“I doubt it.” Stavros then waved a hand at their dark surroundings. “Not with the unmitigated disaster of the Incident here.”
“Hey, it's not an 'unmitigated disaster,' anymore,” Photeos retorted. “We're mitigating the hell out of it as we speak.”
“He's probably right,” Eleni offered. She maintained a more positive tone in her voice, one which Victoria actually felt was somewhat out of place. Stavros and Photeos were concerned and on edge, but Eleni almost seemed detached.
She continued after a moment. “I'll actually be able to tell people some of the things I did here.”
“Really?”
Pallasophia cleared her throat. “You are aware that Aphelion's facility director is here in the room with you, are you not?”
“Apologies, Lochagos,” Stavros said.
“Accepted,” she replied. “After the banquet, most of this facility is going to be declassified, but the Incident will not be. Understood?”
“Understood, Lochagos.”
“The Incident,” Victoria said. “That's an awfully sanitized name for what happened.”
Rather than defensive, Pallasophia's reply came with an equal mix of regret and anger. “We could not have predicted what happened.”
Victoria turned on her heels and bit back her initial angry reply. Instead, with an attempt at a cool tone, she replied, “why not?”
To her surprise, Stavros spoke up instead of Pallasophia, the bitter, almost resentful tone in his voice clear. “Research is being suppressed.”
“That's your opinion, Second Lord,” Pallasophia retorted.
“No. That's a fact. People who worked on that project disappeared if they talked.”
“I still find it hard to believe the Hexarchs would do something like that, especially if the end result could benefit us.”
Photeos shrugged. “My unit never saw data on anything other than how to kill them more efficiently.”
Victoria held up a hand. “Some of them speak. They're obviously intelligent. No one tried to communicate with them?”
Photeos laughed, a bitter sound. “We did. The few times they replied at all, the only thing we got out of them was,” he lowered his voice and tried to mimic the wet-rocks rasp of the sophont, “hate humans!”
“Even if.” Pallasophia stopped long enough to turn her masked face toward Stavros for a moment. “Even if there was some conspiracy to suppress research, it's only been in the last few years that anything has been done at all.”
Pallasophia gestured around them. “It wasn't really until we started all this that anyone worked toward understanding the mastigas.”
“For twenty or twenty-five years, all anyone was interested in was defending against them,” Stavros said. The disgust was clear in his voice, even through the helmet. “No one wanted to understand them or why they were here.”
“That's not true,” Photeos said.
Before the two of them could argue further, Victoria stepped between them. She had seen Pallasophia do the same thing enough times already to know how effective it was. She turned toward Stavros, stating the obvious first. “You sound like it's personal.”
“I studied the mastigas for a few years before the project was shut down. Ask me about it later, alright? I've already gone into it once since we set foot in this hell.”
Before Victoria could say anything, her attempt at stopping his argument with Photeos failed. Stavros stepped to the side and gestured to the other soldier. “As you for you, Lochias, you know better than anyone here that all they did was send you out there to 'patrol' and let you take Parthian shots at the mastigas while whatever factory those things hit was evacuated. Never once were you ordered to actually attack that battleship.”
A tense silence fell before Photeos said, “I did not give the orders then.”
“You're not disagreeing that those were your orders, though.”
“They were.”
“Just like mine were to pack my lab and never talk to anyone about it.”
“What would you have me do?” Photeos shot back. “The last time I went out there, I was a new-lifted Fourth Lord. Who was I to criticize the decisions of the Hexarchs?”
Pallasophia cleared her throat. “There are always ways to get your message through the ranks, Lochias Photeos.”
“Admittedly, Second Lord Director Lochagos Pallasophia,” he emphasized each of her titles separately, “I was not prepared then to accept the fallout if there was push-back against my views.”
“Much like a certain 'Third Lord' Stavros,” Stavros muttered.
“Yes,” he replied, then, “my apologies.”
“For?” Pallasophia asked.
“I was ordered not to bring politics into the mission,” he replied. “Strategos Glaukos was most insistent.”
“You are forgiven,” Pallasophia replied, letting a hint of amusement creep into her voice. “This mission would be much more boring without people to talk to, Photeos. Do not mistake an order to leave your political aspersions and aspirations at the door for an order to leave your opinions there as well.
“As I said,” she continued, “there are people in the higher ranks who will listen to what you have to say.”
“Of course, Second Lord.”
Pallasophia laughed. “Relax, Photeos. That's an order.”
His grin was clear from the tone of his voice. “Yes, ma'am.”
“At any rate,” Pallasophia continued. Victoria could hear the strain in her voice and wondered if the others could as well. They certainly did not act like her forced attempt at positivity was anything but genuine. She continued after a moment to breathe. “That's all a moot point. In a few months, there will be an attack. I understand you've already applied for the mission, Photeos?”
He nodded. “I requested a posting on the Justice. Stavros is right. I sat and took orders I didn't like for too long. This is, well...” He laughed. “It's a chance for justice.”
“I put in for a transfer to the Abraxas once my work, our work, here at Aphelion is completed,” Eleni added.
Pallasophia laughed. “At this point, my entire staff is going to end up on that mission.”
“It's what you've trained us for.” The pride in his voice was clear even through the slight muffle of his helmet.
“Victoria...”
She froze. The voice that called to her was not human. Like before, when she heard it in the ceiling above the soldiers before they met face-to-face, it clearly came from outside her body. It lacked the wet-rocks sound of the sophont. Instead, it now came to her like a melody, drawing out each of the vowels in her name, especially the middle one.
Her heart thundered in her chest as the same pit she felt in her stomach upon sighting the elite re-opened itself. For a moment, everything felt cold and she was very, very alone.
Fortunately, a quick glance around at the sudden tension in the soldiers' posture told her they heard it too. Just to make absolutely sure, she asked aloud, “I'm not the only one who heard that, am I?”
Pallasophia shook her head slowly. “You're not.”
“Shit,” Photeos cursed.
Stavros added a curse of his own, then, “there's another sophont in here somewhere.”
Pallasophia drew herself up straighter. “Alright, people. New orders. We find a safe place to rest, and this time we check every possible avenue of approach. I think Victoria is correct and the mastigas are setting up an ambush for us somewhere below us.”
Inside her helmet, Victoria grimaced. “I know where they're going to be.”
“Tell me once we make camp,” Pallasophia ordered. “Everyone move! Victoria, take us to this source of water you found. Unless,” she paused, “that's not where you think they're congregating?”
Victoria shook her head. “No.”
“Then we'll deal with that after we rest and eat.”
“It's a small room, too small for everyone to be comfortable.”
“Comfort isn't important. We've
got mastigas to kill.”
Again, Victoria found herself with a toothy grin. “Yes,” she replied, “we do.”
***
Victoria watched the soldiers work, keeping her distance as much as possible in the small room. The four Technocrats also did as much as possible to minimize how much space they required, though there was only so much they could do. The water trough, the place in which she was almost drowned, took up the majority of potentially available space. More of the floor had been occupied with equipment which she had been assured was for cooking.
So she perched on the edge of the water trough, watching the mechanical precision of the soldiers as they worked. Even having lost two members of their team, each person had a job to do. Stavros guarded the door while Pallasophia and Photeos set up the equipment.
Next to her, Eleni tinkered with something inside the wall next to the apparent source of the water that saved, and almost ended, Victoria's life. She watched as each time Eleni adjusted something in the wall, often resulting in a metallic thunk, it sent ripples through the slowly moving water.
Victoria watched the soldiers as they worked for several more minutes. They conveyed as much information to one another through their facial expressions and momentary glances as they did through actual words. Only Stavros, who actually stood guard, still wore his helmet. Photeos removed his mask, but not the cover for the top and sides, while Eleni and Pallasophia removed their entire helmets.
She supposed she had to look strange to them in her stolen mastigas clothing and helmet. They stopped jumping when she moved into or out of sight, though how much of that was familiarity and how much was a general lessening of tension, she could not say. The air felt more relaxed now that they found this room, at least.
Eleni stepped away from the wall and replaced the panel there with a satisfied sigh. Her next motion wiped sweat from her forehead and face. The rest of her, what little exposed skin she had, anyway, was dry and Victoria supposed whatever was inside the wall had to be significantly warmer than the air where she sat.
She looked up with a start, probably not expecting to see Victoria's masked face staring at her. Absently, she smiled and tucked a stray piece of curly blond hair behind one ear. It did little to keep the frizzy mess out of her face. She smiled, nervous, and her cheeks dimpled.
“This was a washroom,” she offered. “The water here came directly from one of the processing plants. I'm not sure where it goes after it leaves this spot, but that's why the water here was safe to drink.”
Victoria tilted her head to one side, watching her for a moment longer. “Processing plant?”
Eleni nodded. “Aphelion has, or had, several processing centers for producing clean water and air. The mastigas destroyed one down here and severed the pipes of the second, but I supposed they left this one alone.”
“Even green-eyes need to drink,” Victoria said. “How long are we going to stay here?”
Eleni shrugged. “My part of the work is done. You'll have to ask the Lochagos if you want to know that.”
“What did you do?” Victoria asked. “More sensors?”
Eleni shook her head. “Lights.”
Victoria nodded again. “The mastigas hate light.”
“It should help us sleep a bit better.”
Victoria frowned. “I don't sleep well in the light.”
“Me either,” Eleni admitted. “But I'd rather a few hours of uneasy sleep to...” She stopped as a dark cloud passed over her face.
“It's preferable to the alternative,” Victoria finished for her.
“Yes.”
Silence fell, broken only by the noise of the soldiers moving as they finished setting up the last of the equipment. She heaved a deep sigh. “I'm sorry, Eleni.”
Her eyes widened with surprise. “What for?”
“You shouldn't have been forced to come down here for me.”
“We had orders, Victoria.”
“Orders that should not have been necessary.”
Eleni frowned. “I agree, if I'm being honest.”
“Good.”
She leaned against the trough next to where Victoria sat. “Why?”
“I don't claim to understand everything that happened here,” Victoria said. She spoke slowly, trying to piece together things even as she said them. “I'm grateful I woke up, and I'm grateful you came down here. I told Pallasophia as much earlier.”
“But?” Eleni offered.
“But I regret that you had no choice.”
Eleni was silent for a moment, then, “I appreciate that.”
“Should I let you work?” Victoria offered.
She gestured to the open spot on the wall where a bundle of wires wrapped in some sort of tape dangled. “My work's done until tomorrow.”
Another few minutes silence fell while Photeos set up what seemed to be the last of his equipment in the center of the room. It popped and sizzled with noises that Victoria's subconscious told her were the sounds of mechanical heat.
Eleni looked back up at Victoria, and she met the blond woman's eyes through her own mask. Out of her sight, Victoria gave her an inquisitive look. Eleni must have seen something of it in the shifts in Victoria's posture, because she said, “you've never worked on a team before.”
She noticed it was not a question. Nevertheless, she nodded. Earlier, Pallasophia and the others responded to such questions with sarcasm, which seemed appropriate. Inside her helmet, she grinned. “Obviously not.”
Eleni laughed. “Of course.”
“Until you and your team arrived, I had never seen another human.”
“No mirrors?”
Victoria shrugged her shoulders. “The mastigas must hate mirrors.”
Eleni blinked for a moment, then laughed. “I supposed they do. What...” she paused. “Do you know what your face looks like?”
Victoria shook her head.
“Is that why you haven't taken your helmet off?”
Victoria looked at her again, and Eleni's eyes widened. In truth, she knew the other woman was right, but hearing it spoken aloud was different than thinking it in her head. It took Victoria a moment before she could reply.
“Perhaps,” was her only answer.
“Not even with the Lochagos?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“For what it's worth, you'll have to soon enough. Photeos is cooking dinner. If you're right and the mastigas are baiting us, we're all going to need to eat.”
Victoria nodded, but said nothing. Across the room, she watched as Pallasophia sank smoothly to the floor opposite Photeos.
“That smells almost like food,” she joked. “What's for dinner today, Lochias?”
“Roasted protein block,” Photeos replied. He laughed. “I thought I would cook up the good stuff, you see.”
“Hear, hear!” Eleni added, raising her hand in mocking salute. To Victoria, she added in a lower voice, “I'm sure it's better than whatever you had to eat down here.”
Inside her mask, Victoria smiled. “Anything would be.”
She grimaced. “I'm almost afraid to ask.”
“If we run out of,” she gestured to Photeos's cooking, “that, I'll tell you.”
“We would have to be down here for weeks before we ran out.”
“We'll be out of here before then.”
“Do you know what's outside this place?”
She shook her head and frowned. “No, but anything is preferable to this.”
Photeos rapped on the side of the cook pot. “Soup's on!”
Victoria hesitated while the soldiers queued up. Everyone produced a small bowl and set of utensils. Pallasophia, waiting at the end of the line, looked up from the pot and made eye contact with Victoria through her mask. She had no idea how Pallasophia managed it, but every time she looked at her, Victoria knew without any doubt that Pallasophia stared directly into her eyes, mask or no.
She left her place in line, approaching Victoria with the bowl and ute
nsils in hand. Without saying anything, Pallasophia extended the set to Victoria. “I have a spare set in my gear,” she explained.
Victoria took the bowl gingerly, somehow afraid it would break. Featureless gray plastic except for a serial number printed on the bottom, it actually felt fairly heavy in her hand. Whatever the actual material, Victoria knew it would take more than a simple fall to break it. Despite that, it still felt impossibly fragile in her hands.
Pallasophia turned back to the line, leaving Victoria with the empty bowl. She considered her options for a moment before sliding off the edge of the water trough. Victoria set the bowl on the floor beside her feet, hesitated for just a moment as an unexpected spike of adrenaline flooded her system, then reached under her chin to undo the tie holding her helmet tight to her head.
Cool air brushed against her face and the helmet made a dull thunk on the floor as she set it down. As one, the soldiers all turned and stared.
***
Pallasophia was aware she had been staring. All of them had, in fact. It felt like much more time had passed than truly had, and to see Victoria now without her helmet was very strange. Until the moment she removed it, all any of them had ever seen was the shiny face of a stolen mastigas mask. Pallasophia had seen her face on the security feeds, at least the ones that remained, but those were degraded and poor representations of reality.
As it happened, those grainy images had not prepared any of them for the reality that Number One Hundred, the person for whom two died in the last twenty-four hours alone, was a real person just like they were.
The hair on her head was little more than dark fuzz, far too short to accurately determine color. In the dim light, Victoria's cheekbones stood out prominently, casting dark shadows on her face. Gray-green eyes flashed out from those shadows, sharp and piercing.
And then, that moment passed. The vulnerability written clearly on her face faded the moment Photeos made a joke about the scar that crossed one cheek. Victoria's strong jaw relaxed and her lips quirked into a smile.
She laughed, and suddenly every worry Pallasophia held about the potential failure of Project Titan fell away. This woman killed an elite with little more than her bare hands and survived alone in a mastigas-infested hell. Every concern she held shattered under a wave of relief with the simple sound of her laughter.
Born in Darkness Page 26
