interjected in a soft voice.

  Tamerlane shrugged. “We were floating—drifting free—in space,” he said. “Our support ships—the ones that survived the explosion—picked us up.”

  Nakamura frowned, deep creases visible across his face—though not the deep crevasses, it seemed, that had been there before. To Tamerlane it almost appeared as if the time in the coma had done the general some good—forced him to get some rest, most likely.

  “We were floating free?” Nakamura asked, sounding almost bewildered. “In the vacuum? That makes no sense. We weren’t wearing suits or helmets.”

  “The disks might have protected us,” Tamerlane suggested. “They generated some kind of field.”

  “Protected us from the explosion and the vacuum?” Nakamura shook his head. “I find that rather hard to believe. Those disks were only supposed to provide a bit of radiation shielding. How could they save us from—” He waved one hand airily. “—from all that?”

  Tamerlane shook his head. “However it happened,” he said, “I’m not complaining.”

  Nakamura let that statement stand for a few seconds, not contradicting it. Then, “Has there been any word on why the ship exploded? Did you dig up anything official or unofficial about that?”

  “Nothing.” Tamerlane paused, then, “I did find transit records that revealed that General Attila departed the Monrovia a short time before we returned. He took his subordinates, Iapetus and Barbarossa, with him, as well as Belisarius and some junior officers.”

  “Did he now?” Nakamura met Tamerlane’s eyes, clearly very interested now. “For what reason?”

  Tamerlane shook his head. “I don’t know. There was no communication that I could find, calling them off the ship. But at least we know why they’re still alive.”

  Nakamura frowned and was mulling this over when a lieutenant approached; he was tall and slender and his insignia indicated he served the Emperor’s Guard.

  “General,” he said, saluting. “Colonel.”

  “Yes?” Nakamura responded impatiently.

  The lieutenant presented him with a red crystal.

  “I was ordered to deliver this to you personally, by hand, as soon as you were recovered.”

  Nakamura took the crystal, held it up, and squinted at it.

  “By whom?”

  “By the Emperor himself, sir,” the lieutenant replied. “It’s your new orders.”

  Nakamura glanced at Tamerlane, a slight smile playing about his lips.

  “That didn’t take long, did it?”

  “Desk duty,” Tamerlane said, frowning. “You know it will be.”

  “That might not be an entirely bad thing, Ezekial,” the general replied. “The men have been hurt—laid up unconscious for nearly two months. Some recuperation could do them all good.”

  Tamerlane shrugged and then watched as Nakamura accessed the data within the crystal via the Aether connection. “So?” he asked as the general finally lowered it. “Where will we be taking our R&R?”

  Nakamura’s eyes were widening in mild surprise. Then a smile slowly began to emerge.

  “We were wrong,” the general stated, staring down at the crystal in his left hand as if it were a strange, alien insect that had just landed there. “No R&R for us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We are to join the rest of First Legion at Adrianople immediately. It seems they’re being attacked, and all available forces are being routed there.”

  “Attacked?” Tamerlane stared back at his commanding officer. “Attacked by whom?”

  Nakamura laughed a sharp, humorless laugh.

  “By everybody.”

  4

  Space battles were the part of being a soldier Tamerlane had always hated the most.

  In a real, honest firefight on solid ground, he could control his own destiny. He could choose whether to attack or retreat or hold steady; he could change tactics on the fly; he could select his targets and the manner in which they were engaged.

  In space, trapped in the passenger area of a vessel, he possessed none of those advantages. Here, aboard the Lagos, he was merely cargo, with no power to affect the outcome of the engagement other than that of prayer—beseeching Those Who Remain to see him safely past the foe and onward to his destination.

  Lacking much faith in Those Who Remain, Tamerlane was left with a feeling of utter helplessness.

  He’d never really put much stock in the gods, he reflected as he leaned against the nearest observation port and stared out at the grandeur of the galaxy revealed. In the orphanage that was the home of his earliest memories, there had been the occasional efforts by various officials there to try to shape his religious upbringing, roughly in line with official Imperial views—in other words, with whatever the Ecclesiarchy was saying that week. But each of the orphanage’s workers had held slightly different views, and held a different god or gods as most significant and worthy of veneration. The staff underwent such regular turnover that the result was Tamerlane getting a religious indoctrination that was the fabled mile wide and inch deep. Some had praised the name and virtues of Malachek, known for his wisdom; some the martial grandeur of Baranak; some the pragmatic resourcefulness of Lucian. There had even been a couple of women among the staff who adhered to the principles of the warrior-goddess Karilyne, and one odd fish who’d praised the water-goddess Vodina. Tamerlane found all of it fascinating but little of it believable and none of it compelling enough to be granted his blind faith and devotion. When the military had taken him from the orphanage in his early teens and essentially handed him over to Nakamura to raise, he had dismissed all of it entirely and had grown up in the service as a practical man beyond all else. The Empire got his devotion; whatever gods they worshipped in the meantime was of no consequence to him.

  Legend held that the gods—or whatever they really were—had once involved themselves in the affairs of men; that entire wars had been fought across the mortal realms as two factions squared off and unspeakable beings—presumably like the ones they had encountered during their expedition through the portal—had been unleashed from the Below to run rampant across a hundred worlds. Evidence yet remai
ned that something like that had happened once but, again, it didn’t impact Tamerlane’s day-to-day work as a colonel in the First Legion, so he didn’t overly concern himself with it. All he knew was that the Ecclesiarchy, the Holy Church of the Empire and defender of its faith, held massive power and influence over the Emperor and the rest of the government simply by nurturing and promoting the beliefs of the people. Its enforcement arm, the Inquisition, kept the public largely in a state of fear, should any be known to deviate from the official line. And that occasionally bothered Tamerlane, at least a bit. He generally got along with officials from both institutions, but he found that he never much cared for anyone that worked for either.

  He was brought back from his musings by a series of bright flashes erupting from the blackness beyond the viewport. The voices of the First Legion soldiers around him grew louder in reaction; they were indeed encountering a space battle. Or else provoking one.

  “The planet’s under siege,” Nakamura called from a short distance away. “To get down there, we’re going to have to fight our way past the enemy’s blockade.”

  “Joy,” muttered Tamerlane.

  When the soldiers in front of the general realized who he was, they quickly backed off, allowing him a passage to the viewport. He moved next to the colonel and they gazed out at the scene revealed: a swirl of warships streaking this way and that, particle beams slicing here and there, projectiles glinting as they silently shot toward their targets. Beyond it all, the limb of Adrianople glowed a faint blue-green.

  “No,” Tamerlane said after reflecting on the situation for a few moments. “It’s not ‘we’ who will have to fight past the blockade. It’s the ship and the crew. We’re just along for the ride.”

  “You have a point,” Nakamura replied sourly, “but it’s one I’d have preferred not to think about.”

  Tamerlane snorted a laugh. “It’s about all I can think about right now.”

  The ship rocked as it changed direction, artificial gravity struggling to keep up with the helmsman’s evasive maneuvers. A couple of times the lights went out, causing the crowd in the passenger area to exclaim loudly and one or two to actually scream. There came a violent shudder, and then another; Tamerlane could only assume they’d been struck by an enemy weapon, though thankfully not badly enough to end their journey here and now.

  At one point he was able to get a good view of one of the enemy fighter ships as it cruised by, entirely too close for his comfort. It was dark blue streaked with red and white, with a snub nose and four very short wings for operations within a planetary atmosphere. Each of those wings bore a gold star in a white circle. Seeing this, Tamerlane turned to the general in surprise. “That was a Chung ship,” he exclaimed. “Here? At Adrianople?”

  “You thought I was joking when I said we’d been attacked by everybody?”

  Tamerlane shook his head in wonder and turned back to the port. “It’s just—this is pretty far away for them to travel, just to raid one of our fringe planets.”

  “It’s not a raid, Ezekial,” the general reminded him with great patience. “Weren’t you listening during the briefing?”

  “Yeah—I think I just didn’t want to believe it.”

  “This is a full-blown siege. The Chung have launched a major incursion into this entire sector, and it looks like they mean to keep any planets they succeed in taking.”

  The Chung were not known for laying siege to entire worlds, and this revelation took Tamerlane aback. They were much more renowned for their hit-and-run tactics, raiding supply ships, capturing civilian vessels and the like. Their “empire,” if the term could even be used when referring to their somewhat meager holdings, amounted mainly to a core of inner worlds that supported most of their population and a few outer worlds where they took their captive ships, to strip them down for cargo and parts, and to ransom off the crew and passengers. For them to be engaged in a full-blown military operation… Something about it all didn’t track.

  “Why would they do this?” Tamerlane wondered aloud. “They’ve kept the peace with us for centuries, a few minor border incidents aside. Why a major attack now?”

  “From what I’ve gathered—and it’s been remarkably difficult to gather any information about this situation, for whatever reason—I believe we attacked them first.”

  “What?” Tamerlane gawked at him.

  The general nodded. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I didn’t say this during the briefing, because First Legion needs to believe it’s doing the right thing—coming to the rescue of innocents being menaced by the evil foreign powers. But the truth of the matter is, during the time we were unconscious, the Emperor ordered attacks against all three of our neighbors at the same time.”

  Tamerlane could think of nothing to say to this. For a few seconds, he found he couldn’t speak at all. The Emperor had started this fight? Had started fights with everyone at once? Why?

  The ship rocked again as explosive projectiles detonated nearby. The lights flickered. Tamerlane found himself much more bothered by those things now—now that the cause he fought for no longer seemed quite so pure, so just. He very easily might get killed here aboard this ship—and for what? In service to what ideal?

  As if reading his mind, Nakamura leaned in again. “Stay strong, Ezekial. This is still our Empire, these are still our people under siege on Adrianople, and we’re still going to come to their relief. Regardless of why the war is happening. Understood?”

  Tamerlane breathed deeply in and out and then nodded to the general. “Understood, sir. Of course.” But the fact was that he did feel queasy—and not just about the mission. Something was bothering his stomach and his head. He was dizzy. The ship’s compartment was spinning around him. He reached into a pocket of his uniform and fished out a pill, and when he brought his hand up to his mouth to take it, he cried out in shock and fear.

  His hand was on fire.

  Nakamura looked up from the datapad he was reading a report on and frowned. “Is something troubling you, Ezekial?”

  Tamerlane held the hand out to the general. “Don’t you see?”

  But of course there was no fire now. Nothing. The skin wasn’t charred or even marked at all. It was fine.

  Tamerlane’s mouth opened and closed. Slowly he shook his head.

  “Are you feeling well?”

  “I—yes, sir,” he replied to the general. He brought the hand down, more puzzled than ever. “Yes. It was—I must have imagined it.”

  Nakamura nodded and was about to say something when the intercom crackled, followed by word from the bridge of the Lagos that the fighter escorts had punched a hole through the naval blockade. A window of opportunity to send troops down to the surface had opened, and Nakamura intended to take advantage of it.

  “Brace yourselves,” the general ordered the troops that filled the compartment.

  The bay doors opened on the bottoms of the Anatolian ships and rows of troop transports blasted out. At the head of the formation flew First Legion’s command shuttle, angling quickly down and plunging into the atmosphere. In the passenger section, Tamerlane simply closed his eyes and waited.

  5

  The ride down was increasingly bumpy but ultimately successful. The Lagos descended through the Adrianople sky as a dark gray lump, blunt and ugly, steam jetting from its exhaust ports in a roar of sound that was momentarily deafening to those below. It settled to the ground in a broad field of low, yellowed grass that was already mostly covered by troop transports and freight-carriers, and Tamerlane had the hatch unlocked and swinging open before the engines had even cycled down.

  “Glad you could join us,” boomed a voice in greeting as Nakamura and his honor guard climbed out. Tamerlane followed them and looked up at the sound; the sunshine was almost blinding to him at first, but he quickly made out the massive form of Colonel Agrippa standing just ahead, hands on hips, waiting to greet them. Tamerlane shot a salute back at him and couldn’t help but add a
smile to it; the man was remarkably likeable.

  They had set down just to one side of the bulk of Legion III’s transports, he realized then. Soldiers with green piping on their shoulders moved about here and there, loading boxes of ammunition and other supplies onto transport sleds and gathering in small clumps for quick combat briefings.

  “Your troops are massed mostly to the east of here,” Agrippa stated, pointing that way. “They have missed you,” he added. “They’re not the same without your leadership, General. And, much as I hate to admit it, we could actually use the help.”

  Nakamura nodded acknowledgement to Agrippa while Tamerlane half-smiled.

  “What’s the strategic situation?” Nakamura asked.

  Agrippa led them around to a display board that stood on a tripod next to the landing foot of one of his ships. He motioned toward it while accessing it via the Aether, and it came to life with color-coded representations of troop formations and positions.

  “The Chung are a resilient and persistent foe,” the blond man began. “They had landed here before we arrived, and had dug themselves in pretty solidly. Over the past forty-eight standard hours, my Golden Phalanx company has led a series of probing actions—” He traced a line with his finger along the map, leaving behind a white streak. “—here, and here, and here. I must reluctantly admit that all were repulsed with little to show for it.” Next he pointed to a section of the display, and it lit up bright red. “We are therefore shifting our emphasis to a single, larger action, and are preparing to assault this position. We of the Third Legion believe it to be the key; if we can smash the Chung here, they will lose their hold on the entire continent, and should have no choice but to fall back to their own landing grounds—and, if they do not evacuate immediately at that point, we can move in and annihilate them.”