The truth is, I’m recording this because I suspect my time on Enochia is drawing to an end.
Make no mistake, I do not say this with any intention of going gently to the pyre tonight. I will fight to the ends of my power to see the raknoth foiled and all of us home safely. But there’s a feeling I can’t escape. Something… transcendent. Ineffable.
It’s always been there—or so I’ve convinced myself—as elusive as it was inevitable. And when we spoke in our respective slumbers this morning… I don’t know how to explain it. You confirmed what I can’t help but feel I’ve somehow always known, and the shroud is truly falling now.
Cassius—my master, my oldest and dearest friend—desecrated by the raknoth, Zar’Faenor… It’s a thing of beauty and some terror, the way the smallest discovery can shift the foundations of one’s world so.
I set out twelve years ago to find my friend, to save him, knowing full well it was a fool’s errand. Just as I know now that I will see it through. Tonight, I will finish my mission. I feel it beyond my bones, as if my senses have stretched forward through time itself, and I have but to follow the path to what’s already happened.
It sounds as if I speak of fate, though I tell myself I believe in no such force. Perhaps it’s plain hypocrisy or simple delusion for me to hold to this belief when it so clearly contradicts what I feel with such certainty. I won’t claim to have the truth of the matter. I will, however, continue to take heart for the one miraculous exception.
You.
I did not expect you in my life, Haldin Raish. Not in the least. But I am immeasurably glad I’ve found you.
After everything… After Cassius and Liandra…
Melodramatic as it will no doubt sound, I truly believe you might’ve been the one thing in this world that could have given me new purpose after all these years. And so you have.
I do not expect you to understand in full—certainly not now. Perhaps never.
Even now, I hope that I might someday explain this to you in person rather than through this message. I hope that we’ll have many years to live and train and do good for this world. Perhaps we might even convince Enochia that we are in fact not terrorists, and that the Emmútari, majestic peacekeepers of yore, should rise again. Hmm-hmm.
I hope all of these things, some more realistically than others.
But, if my suspicions should come to pass, I leave this message with the more important hope that it will help you to live on knowing that I do not regret a single decision that has led us here. I have lived most of my life for Cassius—to learn from him, to be with him, to free him from torment. I never expected anything more. And yet along you came.
As… closed off as I can be at times, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you haven’t realized the impact you’ve had. Astute as you can be from time to time, I fear you will struggle to see what I see when I look at you. So, allow me to put it plainly.
You are the best I have to offer this world.
Do not scoff at these words, Haldin. Do not dismiss them as idle praise. They are as much the selfish plea of a broken man as they are a compliment—more so, if I’m to be honest with the both of us. But, selfish or not, I hope you will remember this when the way is dark and your path uncertain.
I have faith in you, Haldin. More, I fear, than you have in yourself.
This is the only gift I have left to give. If you are hearing this, if I’ve indeed perished, then know that I will have done so gladly if it meant life for you and peace for Cassius. Know that it is not your fault. Mourn if you will, but do not for a second give in to despair.
You are the best I have to offer this world, Hal.
I couldn’t have asked for more.
I sat in silence for a long time after the recording ended, trying to process everything he’d said. Trying to process anything. It was like my brain had shut down. There was nothing. No thought or feeling. I just stared at the stone floor for what might’ve been minutes or hours. At some point, maybe more than once, my palmlight buzzed against my wrist. I only distantly noticed.
I wanted to cry. Wanted to feel something—anything other than the crushing emptiness pressing in on me from inside and out. Anything at all.
Eventually, it came—the slow, simmering heat of anger, bubbling closer and closer to the surface. Anger at the Legion for having pushed me out here, for having been too stupid to see what was right before their eyes in time to stop Al’Kundesha and everything that was happening now. Anger at the raknoth for all that they’d done—for taking my parents and Carlisle, for treating this entire world like an open storage depot of spare parts and human blood.
Anger at myself for having failed to do a damn thing about any of it.
I’d tried, people had died, and I’d shut down like an overloaded skimmer engine. I could see that now—see it with embarrassing clarity.
Recovering? Laying low? Training Elise?
I’d damn near convinced myself I’d been doing the right thing, hiding in my little hole like the wounded animal everyone thought I was. Without knowing it, I’d been doing exactly what Carlisle’s ghost had been silently begging me not to.
I’d given up. Given into despair.
I could almost feel him hanging over me, could only imagine what he would’ve thought watching earlier today as I’d shut down an honest request for help, watching now with soft disappointment as I stewed here in a steaming pile of self-indulgence, cowering from the mission he’d given his life to give me another shot at.
Anger flashed like lightning, and a chair exploded into wooden splinters against the stone wall almost before I realized I’d lashed out with telekinesis.
Carlisle had given his life for mine. Made me his legacy to Enochia. And so far, I’d used that time to waste away in our dingy Legion living quarters.
Grop that.
How had I ever deluded myself so far? So quickly forgotten the silent promise I’d made at Carlisle’s pyre?
Finishing what the two of us had started—that had always been the plan. I hadn’t known then how the nightmares would only get worse and worse with each passing day. Hadn’t known how the sleepless nights would degrade me, how the smallest things would trigger cold sweats and heart-pounding bursts of panic.
I hadn’t known then how badly I was broken. But I’d made a promise. And if I hadn’t found this holodisk…
It’s a thing of beauty and some terror, the way the smallest discovery can shift the foundations of one’s world so.
Yes, I’d been wronged. I’d been hunted by the very people who were asking for my help. I’d been through too much—had gropped up too completely to ever be forgiven.
But the raknoth were still out there. Good people were still dying. And Carlisle had left me here to do something about it.
The only question was where to start. The hybrids? The cloaks?
Alton Parker.
I was already reaching to call Johnny when my palmlight started buzzing. Speak of the demon.
I jabbed the connect button.
“Oh, scud,” Johnny’s voice crackled, “I didn’t really think you’d… Never mind. Listen, I just wanted to—”
“Why haven’t you found Alton Parker?”
“Oh. Well, uh, first off, hello. Secondly, they’re trying their little wrinklies off around here. You might’ve already heard something about it on the reels, but they cleaned the whole Vantage facility out. It’s a shell out there. I’m sure they’ll find Parker soon enough.”
Soon enough.
Yesterday wouldn’t have been soon enough.
“We need to go back and burn that place to the ground.”
“I don’t think there’s really much left to burn, man. They swept through the place with… Wait, we?”
“I’m coming.” It barely even sounded like I was making this up as I went. “And unless the team that went out there was cloaked, which I’m assuming they weren’t, you probably can’t trust their operation wasn’t tampered with. They could
still be making hybrids down there.”
“I… You really think so?”
“It’d hardly be the most insidious trick the raknoth had ever pulled. Call it a strong hunch. Ask if there was anything odd in the reports. Any gaps or disorientation. Maybe an accidental weapon discharge. That kind of thing.”
Johnny chewed that over in silence for a long second.
“Scud. Okay. I’ll run it up the chain, see if we can get a second look in there.”
“I need to be there.”
Hesitation. Then, “Is everything okay, buddy? Did something happen to change your mind?”
My insides tightened at the change in his voice, like he’d just remembered it was a wounded animal he was talking to, and not his old tyro broto. Had Elise messaged him when I’d stepped out?
“It’s kind of a long story,” I said slowly.
“I saw you four hours ago.”
“It’s been a long four hours.”
“Okay, broto. I just… Don’t get me wrong, Glenbark’s probably gonna be rolling on sunshine if I tell her you’re in. She wants those cloaks, man, and sweet Alpha do I wanna give that woman what she wants. It’s just that I’m not sure she’s gonna love the idea of you in the field.”
“That’s why you explain to her that anyone else she sends in is going to be vulnerable to telepathic manipulation. Unless you wanna point out that there may already be a certain red-headed legionnaire equipped for the task.”
Silence.
“I need to see it with my own eyes, Johnny. It’s important to me.”
I didn’t realize how much I meant it until the words were out of my mouth. Even before the White Tower, my dreams had been haunted by the memory of the dozens of helpless victims we’d been forced to leave bleeding out on the racks beneath Vantage when Alton Parker had set his hybrids loose on us. I owed it to those people to make sure the job was done.
“Okay,” Johnny said finally. “Okay, buddy. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
“Hey, what’s a broto for if they can’t even convince their superiors to pull you into a potential combat situation?”
The first hint of a smile tugged my lips. “I’m sorry about earlier, Johnny.”
“Forget about it. It was a scuddy move for us to show up like that. But you know, Vantage might be an easier sell if I could bring Glenbark the news she really wants to hear.”
“I don’t know how to make the cloaks, man. I wish I did. It was something Carlisle and Cassius figured out. It might’ve been common knowledge a thousand years ago, before Sarentus had the Emmútari slaughtered, but now…”
Johnny waited a few seconds to see if I’d finish the thought. “So, glossing past that stuff about our holy prophet slaughtering people…”
“Well, I found a couple extra working pendants.” I studied the runes on mine, thinking about everything Carlisle had taught me on the branch of Shaping he’d called Expression. “And I might have an idea where to start on trying to make more. That’s about all I’ve got.”
I could almost see Johnny perking up on the other side of the call. “Well that’s a scudload better than we had five minutes ago.” He hesitated. “Look, Glenbark would probably have me skinned alive for saying this, but… you don’t have to do this, Hal. I’m honestly not sure how this plays out if we don’t get our people cloaked. Alpha, you should hear the conversations going on over here. It’s chaos for the history stacks. But I know how much scud you’ve been through.”
Maybe Elise had messaged him. Scud, maybe she’d been keeping him updated all along about my… what? Behavior? Condition?
Did I have a condition now?
Maybe, I decided, as I realized I hadn’t checked the messages I’d received since coming here. Elise was probably worried sick about me.
“I appreciate the concern, buddy,” I said, “but Glenbark was right. You both were. I have to stop these bastards.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the spirit, but I don’t think either of us was suggesting you do it with your own mystical hands.”
“No?” I wanted to argue, to dig in and insist it was all or nothing, but now probably wasn’t the time. “Sounds like you’ve been spending a lot of time with the High General.”
“Perks of being the one guy in the Legion they think you might talk to. She basically appointed me envoy to The Solemn Nation of Hal.”
“Guess that might be better than getting brigged, right?”
“Ehh,” Johnny said. “I’ll get back to you on that one in a few cycles. Preferably when this is all over and we can have a good laugh about the time the Legion put it on a scraggly-faced tyro to protect them from an army of telepathic alien invaders.”
“I’m not a tyro anymore. I have the dishonorable discharge to prove it.”
“You’re not exactly a civie either, broto.”
I gave a noncommittal grunt, scratching at my two cycles’ worth of uneven stubble. “So… you’re saying you don’t like the beard?”
“Let’s be honest, beard is probably a strong word.”
I smiled, a flicker of excitement touching my chest. For the first time since the White Tower, I was moving again, even if I didn’t quite know where yet. I hadn’t even realized how trapped I’d felt these past cycles. All I knew was that Carlisle was counting on me.
“Not to pry,” Johnny said slowly, “but you should probably talk to Elise about all this, right?”
That killed the smile nice and quick.
Of course I should talk to Elise about this. I never should have stormed out on her at all. But now that I was moving…
“I’ll call her on the way. Speaking of which, I might need a ride. I kinda… stranded myself.”
“A ride, we can handle. But she deserves a sit-down, man.”
“I know that,” I snapped. “I just…”
“You know she can take it,” he said quietly.
Of course I knew.
It wasn’t a question of fortitude. Elise was as strong as they came. Stronger than me, if my behavior over the past couple cycles was any indication. And after everything I’d put her through…
I couldn’t lie to Elise. She deserved so much more than that.
“I’ll talk to her.” I stood, looking around the room. My gaze settled on a pair of Carlisle’s old daggers. “Just send a ride who can swing me by. I’m assuming you already have my location.”
“I can pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about if that would be less awkward.”
I traced my fingers over the daggers, imagining their slender lengths piercing the crimson fire of raknoth eyes. “I’ll see you soon, buddy.”
“Good luck, broto,” Johnny said. “Just, uh… Yeah. Talk soon.”
I ended the call and closed the palmlight with a pinch and a curl of my fingers. I tucked Carlisle’s holodisk gently in my pocket, looking around the room one last time in what felt like a goodbye. Then I sheathed his daggers, strapped them to my belt, and turned for the door.
I wasn’t the best Carlisle had had to offer this world. I was damn sure about that. As sure as I was that Mathis would safely get to go to his stiff-backed pyre proclaiming that I’d never even measured up to my dad’s polished boots, much less his heroism. But, like it or not, I was what they’d left behind. Which all amounted to one thing.
I had work to do.
5
Civie
“Well isn’t this just a sunny trip down memory lane,” I muttered, leaning back from the small duraglass port and the view of the sprawling countryside flying by below.
“What’s that?” Johnny asked beside me.
“Nothing,” I said. Then, nodding to the wide viewport at the head of the transport, I added. “Vantage, I mean.”
The complex was easily visible a few miles ahead now. The primary research facility of Vantage Corp, alone out here, nothing but open fields all around. The place was the size of a small city and looked from the outside more like a milit
ary installment than a biological research compound—complete with perimeter wall and everything.
It was here Carlisle and I had first discovered the raknoth plot to construct an army of hybrids and assembly line style human blood farms to keep that army fed. And it was here I had a feeling they were still doing just that, though I had to admit now that it did look quite abandoned.
The fact didn’t go unnoticed.
“Someone remind me why we’re sweeping out Viper’s sloppy seconds,” someone grumbled back in the main hold.
“I think it’s ‘cause your mom was all booked, Jensen,” another called.
There was a round of chuckles and guffaws from the first squad of the 51st Hound Company. I wanted to roll my eyes but couldn’t help smiling at the feeling of being back around legionnaires.
Ordo Dillard, on the other hand, regarded his squad with a stern frown as he descended the stairs from the upper cabin. “We’re out here because the civie here says Viper Company couldn’t find a bova’s teet with both hands.”
Another round of chuckles, along with a few hearty agreements.
Dillard met my eyes as he continued. “Personally, I don’t give a scud what Citizen Raish thinks, but the High General says sweep, we sweep. For ours is not to ask…”
“But to serve,” the men barked back.
I did my best not to squirm beneath Dillard’s stare before he finally broke off and began issuing fireteam orders.
A trip down memory lane indeed.
“Uh, buddy?” Johnny said quietly beside me.
I looked at him, expecting a word of comfort or caution. Instead, I saw his palmlight, lit with a long, mint green message from Elise.
“Care to explain why your lady love is threatening violence to my wrinklies and asking what we’re up to?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened again, and let out a heavy sigh.
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