“Listen, I’ve seen my share of fighting and death. If anyone has tempted fate, it’s me. I can tell you one thing: my luck won’t be up until I say it is.”
Quickly looked at Lancelot’s armor and the handles of her weapons extending over her shoulders. “That’s definitely a warrior’s mentality. I wouldn’t want to face you on a battlefield, that’s for sure. But I don’t want to die. That’s why I stopped flying missions.”
“You are going to die, though.”
With her helmet on, her words would have sounded cold and emotionless. Quickly might have feared for his life. In fact, Lancelot had once said the exact same thing to a pair of human traders who came to the Orleans asteroid field and had refused to follow the simple guidelines given to them. They had died moments later. Without her helmet on, however, her voice was soft, her eyes sympathetic.
She added, “We’re all going to die sometime.”
“Well, not yet. I’ve finally found happiness, finally found someone to love. I’m not giving that up.”
“Edsall Dark will be destroyed,” she said.
He cringed but forced a shrug of the shoulders. She added that it wasn’t only Edsall Dark that would be destroyed but the billions of lives between where the Hannibal were currently located and where they were headed.
“The Hannibal?”
“An ancient race that lived in the unexplored regions of the galaxy. They’re destroying everything in their path.”
“Exactly why I shouldn’t be involved. Why can’t General Reiser face them?”
“General Reiser is dead.”
Quickly frowned at having been so disconnected from what was happening.
“Hector?”
“Dead.”
“Well, if their luck ran out, I know mine will as well.”
“Their deaths had nothing to do with luck or a lack of it. They made choices. Just like you have a choice to help innocent people. What if the Hannibal come here after they’re done at Edsall Dark?”
This time the shrug came more easily. “Then we’ll go somewhere else.”
“And if I promise you’ll see Enid again?”
Quickly gave a soft chuckle and leaned back in his chair. “You can’t promise that. No one can.”
“Vere disagrees. She says you’ll see your wife again. Maybe not tomorrow or next week, but you will see her again.”
She expected him to have some retort about not believing anything he was hearing. Instead, he sighed and told her he couldn’t leave Enid alone on the planet.
“She’ll be okay,” Lancelot said.
Quickly looked up from his hands. “You can’t know that.”
“Maybe not. But I know the two of you will see each other again. And that means you aren’t abandoning her. It also means that even if she has a rough patch, it won’t last forever.”
“Just give me some proof,” he said. “Anything.”
She knew what he meant. Like anyone else in his situation, he needed to know that all the things she was saying were true, that he wasn’t being sold a fantasy. Like the pilot he was, he needed to see proof for himself instead of relying on what might or might not be there.
Her problem was that she had no proof. Vere and Mortimous didn’t appear to just anyone.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
He sighed and shook his head.
“Trust me. Close your eyes.”
He looked again at where she was sitting and at the handles of her weapons, no doubt wondering if it was a mistake to have invited this stranger into his home. Finally, though, he did as she asked.
“Keeping your eyes closed, let your mind go. Let the silence take you away. Any time a thought comes into your head, let it go. Let everything go.”
As much as she was feeling rushed to get back to her mission and to get her ship away from the storm that Enid had said was approaching, she knew to let Quickly remain in silence for a couple of minutes before she said anything else.
“What now?” Quickly said, his eyes still closed.
“Shhh!”
They went back to sitting in the quiet of his underground home, the light still playing off the crystals all around them.
Another minute went by. Another after that. Lancelot could see the pilot’s neck and chest moving less often as his breathing slowed. When it looked as if he were barely breathing at all, she too closed her eyes.
Except for the sound of water flowing by her feet, the room was silent. There was still no sign, though, and Lancelot began to doubt what she was doing.
Then she heard it.
“Quickly...”
It was faint but it had been there. A woman’s voice. A voice Lancelot listened to every so often but that the pilot hadn’t heard since being on Edsall Dark years before.
Quickly’s eyes opened as he looked for where Vere was located.
“Where is she?” he said.
In that moment, Lancelot knew she had the first member of her team.
33
While Thidian worked with Pompey to organize the bunkers, ambushes, and decoys that would be distributed across Greater Mazuma, Philo set about training a group of fighters in the heart of the metropolis. There was no point trying to prepare the entire population for an enemy like the one that approached. Hours or even days of constant training couldn’t turn a civilian into a fighter capable of defeating the Hannibal mechs. Philo had seen the footage of the most dangerous prisoners in the galaxy being wiped out. No one who earned a living in an office could have any hope of facing an enemy with the level of ferocity that the inmates had offered. The people he focused on training would be nothing more than bodies to distract the enemy and lead them to ambush points, but he focused on those who had come out of the Vonnegan military academy or had served in Mowbray’s empire. A group of roughly one hundred Vonnegans, mostly men but also two dozen women, gathered in the middle of the street.
During an ordinary day, the sidewalks would have been crowded with people in suits going from one meeting to another. Bots would have been zooming back and forth between buildings. The streets would have been packed with automated transports carrying people from one part of the worldwide city to another. With the Hannibal’s impending arrival, however, everything was deserted. The same street that would have been loud and hectic was empty, save for the people he was training.
“There’s no point trying to cause damage with your blasters,” he told the group. “We’ve seen footage of what it does, which is nothing. If you fire at all, it will be to cause a distraction or to trigger explosives.”
He walked around the group, handing out staffs as he spoke. The sticks didn’t have vibro blades or blaster cartridges like the weapons some of them would be armed with when the mechs arrived, but for the purpose of training and coordinating movements, they would suffice.
Some picked the staffs up and let them dangle from their hand and some rested their weight on them like a crutch. Several twirled them through the air and began practicing their strikes. Many of these people demonstrated the most common misconception—that being a good warrior meant striking with as much force as possible. As a Fianna, Philo knew there were much more important factors such as leverage, speed, and precision.
In seeing where their eyes were focused while they held their make-believe weapons and by whether they used them or not, he could tell more about them than they cared to admit.
If they were in the group that was resting on their staffs while also staring at Philo, their eyes unwavering, it meant they were comfortable with the idea of fighting, knew what would be expected of them, and were ready to fulfill their duty in combat. Even if they weren’t particularly good fighters, they were sought after because they knew they might die and had accepted their fate.
However, if they were resting against their weapon or were letting it dangle from their fingers while also staring into the distance, Philo knew these were the people who would run at the first sign of defeat. They would want to be
in the rear of the fighting and look for an excuse to run. These were the people that forced commanders to tell their troops that if anyone retreated they would be shot. Their anxiety was an infectious pestilence to everyone else’s morale, and because of that they were usually the recipient of every other soldier’s mockery and scorn.
Differences also existed within the group of people who twirled their staffs but it was found in their feet rather than their eyes. If they gave jabs and sweeps of the staff while their feet were flat and their legs straight, it meant they didn’t really want to be holding the weapon at all, even though they were doing more with it than those who rested their weight on it like a prop. Not wanting to hold the weapon meant they also didn’t want to use it. And yet these people, he knew from experience, were in a different category from the cowards who let the weapon dangle while staring into the distance because they were willing to die. They might or might not be good fighters. They might or might not believe in what they were doing. But they would do what they were told and that made them dependable.
The last group consisted of those who picked up the staff, twirled it, tested its weight, but also bounced on their knees and shifted angles. These were the fighters who looked forward to battle. They knew the consequences, knew what to expect, and yet they still looked forward to the moment they could use a real weapon. Pain or the fear of pain was not something that kept them from following orders.
Philo kept a mental tally of which group everyone around him fell into. Some made it easy, like the tall, male Vonnegan who stepped forward and questioned why Philo was in charge and not himself. The man was part of the group that practiced with their weapon and looked forward to using a real one. Philo also noted that the man was taller and slightly more muscular than he was.
“I was in the Vonnegan elite units for a decade,” Philo said. “I’ve received extensive training in every kind of one-on-one and group combat situation. I feel like I have a lot I can teach.”
He did not mention having been a member of the Fianna because while everyone gathered around him was a Vonnegan like himself, and all of them had served in the military in one form or another, admitting to being part of Mowbray’s elite guard was vastly different than having been in the academy or being an officer on an Athens Destroyer. He might as well have said he was Mowbray reincarnated. The crowd would blame him for the deaths of anyone they had known while Mowbray lived and to some extent they would be right to do so.
The man across from Philo took another step forward, let the staff twirl in a series of circles.
“I was in the Vonnegan military for just as long and I was in the Purple Berets.”
Philo knew the Purple Berets. They were indeed the elite of the Vonnegan military and few fighters were qualified or skilled enough to be selected to join their ranks. They did the fighting that others couldn’t. In the Battle for the Round Table, the Purple Berets had been the forward units in some of the underground tunnels. It was in those parts of the battlefield that the Round Table forces suffered their greatest losses. But while they were lethal and fearless and made an average Vonnegan fighter look like an uncoordinated child, it was the very best of the Purple Berets’ ranks that were chosen to be Fianna. The man standing in front of Philo had no way of knowing he was looking at someone who had been a part of that group.
“My friend,” Philo said, knowing the Purple Beret would be useful when the mechs arrived, “Anything you have to add would be appreciated. We can teach them together if you like.”
The Purple Beret took another step forward, his staff twirling around his fingers with ease.
“Friend,” the man said, but there wasn’t any kindness in the word, only scorn. “Leave the training to me. I can handle it.”
Philo took a deep breath. If this same scene had happened a couple of years earlier, while he was wearing his Fianna armor and demon mask, the man across from him would already be gagging on the ground from having his neck sliced open. Now, though, no longer hiding his violence behind a mask, no longer wanting to kill at all save for the enemy that was approaching, he smiled and took a step backward.
The Purple Beret took this action as a sign of retreat rather than what it actually was—Philo ensuring he was outside the range of the staff in the man’s hand. Thinking he saw a moment of weakness, the Purple Beret stepped forward again, to where Philo had been, then turned to the crowd.
“I’ll be instructing you today,” the Purple Beret said to the group.
“Friend,” Philo said. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I am sure I can provide the best instruction. And it’s not egos that we are preserving; it’s the lives of those we care about.”
The Purple Beret turned only slightly toward Philo. Then he laughed for the benefit of the others gathered in the street.
“A duel to decide,” the Purple Beret said. “A test of skill.”
Philo’s hands tensed. His eyes narrowed.
“Every moment you waste with these games is a moment we could be training for the Hannibal.”
“It’ll be worth it to them,” the man said, motioning with the end of his staff toward everyone gathered around, “when they see the skill of their new instructor.”
Philo nodded, then forced himself to take a deep breath, which he held for a moment, then exhaled over the course of three seconds.
The Purple Beret moved from one foot to the other and then back again. He spun his staff in circles and let his head bob from side to side.
In one quick motion, Philo moved as if he were going to swipe at the man’s knees with one end of his staff, but then brought the other end up instead so it cracked against the Purple Beret’s right hand. The Purple Beret gave a shocked cry that he probably didn’t even know he had let slip, his hand dropping from the staff. Without pause, Philo brought the opposite side of his stick up to meet the man’s chin, then jabbed forward as hard as he could with the other end, connecting with the Purple Beret’s sternum.
The man crashed to the ground, his staff an abandoned prop rolling away from him on the ground. Philo’s movements had been so fast that no one gathered had seen exactly what happened. Some thought they saw a right cross. Others thought they saw a left sweep. All of them, though, saw the Purple Beret lying on the ground a split second after the fight had begun.
“It’s okay, friend,” Philo said without malice. “Get your breath back. You’ll be fine.”
After a minute, the Purple Beret got back up to his feet. His breathing was ragged and he was blinking faster than he had been before.
“The staff isn’t my weapon of choice,” the man said. “Do you think we’re going to beat the mechs with staffs?”
“What would you prefer?”
“Hand to hand.”
“Are we going to defeat the mechs with our hands?” Philo said in a rare moment of levity that made those around him smile, everyone except the elite trooper in front of him.
Without waiting for an invitation or an official start, the Purple Beret threw a jab with his left hand, then a cross with his right. Philo moved to the side. He had to admit that the man’s form was perfect. His elbows were tucked. His chin was down. His hands were up but he was also flat on his front foot, which Philo crushed with a kick.
The force of the leg strike made the Purple Beret stumble back a step. Without giving the taller and stronger fighter a chance to swing again, Philo dropped down, shot forward, and scooped the man’s legs out from under him. When the Purple Beret braced a hand against the ground to try to stand back up, Philo moved to the side and used his opponent’s momentum to pull himself onto the Purple Beret’s back, where he sank in a choke.
“Give up?” Philo said.
The Purple Beret didn’t nod or grunt or give any indication that he wanted to quit. Instead he growled in frustration as the blood drained from his face. A moment later, his eyes glazed over and he went limp.
Philo pushed the man to the side so he could get out from under his weight. Standi
ng, he turned to the crowd.
When he saw their attention on the downed Purple Beret, he said, “Don’t worry, he’ll wake up in a few seconds. Just needs to get blood back to his head.”
The Purple Beret’s eyes opened. He looked around, trying to make sense of what had happened. Slowly, the people gathered in the street began to once again look at Philo to see what he would teach them.
“So, like I was saying...”
34
“You’re leaving,” Enid said as she sat on the edge of their bed.
The ceiling of their bedroom had the same brilliant array of crystals as the main room. A single candle illuminated thousands of tiny reflections, giving the room a harsh brilliance as Quickly’s wife tried not to cry.
He hadn’t said anything, and yet she wasn’t asking if he was going to go; she was stating a fact. You’re leaving. The words made his lungs burn, took the life out of his arms and legs. And yet as sad as they made him, they didn’t change what he was going to do.
He hadn’t cheated on her, hadn’t lied to her, but he felt the same way he would have if he had done all of those things many times over. Part of him wanted to say it wasn’t true. He wanted to defend himself and what he was doing. His mouth opened but he thought better of saying anything and instead sat beside her. He took her hand in his. He would have understood if she pulled away but she didn’t.
While she sat in silence, all of the things she could have said to him played through his head. We came here together to build a life. You’re the only person I know on this entire desolate planet. We rely on each other to survive out here. All of it was true, and yet she sat quietly, staring up at the light reflecting off the crystals above them.
When she did finally speak, she said, “You always believed that if you did one more mission you wouldn’t make it back.”
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