Earthfall

by Rhett C. Bruno

  He stared through the viewport of the White Hand. The stars were the only source of illumination, as everything but the command console beside his seat was deactivated. After being hit by a rail on his approach to the Ascendant, the main energy line for the White Hand’s engines was severed, forcing him to divert power from the rest of the ship’s systems to be able to outrun the Tribune.

  He could only hope that Sage was safe, since neither she nor Talon were answering on the established com-link channel. She also wouldn’t respond to the messages he’d transmitted through their twin HOLO-Recorders. His scanners did manage to pick up the Vergent ship Monarch retrieving her before he switched them off, but that didn’t mean she’d escaped the Tribunal fleet.

  There was no time to blindly seek out the Vergents in the vastness of space. As it was the White Hand had taken more damage than Cassius could ever recall. The shot from a rail-gun came inches from crippling the engines, and had torn open a portion of the rear hull. With the power required to utilize the plasmatic shield impaired, the entire ship was peppered with holes and scorched by errant missile fire. Cassius’ own arsenal of weapons was low from having to destroy at least six fighters before he was in the clear.

  They weren’t the results Cassius expected when he, ADIM, and Sage devised their plan, though it did successfully buy him the time he and the Ceresians needed, as well as provide him with a realistic explanation for having a Gravitum Bomb.

  He reached up and switched on the com-link in his left ear, connected to his lesser androids on Ennomos. “My Creations,” he said. “I will be arriving at Ennomos in approximately four days. I expect the bombs to be ready upon my arrival. Prepare them for transport.”

  “Yes, Creator. Preparations are set to be completed approximately one hour before your arrival.”

  Just in time. His attack on Benjar had bought them exactly enough time, otherwise he’d already be on his way to conquering Pallus. “And the work on converting the Solar-Ark?”

  “The cryo-chambers are now able to reach true absolute zero. Many of the test subjects were lost upon attempted thawing; however, the latest to be removed remains in good health. This unit will perform further evaluation while the Creator is traveling.”

  “Excellent! It will be ready for her then. Keep up the good work, my creations. The day of the Circuit’s reckoning is coming.”

  “Yes, Creator.”

  Cassius switched off the com-link and leaned back. The command deck was quieter than ever. He could barely hear the hum of the few systems that remained operational, little more than the air recyclers and engines. There was nothing to do other than continue to watch the stars.

  He couldn’t contact Zaimur and inform him that the Ascendant had been successfully hindered, which Cassius knew would irk the Morastus Prince. He couldn’t switch on any newsfeeds and learn the fate of the newest Ceresian Colony to be conquered. All he could do was stare out into the infinite depths of space and wonder if maybe there was another Earth around one of the countless glistening specks he saw there—another world with Gravitum, or so suitable for human life that they wouldn’t need to change anything.

  Freedom, he thought.

  There was nothing left to stand in his way. The Earth, the very planet which stole his son from him, was going to die for good. He closed his eyes and let the gentle currents of space lull him into slumber.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN—SAGE

  The Legend Endures

  Sage limped quietly down the dim corridors of the Monarch behind Kitt. He had a few other handy skills beyond piloting. He’d been busy in the med-bay trying to repair Sage’s artificial arm before Captain Larana summoned everyone to the galley. The arm was so extensively damaged that it remained mostly useless. Circuits and wires jutted out from a wide gash around the elbow, and Sage knew it would never look as sleek as it had after Cassius completed it. Kitt’s work did allow her to achieve a slight twitch of the pinky finger, though.

  Her arm was only one of many problems, however. She’d spent hours recovering in the med-bay after her many injuries caused her to black out in space. The leg Yavortha twisted wasn’t broken, but she couldn’t put all of her weight on it. She also had to lean on the walls with her human arm due to the piercing pain emanating from the hole just above her hip. The Vergents had offered her the finest treatment they were capable of, but that was a far cry from what she would have received in the hands of Cassius or on New Terrene.

  They rubbed some Synthrol on the bullet-hole in her side and stitched it up by hand with a needle. It was so excruciating without her Executor Implant that she even considered ripping the bottle out of her surgeon’s hands and taking a drink to dull the pain. It wasn’t worth the awful taste.

  As she walked, Sage realized that for the first time in a long time she had no mission at all. There was nowhere for her to go. Nothing she needed to do. It helped her understand the Vergents who made space their home, traveling from place to place. The struggle to survive was their eternal mission, yet even out in the darkness of the void one of them found faith. Tarsis managed to find the Spirit before he died and so Sage still knew it was with her. She could feel it deep within her soul, driving her hand as if it wanted her to remove the blaspheming Yavortha from the Circuit. She couldn’t be sure why she was being set on the path she was, but thanks to Tarsis’ faith she was no longer afraid.

  She wasn’t even sure yet how she wound up on the Vergent vessel after escaping the Ascendant. “Need help?” Kitt asked from behind her. He didn’t dare place his hands on her to help without permission.

  “I’m fine,” Sage grumbled. “You go ahead.”

  Kitt nodded and hurried past her. He made sure to keep his distance and not brush her. Sage groaned just at the sight of how easy he made it look. She noticed Talon sitting on the edge of one of the bunks inside a side room. He stared at Elisha. Unlike Sage, the young girl rested. Sage knew from her experience of Tribunal cells that it was likely the first time she was able to sleep peacefully since being detained.

  “Talon,” she said softly. Projecting her voice only caused a sharper ache to pull at her lower abdomen. He gazed at Elisha like he didn’t hear her. She’d never seen him appear so at peace. “Talon, are you coming?”

  “What?” he murmured. He glanced back. “Oh, yeah. Sorry, I’ll be right there.”

  Talon leaned over and whispered something into Elisha’s ear before placing a kiss on her forehead. He lingered for a few moments longer to run his fingers through her hair before finally turning away. He had to grab hold to the side of the bunk to lift himself to his feet. He moaned softly as he did. All of the action aboard the Ascendant clearly had his ailing body even more sore than it usually was.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Better,” she lied. “It didn’t hit anything vital.”

  “I’m glad.” He stopped outside of the galley and placed his hand on her human arm. She turned and gazed into his watery blue eyes. They matched the web of bright veins over his temples. “Thank you, Sage,” he whispered. “We couldn’t have gotten her without you.”

  Her throat went dry. A million responses raced through her weary mind until she settled on one that sounded somewhat Ceresian. “You saved my life out there with your Mech. Call us even.” She felt foolish just saying it, but Talon smirked.

  “We’re getting there,” he replied as he entered the galley.

  He took a seat across from Captain Larana at the long dining table tucked against a booth along the wall. She wore a stern look on her face. Her entire crew was gathered around her, sitting wherever they could find space.

  Sage went to the nearest viewport and sat on the narrow sill. Every Vergent except for Kitt eyed her warily. He propped himself up between two walls nearby and motioned for her. She extended her arm onto his lap so that he could pick at the loose wires with a set of crude tools. Then she stared out through the viewport, out into the starry blackness of open space. They’d escaped the fighters o
f the Tribune, but were speeding along on a course unknown to her.

  “Sorry for the wait, Talon,” Larana said. “I wanted to be sure we were clear before discussin’ what happened.”

  “That’s alright,” Talon replied.

  Larana exhaled. “I’m sure most of you’ve noticed, but one of us didn’t make it back. I heard what some of you have been guessin’, but Tarsis didn’t get on another ship or get captured. He fell. It ain’t our custom to die in battle, but the Ancients woulda been proud the way he went.”

  Sage felt Kitt’s fingers stop working. He took the news the hardest. Talon appeared solemn, but Tarsis’ fate was a fact he seemed to have come to grips with. Sage, too, was used to the feeling of losing comrades at arms. But she was supposed to be the one in Tarsis’ mech. He’d traded his life for hers.

  “He was an honorable man,” she said. She only realized she’d said it out loud when everyone glared at her.

  “He was,” Talon agreed. He got up and shuffled over to the cooling box. Talon opened the frosty container, which was barely operational, like the rest of the ship, and removed the bottle of Synthrol left over from Sage’s surgery.

  “I don’t know how you all say goodbye to your dead, but where I come from we bury them first,” he said. “Since we don’t have any rock way out here to do that, I say we skip to the part where we have a drink and remember him fondly.” He lifted the bottle to his mouth and took a healthy swig of the green liquid.

  When he was done he held it up for Larana to take. “We give the bodies of our fallen back to the Circuit,” Larana said. She remained still for a few more seconds before finally stretching her arm as far as it could go and grasping the bottle. “But Tarsis gave his body up long ago for this place. Your way will have to do.”

  Larana handed the bottle to the Vergents nearest to her next, and they passed it around the crew. When it reached Sage she had to swallow the lump in her throat before mustering the courage to take the ice-cold bottle. She couldn’t help but remember the first time she’d tried it back on Ceres, when she spat it out and earned the laughter of Talon’s friends. She didn’t want to embarrass herself.

  “Never thought I’d be sharing a drink with a Tribunal,” Talon said, clearly having noticed her hesitation.

  Now she really didn’t want to embarrass herself. Trained to be an Executor of the Tribune and scared of a taste? There was no reason to pretend she was still a member of the Tribune anymore. Hand Yavortha was dead and any hopes of earning the forgiveness of her former masters died with him.

  “We’re all part of the Circuit today,” she shrugged, closed her eyes and threw back only as much of the green liquid as could fit through the mouth of the bottle. The taste was so sharp and bitter that she almost spit it out, but she clenched her jaw and tilted her head back. She coughed a few times after it was down, but she did it.

  Nobody laughed. Talon grinned and nodded in Kitt’s direction. Sage held the bottle out for the young boy to take, but as soon as his long, thin fingers wrapped around it Larana cleared her throat. He froze.

  “Can’t fly if you can’t see straight, Kitt,” Larana counseled.

  Kitt sighed. “Or repair,” he handed the bottle to Talon and turned his attention back to Sage’s arm. “Tarsis would want this thing to work like his suit.”

  The bottle was almost empty by then, but Talon returned it to the cooling box. Larana said, “I wish that was all I asked you all here for. Tarsis’ passin’ was too soon. He was a Vergent, and a Keeper, and won’t be forgotten, but before he died he told me somethin’ I almost didn’t believe.” She shot a distrustful glare in Sage’s direction. “Are you sure she should listen to this?” she said to Talon. “Knowin’ her history?”

  Talon stared at Sage for a few seconds. “She can handle it,” he decided.

  Handle what?

  “So you’re sure Tarsis wasn’t just lyin’ to get me to stay?” Larana asked Talon. “Cassius Vale really is alive?”

  Every member of the Vergent crew gasped. “He was on the ship I shot at before you retrieved us,” Talon answered evenly. “Scanners said he escaped despite the damage, so yes, Cassius Vale is still alive.”

  Sage sat up. Why would he shoot him? As far as she knew that was never part of the plan. She worried that he was dead, but then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the blinking light of the HOLO-Recorder he gave to her sitting snugly inside a portion of her artificial forearm that remained intact. It meant someone was trying to contact her, and only Cassius had the twin device capable of doing so.

  Larana shook her head vigorously. “I watched him die on Ceres. Die along with answers to where the Solar-Ark he stole is.”

  “An event he fabricated,” Talon said. His fists were beginning to tremble in rage. “Just like this war, and just like Kalliope.” He glanced over at Sage, who remained quiet. “I believe he was the true reason that Julius died and my daughter almost followed him. I’m saying we’ve all been fooled from the very start. From the first Tribunal Freighter he apparently stole.”

  Kalliope? Sage was too busy thinking about how he could come to such a definite conclusion that she forgot to voice her opposition.

  “And you all kept this a secret?” Larana asked, her pale cheeks pink with anger. “Why?”

  “You know why.” Talon gestured toward the corridor which led toward the living quarters. Where Elisha was sleeping.

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “More sure then I’ve ever been of anything in my life. You saw Kalliope. The Tribune may hate us, but they’ve always tried to preserve all inhabitable areas at all costs. They’ll rupture seals and hangars, but remove a hollowed asteroid from the Circuit?”

  “You don’t know Benjar Vakari,” Sage said, reiterating her argument from earlier.

  “I know, but even he decided to invade Eureka instead of blowing it to pieces with the entire Lakura army inside. Kalliope has Cassius written all over it, only nobody cared because we were so desperate for war. He destroyed Lutetia more than two decades ago, and now he’s perfected the art.”

  “How’s that?” Kitt interrupted. He touched two wires in Sage’s arm together and a few of her artificial fingers wiggled. There was a subtle, all too familiar pinch in the nerve endings on her shoulder.

  “He did using Lutetia’s overtaxed reactor core,” Sage said. The fact that Talon’s argument made sense had her palms sweating. “Why send ADIM after a weapon you claim he already has?”

  “So that Zaimur, or anybody else, doesn’t question why he has it. I think he really was there to ensure we got Elisha because she believes ADIM saved her on Kalliope, a fact which might make people think he’s a hero. But ADIM doesn’t help people. He kills them. This is the same ADIM that singlehandedly slaughtered the entire crew of a Solar-Ark around the same time and just broke into the Ascendant’s brig. Do you really think that he would’ve failed at saving Kalliope if he really had a chance to?”

  Sage grunted in disbelief. “It’s all a stretch Talon.”

  “Is it? Cassius returns and all of a sudden the entire Circuit is coming undone. I wasn’t about to give him the chance to get his hands on Elisha and find out. I wish I got a cleaner hit on his ship and ended this. Whatever he plans on doing, there is no doubt in my mind that he started this war for his own reasons.”

  Started this war. Would he go that far to get his revenge? She found it hard to believe that the Cassius she once knew would do that. The man who’d stood as a hero to the Tribune, helped create the first man Sage ever loved and gave her a figure to serve as ‘father’ when all she had were the gutters. But she’d seen firsthand the type of man he’d become. Shackles. That was what he’d called everything in the Circuit that wasn’t a part of his design. He’d built the abomination ADIM, spat in the face of the Keepers and the Circuit and Titan. He’d allowed thousands to die there just to escape capture. The very people his family had been charged with protecting since the moon was settled.

&nbs
p; “Sage…You have to see it,” Talon implored. He bit his quaking lip. “He murdered my oldest friend. He manipulated the Tribune and now my people. He manipulated you. He—”

  “I see it!” Sage snapped. This time her entire artificial arm moved, slamming against the viewport’s sill and leaving behind a dent. Kitt was thrown backwards. Sage winced in pain and grasped at her bullet-wound. “By the Spirit I see it,” she groaned. “But whatever he’s planning, I promise you it’s to harm the Tribune. Why complain? He’s on your side now.”

  “Same as he was on the Tribunes’ all those years ago? Cassius Vale has always done whatever he wants. Every Ceresian knows that. And now he has the ear of the most powerful Ceresian there is, an entire fleet following his desires, and an android servant who could wear the guise of any man in existence. We’ve seen it for the Ancients’ sake.”

  That was a notion she couldn’t stomach. She didn’t even want to consider it. “Even if what you say is true, what do you plan on doing about it? If we’d went with him I could’ve gotten him alone, but now we have no idea where he is.”

  “I don’t know.” Talon released a mouthful of air.

  “I say we head back to the Verge, beyond the war.” Kitt said.

  “I’ve thought about it,” Larana admitted. “We can only hope Talon knocked out his life support and he suffocated.”

  “He didn’t,” Sage stated. She brushed Kitt aside and opened a panel in her arm. She pulled out the HOLO-Recorder and dropped it.

  The Vergents watched in petrified silence as the device rolled across the floor. Until Talon stopped it with his foot.

  “It belonged to his son,” Talon said.

  Sage nodded. “It’s a recorder that can also be used to exchange messages over long distances or speak directly over short ones,” she explained. “See that blinking light? It means he attempted to contact me.”

  Larana sprung to her feet, “What did you tell him?”