Bartoc Secret

by Clara Woods

  “There are weapons. We’ve been waiting a long time for you.”

  Lenah swallowed, remembering Brons’s words as she looked into the tired but excited eyes of the young man. A savior? Maybe not. But a leader? She could do that.

  “How many people have answered your father’s call?”

  Jann shrugged. “I’m not sure. But most of us have lost someone to the nine percent. Many have children who are destined to be mind-split. If they are not too afraid, they will come.”

  “Others fear to fight the war for the Masters,” Penelope added. “They will come too. Fight for themselves instead.”

  “The nine percent, how are they determined?” Lenah asked.

  The siblings looked at each other uncomfortably, then Jann touched his chin. “For most of us, it’s at birth. Penelope was born to be a Split. It’s simply a matter of when exactly you are born. They just count out the nine percent. In my case, I was lucky at birth. The girl before me was born a Niner, so—”

  “She died,” Penelope choked. “And the next in line needed to take her spot.”

  Jann nodded. “That’s when I got my markings.” He pointed at the tattoo. “I was fourteen, but they had to carry me with two people. Finally, they overpowered me, and I got the marks. My life was going to be over the day I turned twenty. But in reality, it ended there.”

  “So did our father’s,” Penelope added quietly. “But instead of breaking, like so many, he started to fight.”

  “And now we will finally fight back.” Jann sat up straighter.

  “Why do the Bartoc want your mind?” Lenah asked.

  Jann looked at her as if she asked a stupid question. “Humans are valuable. We gave them magic.”

  “I wish the Cava Dara were coming for the Masters again,” Penelope growled.

  “They definitely deserve it more than us,” Persia said. “And adding minds to yourself sounds like the thing the Cava Dara would take offense to. Like having Cassidian Elder genes and being a mind mage.”

  “Yes, but they are strictly cyclical,” Zyrakath answered. “If they are triggered on the original Bartoc and these Bartoc are no more, the threat is gone for the Cava Dara. They are free to move on to the next species.”

  “Inflexible bastards,” Martello said.

  Lenah couldn’t agree more.

  Penelope looked at Martello, a slight smile around her lips. “The Masters could just change themselves again. For them, the Judgment is no threat.”

  “That is true, young woman,” Zyrakath mused. “They might not even appear to be one species to a Cava Dara.”

  “What about the Bartoc who live in the Cassidian sector?” Lenah asked. “The ones I met didn’t have several minds.”

  “Bartoc leaving?” Penelope asked, and her eyes widened until they were almost completely round. “I’ve never heard of that.”

  An older woman walked in carrying a tray with steaming bowls. It gave off the same smell as the bland meal from the night before. When a bowl was set down in front of Lenah, she confirmed that was true. She almost wanted to refuse the food, but she needed to keep her energy. Pretending an appetite she didn’t feel, Lenah dug into her meal.

  “I do not require sustenance,” Zyrakath told the woman when she wanted to put a bowl down in front of him. “I have long escaped the limitations of a biologically flawed body.”

  Cassius snorted. “Biologically flawed and hungry might be better than mechanically unable to fly, drone.”

  Zyrakath stiffened. “It is not my fault that we are constantly being attacked.”

  Lenah cleared her throat. “You said that you were engineers?”

  Jann nodded.

  “Would you have the tools needed to fix something as delicate as Zyrakath’s wing?” she pointed at the drone, and Jann leaned over the table to take a look.

  Zyrakath shied away from him at first, but then presented his back where his wings had been cut by a Dhumah knife. Some of the tiny stone connections hung off, disabling the delicate mechanism.

  Jann took his time looking, then touched the wing. “Our uncle might have the right tools for this. He’s a tinkerer.”

  Lenah nodded. “We all go.” The door opened once more.

  “Where to?” Brons asked gruffly. He had black bags under his eyes, and his shapeless clothes looked even more battered than they had the night before.

  “To uncle Mormt to fix this drone’s wings.”

  “Ah. I will need Lenah’s time. Our call has been answered by several people.”

  Excitement pulsed through Lenah, and she sat up straighter. “People have come?”

  Brons shook his head. “Just two. There’s more on the way.”

  “And where is this train that we are using to get out of here?” Lenah inquired.

  “That and something else is what I want to show you,” Brons answered.

  “Right,” Lenah said, feeling torn between not breaking up their group and getting things done. “Uz, Martello, go with Jann to fix Zyrakath’s wing.”

  “Cassius and Persia come with us,” she decided.

  Everyone nodded and got up. Cassius filed in next to Lenah as they followed Brons down the sparsely lit corridor. Their shoulders touched.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  Lenah pulled up her shoulders, noting how tense they were. “Well…”

  “Really?”

  “Well, under the circumstances,” Lenah corrected. “Just don’t ask me right now. If I think about it, about what happened,” her voice choked up, “I might not be able to go on.”

  Cassius gave her a long look, then he nodded. “Aye, Captain,” he finally said and put his arm around Lenah’s shoulder.

  She leaned into him for just a heartbeat, relishing in the nearness as fleeting and stolen as it seemed. An eternity seemed to have passed since their night together. It almost felt as if Lenah were a different person now. No, she was a different person. A person who needed to pull it together for her team, and soon, for the Strikers who were answering her call. They were willing to fight her war, and she owed it to them. Lenah squared her shoulders once more, ignoring the pain, and stepped away from Cassius. “It has to be,” she said quietly.

  Their eyes met, and she saw understanding in his green gaze mixed with worry and maybe even a little bit of admiration.

  She smiled, touched his hand, then caught up with Brons in the front.

  * * *

  “Why haven’t you tried to get away? To get back to the Cassidian sector?” Lenah asked Brons as they walked through yet another long and abandoned corridor.

  He took a moment to answer. “There have been attempts. None of them successful.” He held open a heavy metal door. “Every time there are retributions. Eliminations.”

  “Is that what you’re risking right now?”

  Brons squared his jaw. “I’m choosing to fight an inevitable war on my terms. Giving my children a chance of survival. Even if it’s just a slim chance, that’s better than anything I could offer them here.” He wrung his hands. “Jann has been hiding, unable to leave this depressing place for a year. He cannot go to the surface, he cannot exist. It’s been destroying him bit by bit, day by day.”

  Lenah stared at the man, understanding why he and the men and women like him where so easily taking the risk.

  “I will fight with my life to help you get out of here. We all will,” she said, not breaking eye contact.

  He held her gaze for a long time. “I believe you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t risk it with you. You were the sign from the outside that we needed.” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe you are our savior.”

  Goosebumps ran down Lenah’s back. That was a role she would never want. All she had dreamed of was freedom, to fly through space and see the galaxy. But that would come after.

  Brons changed course and veered off in the other direction, leading them through several doors. He kept glancing at her with a strange look in his eyes, as if she really was so
me kind of prophecy.

  They walked in silence for several more minutes. Brons finally stopped in front of a small door and entered a code on a tiny keypad. It swung open but was so tight that Cassius had to squeeze through sideways, and even Lenah, despite her short height, had to duck. Bartoc-safe? The room beyond was dark until Brons turned on a single light bulb that flickered.

  Shelves lined the walls of the small chamber, filled with various items: a battery, something that looked like parts of a spaceship cockpit, and an ancient suit that had been propped up against the opposite wall. The air smelled aged, like no one had opened the door in a long time.

  As they all crammed into the room, Brons turned around, a festive look on his face that Lenah found comically inadequate given their current surroundings.

  “It would be an honor if you carried the suit of our last great leader, Michaelis Striker, the one who brought us here through hardship and suffering.” Brons said in a loud voice and pointed at the suit behind him.

  Lenah stared first at him, then at the suit. Michaelis Striker who had brought them here? As in hundreds of years ago? And what should Lenah do with his suit? The model looked clunky, with bulging joints at the legs and chest. It was no comparison to modern suits made of thin and elastic materials, like the Cheung suits Lenah and Persia had owned. The memory of Corinna gave Lenah a sharp pain in her chest, and she swallowed, looking back at Brons. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  Brons’s smile didn’t falter. “This is one of the last things that we have left of the big journey. It would be a sign if you wore it.”

  Lenah looked back at the suit. Despite its obvious age, the silver and black material was well kept, but that didn’t mean actually putting on such a relic would be anything but wearing a clunky costume.

  But she was starting to understand Brons’s plan. “This man, didn’t he lead you away from a prosperous life in the Cassidian sector into this?” She waved her hand.

  Brons shook his head. “He led us away from prosecution. As mind mages, we were a threat to the power system and your organizations decided to eliminate us.”

  Lenah’s breath hitched. That would explain the sudden departure of a corporate family and the missing documentation about it. Someone, maybe even UPL, had gone to a lot of effort to cover up the Strikers’ story. She nodded as another thought broke into her mind. “Why would you come back with us?”

  Brons smiled sadly. “This is not the place for us. We need a new start and maybe, given the current threat, we can get that in the Cassidian sector.”

  “You’re willing to risk a lot,” Cassius said.

  Brons looked at the suit. “If I don’t, then my children will be taken from me. They will cease to exist.” He turned to Lenah. “Will you wear it?”

  Lenah nodded. For her, it might feel like a costume, but she could tell from Brons’s behavior that it was truly a symbol for him. “I would be honored.”

  Brons’s eyes grew serious as he took the suit off its hooks. It seemed surprisingly light in his hands. “Stand there,” he pointed at the opposite wall occupied by a shelf.

  “Right now?” Lenah asked.

  “The earlier everyone sees you wearing it, the better.”

  Lenah positioned herself against the shelf, facing Brons. He lifted the chunky chest piece, elaborate with swirls of bronze and brown, and laid it against her chest, then wrapped the back piece around her shoulders.

  It was instantly heavy, pulling down her shoulders. Lenah hoped she could walk once she had everything on. But she stayed silent, thinking of the Strikers that would come because of this. One after the other, Brons layered on the pieces. When he’d positioned the last bit, the weight lifted off Lenah, and the suit hummed to life around her. It vibrated, but otherwise, Lenah felt as if she were wearing normal clothes only.

  Brons stood back and stared at her. He swallowed. His reaction eliminated all of Lenah’s doubts. This suit meant a lot to him and his family. She would wear it with pride.

  34 The Train

  Lenah faced the enormous hovering train, a several-kilometer-long beast of engineering. It could accommodate any body form—human, Bartoc, or Jhima. The latter, as Lenah had learned, were the furry snakes they had met on the ramps in the factory.

  “How long does it take to build this?” Uz, eyes gleaming, caught up from the back.

  “About six years,” Brons said.

  Lenah stared. “You’ve built the same train for six years? What about factory robots?”

  Brons shook his head. “We have enough workers here. We don’t need factory robots.”

  “All by hand,” Uz said. “Impressive.” She touched the smooth metal of a wagon.

  “And you’re broadcasting this?” Lenah asked.

  “Yes, my son will take care of that.”

  Lenah looked at the engineers bent over tools, ducking into the guts of the train. There weren’t many workers, maybe thirty, but the activity seemed frantic. As Lenah walked by, most stopped what they were doing to gasp and stare. One woman dropped her tool and started crying. Feeling awkward, Lenah smiled at her through the visor of Michaelis Striker’s suit. She shyly returned the smile, then straightened her back and picked up her tool.

  They reached a large hall at the front of the train. Brons led Lenah up a platform, overlooking the train and the workers. The huge machine dwarfed the platform. Jann, wearing a dark hood over his head and carrying a large black box, appeared on the other side of the hall, giving his father a thumbs-up.

  Brons signaled back before addressing the room. “Here is Lenah Callo!” His voice boomed, carried through the hall by the low ceiling. “A mind mage from the Cassidian sector who broke through the Master’s border and will bring us back home. Look at her now, proudly wearing Michaelis’s suit. She will guide us through the hardship that is ahead. Come with us in two days, and you will have a chance at survival.”

  Some people cheered; others only stared as Lenah stepped next to Brons, looking straight at Jann and his camera. “Brons Striker speaks the truth. I am here to help you, but I am not a selfless hero. I will guide you into a war. It’s only on the other side of that war that there is hope and an easier life.” She paused, taking a moment to read the reactions in the room. Everyone was looking up at her now, and she saw more than one pair of eyes gleaming at her with excitement. She realized that these people must be used to hardships and loss and that fighting a war might intimidate them less than it did Lenah. They would be good soldiers, and they might just stand a chance against the Cava Dara.

  “I cannot promise we will all reach the other side, but the more of us there are, the better chance we stand. In two days, we will take this train, and we will return to my spaceship. It will take us away from Saltoc and toward the war. I’ll be waiting here for you.” Her words, spoken loudly, echoed off the walls as Lenah stepped back.

  Brons gave her a nod of approval. He remained standing until Jann lowered his recording device and melted into the shadows.

  “More will come.” He nodded at Lenah, then followed behind his son.

  * * *

  And more did come.

  Lenah, feeling somewhat refreshed after a night of deep exhausted sleep and having once more donned the suit, was watching the trickle of arriving Wailing. A trickle that was starting to multiply. Since she’d come here half an hour ago, she had counted sixteen, sixteen additional mind mages.

  “Ugh, the Rambler is going to be crowded again,” Persia winced, but one look at her face betrayed her excitement.

  “They won’t kidnap us this time. I promise.” Lenah patted her friend on the shoulder, underestimating the weight of her gauntleted fingers. Persia’s shoulder buckled, and she almost went to the floor.

  She winced.

  “Sorry.” Lenah apologized. “This thing is just...”

  “Clunky and ancient?”

  “Are you talking about Zyrakath?” Uz’s voice sounded from behind. Lenah turned to see Zyrakath flying behin
d her across the factory hall. Martello and Cassius trailed behind.

  “Zyr! Your wing’s fixed!” Persia exclaimed.

  “An obvious observation,” Zyrakath said dryly.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Persia said, grinning. “I’m glad you’re back to normal. I didn’t like you all grumpy and having to be carried around everywhere.”

  Cassius and Martello stopped next to Lenah.

  Lenah bumped Cassius in the shoulder, once more underestimating the weight that her suit carried. He stumbled sideways a step before catching himself.

  “Oh, sorry,” she mumbled, but he grinned at her.

  “It’s usually me who has to be careful around you. We should explore this further,” he whispered so low that only Lenah could hear. At least, she hoped so.

  She smiled up at him. “I can’t w—”

  But his grin had frozen on his face. His eyes widened.

  “Cassius?” Lenah hissed.

  He whirled toward the front entrance, which was several dozen meters away from them.

  Instead of following his lead, Lenah closed her eyes, pulling up her magic. As she’d expected, there were minds all over, working at their stations, but she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. They all seemed human.

  “Do you hear that?” Cassius said.

  “What?” Lenah asked.

  “Like a timer ticking down.”

  “Like a bomb?” Persia asked, grabbing for her hammer, but she’d lost it in the fight against Olonka Bren.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Cassius urged.

  Lenah nodded. “I’ll tell the Strikers. You go.” She ran deeper into the room, waving her arms at the workers.

  The front entrance opened, revealing Brons Striker accompanied by three other humans. They were running, faces red. “They are coming!” Brons waved his arms. “Everyone to the train! Start the countdown!”

  Lenah stopped dead in her tracks, her brain unable to process the information. Who was coming? The Cava Dara or the Bartoc? She still couldn’t sense any Bartoc minds.

  Brons was suddenly at her side, pulling at Lenah’s gauntleted arm. “Come, come. The Masters are coming. They have a bomber outside that’s—” A loud crash swallowed his last words.