“Yes? What is it? What is so important that you needed to interrupt our meeting?” This was the final day of the festival, and the Abbot was busy with the financial reports. His agitation was evident in the tone of his voice.
“A stranger at the gate told me to bring this to you.” The novice walked forward, without looking up. He placed the envelope on the Abbot’s desk, and slowly backed away.
“And did this stranger have a name?” The Abbot pushed his dinner plate away. He picked up the envelope with his long, thin fingers.
“He said his name was Brother Perdurabo.”
The Abbot froze momentarily. Recovering his senses, he tore the envelope open, and pulled out the letter. His hands trembled slightly. The Abbot was an older man, with a long, grey beard. The aura of command radiated from him. He quickly read the letter, and then placed it on his desk. When he spoke, his voice was sharp and serious. “Escort the brother in, and be quick about it.”
The novice hurried out of his leader’s office, and went back to the inner gate. The stranger was still there, thank Batumah. He beckoned for Brother Perdurabo to enter the inner court of the monastery. As soon as the visitor was inside, the novice shut and locked the gate again. “His Grace wants to see you right away.”
The novice escorted Brother Perdurabo inside the Abbot’s office. Eager to please, he scanned the room for something more he could do. “Would you like me to find a chair for our guest?”
“Please do.” The Abbot’s eyes focused on the newcomer. “Make sure it’s a big one.”
Once he was seated, and they were alone, Hojae removed his robes. He was able to relax for the first time since he’d landed. “I wasn’t expecting a warm welcome, but I at least thought the boy on guard would know my name.”
The Abbot smiled at Hojae as if they were old friends. “How was your trip? The landing wasn’t reported, so I assume you didn’t have any trouble.”
“The pod came down exactly where the Carbonari planned. I took care of it once the trip was over.” Hojae alternated stretching his arms. Having to keep them concealed made him stiff.
The Abbot cut to the chase. “So, what do you have for us?”
Hojae leaned back in his chair. “Soon, you’ll receive a visit from the Carbonari. I don’t know the exact time. That part was decided after I left. The rest of the team was supposed to leave a few days after me. They’ll take an orbital lift down, and conceal it somewhere. I assume they have avionics on board that will overpower the local sky marshals, unless they’ve found a way to bribe an air traffic control operator. Sometime after they land, the vanguard of their team—the same team that boosted the minerals from Carristoux—will find a way over the wall. They will attempt to find a storage chamber with a data sphere in it. The Carbonari Grand Council has decided that a specific sphere is key to the success of their overall operation. They plan to be in and out quickly and quietly, without you knowing they were here.”
“How do they plan to do that?” The vein in the Abbot’s neck throbbed angrily.
“I’m guessing they’ll disguise themselves as monks. Keep a close count of who’s on duty over the next week, if you want to catch them. I’d advise you to let them sneak in and out. Put some bogus data on the sphere they want. They’ll never know. That way, you’ll have a complete record of who came in and left. You’ll also be able to plant information you want them to have. I think that is the best plan.”
“Never!” The Abbot slammed his fist down on the desk. “That is preposterous! We’ve never yielded to outsiders, and I don’t plan to start now!”
“Have it your way.” Hubard shrugged. If the Abbot didn’t have sense enough to listen to his intel, that was on him. “Oh, they’ll have one of those new swords Hubard made, too. The ones he calls lasanas. I’d be very careful around them. I’ve seen what those blades can do. They’ll cut through infintium. None of you’ll be safe.”
The Abbot swallowed hard. “Good to know. And just what is your part in this whole operation?”
“I was selected to wait outside in case they needed anything. Too bad I never got the signal in time to prevent their capture.” Hojae smirked.
“Indeed. Quite a shame. You may leave.” The Abbot waved him away.
Hojae stood up, and walked to the door. He paused before he passed the threshold, and turned back to the Abbot before leaving. “Just make sure the money goes into the regular account.”
After he was gone, the Abbot turned to the monks around him. “What do you think of the information he gave us?”
One of the elders frowned. “Didn’t that one give us the bad information on Carristoux? I thought he was the reason we lost those new mineral samples.”
“He claims the update never reached the station in time. We found out about the additional member of the Carbonari team after they’d stolen the mineral.” The Abbot tapped his fingertips along the table rhythmically. He was lost in thought.
“Which mineral was that?” Another elder joined the conversation.
“The Relissarium. That’s what the engineer with the Carbonari calls it.”
“I see.” The elder looked around the room to see if anyone else had a problem with what had just occurred. “I, for one, don’t trust that Josti. If he’ll sell his comrades out, he’ll sell out anyone.”
The Abbot puffed up his chest. “His information was reliable in the past. I expect it will be reliable enough now. We’ll mobilize the novices early tomorrow morning before first light. Let them have a chance to prove themselves. From what our dear friend told us, we only have to worry about three or four Carbonari. They won’t field the entire team at once. Once we have eyes on them, they’ll lead us back to their orbital lift. If his information is no good, we will at least have had an excuse to keep the novices busy to see how they perform.”
“That is assuming they won’t try to hit us from orbit. It’s happened in the past.” A monk, who had been sitting quietly, offered his opinion on the matter.
Shaking his head, the Abbot dismissed his cohort’s concerns. “That was the Borno Succession a hundred standard years ago. We lost the entire monastery, but I doubt the Carbonari has their hands on a nuclear weapon. Even if they did, they’d never use them for this kind of operation. They wouldn’t risk the civilian casualties.”
“It’s the new mineral that scares me. I read those reports too. If those blades cut through infintium, there isn’t any substance that will stand up to it.” The first monk that had spoken up looked around at the other elders. They simply were not equipped to handle that kind of advanced weaponry.
“Lucky for us, the Carbonari will deliver one of those new blades to us tomorrow, by way of their infiltration team. It will save us the trouble of finding one on our own, and give us the advantage in future battles.” The Abbot smiled. In his mind, they had already won the skirmish.
“Providing we can stop them.” The doubting elder countered the Abbot’s confidence. “We have enough infintium blades for half the novices; the rest will need to use steel. The Brother Superiors all carry them. We have an entire detachment of regular monks with lasers. No impact guns; it’d be nice to have some as backup.”
“We’ll use what we have.” The Abbot was set on taking down the Carbonari team with his own group of warriors. If he had to call on other monasteries for help, he would have to share the glory with them as well. He adjourned the meeting. His mind was elsewhere.
“Here. Put these in your kit.” Cierra threw some robes at Theo’s head.
He snatched them off of his face, and held them out to look at them better. “Yasta robes?”
“Trust me. You’ll want them once we get there. Unless you would rather go in your plain clothes?” She chided him teasingly.
The last few days had been nothing but horror stories of what happened to Carbonari members who were caught by the Yasta. Theo folded the robes and shoved them in his bag. “I’ll take the robes, thanks.”
“Smart man. Maybe we can mak
e a brother out of him, yet.” Makram patted him on the shoulder. “Word just came in. We leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Theo’s mouth was suddenly dry.
Makram nodded. “Hope you’re ready, recruit. We’ve only got one shot at this. Don’t mess it up.”
Theo and Cierra watched as he walked away. After he was out of earshot, she shook her head. “Don’t mind him. You’ll be fine.”
“Why do we have to worry about all this stealth, anyway?”
“It’s the best way to do it. We go in and get out before anyone notices. No mess, and we’ll have the data sphere the Grand Council needs. Hand me your kit. I need to double check it.” Cierra looked through his bag and rearranged it a little. Each kit was supposed to be packed the same way. That way, if any of them got into trouble, they could reach inside someone else’s pack and find exactly what they needed.
“I’d rather we took every one of those monasteries out from orbit. The Brotherhood could do it. I’m sure there are plenty of bombs hidden away for the task. Lock them in synchronized orbit over the targets, and drop them all at the same time. Remove the Yasta all at once, so they’d pay for what happened on Relisse.” Theo’s voice was full of gravel. Cierra shrank slightly at the pure, visceral rage that flashed across Theo’s face.
She not so subtly tried to change the subject. “There, your kit is good to go now.”
Theo didn’t seem to hear her. He kept following his train of thought. “We don’t even have to do it that way. We could send in some teams to knock out their leaders. Kill every one of those Superior shaved heads at once. Let them know how it is to be on the receiving end of justice.”
Cierra sighed. He wasn’t going to drop it. “It wouldn’t do any good. Someone tried that, about two hundred years ago.”
“They did?” Theo looked up in surprise.
“All the novices and regular monks received battlefield promotions on the spot. Most of them kept their ranks even after their assassins’ death cult was wiped off the face of the universe.”
Theo was quiet. “I still think they should pay in the worst way possible. If we could just take them all out at one time, there would be no way for them to recover.”
Cierra didn’t say a word. It was obvious to her that Theo had gone to his dark place. He’d traveled there many times, since his home world was exterminated. Sometimes it lasted for minutes. Other times it lasted for hours or days. Initially, she had tried to pull him out of it, but it was no use. Cierra left Theo alone in his angry thoughts and walked out to the training field.
In the distance, she could see the orbital lift making ready for their trip. The part of the plan she did know involved a lift rendezvous with a container cargo ship in a nearby trade lane orbit. There was more involved in the trip, but she had zoned out when Hubard was going into the details. It seemed simple when Hubard explained it to them, but outside of the conference room, everything blended into one.
They had received intel from Hojae that the surface was peaceful. So, why did she have a bad feeling about the mission? She wrestled with her feelings. Was it possible that she was falling victim to her desire for revenge the same way Theo did occasionally?
Her past experience had taught her that actually following through on revenge was often less satisfactory than the idea of it. Revenge had a way of blinding a person. People who lived for revenge never found satisfaction, even when the object of their hatred lay on the ground in several pieces. They also had a tendency to create collateral damage along the way. She’d seen it happen many times over the years. All Cierra wanted to see was the emperor and his boot-lickers thrown into the streets of Pollux. For her, that desire was an act of justice, not revenge. Cierra remembered how her family struggled every day to survive after her father died. One time in her life, burned forever into her being, came flooding back.
Fifteen-year-old Cierra was brushing her hair when there was knock on her door. “Yes?”
“Cierra, honey, c-can you come into the study, please?” Something about the tremble in her mother’s voice made Cierra’s blood run cold. She placed the sliver handled brush down on her dresser, and left her room.
The family home was well-furnished. Dazzling picture frames held custom portraits of Cierra and her family. Chandeliers dripped with crystal gems. Her father had worked hard to become a well-renowned merchant. If someone wanted anything, no matter how rare, he was always able to provide it—for a fee of course.
Cierra’s brothers were already in the study when Cierra walked in. One of them was holding her mother, who looked as if she were about to faint. Cierra’s heart hammered in her throat. “Mom? What is it?”
“Th-there was a crash.”
“What?” Cierra felt her knees buckle under her. She landed on a plush arm chair.
“Your father didn’t make it.” As the words left her lips, Cierra’s mother broke down into devastated sobs.
It didn’t seem real. How could the man her world revolved around be gone? The details of her father’s death were somewhat vague. All Cierra could find out was that something happened to cause a shuttle crash on an asteroid. Her father had been working to open up a new mine. He had recently become involved with an imperial group that was behind most of the precious metals being sold on the market. It hadn’t mattered. Her mother found out after the funeral that there was no money to be had, and on top of that, her father still owed some debts to his new partners. The imperials wasted no time in collecting their debts.
Cierra’s family on her mother’s side never had much money. Going back into poverty was something her mother had never wished for her children. Late one night after the funeral, she had heard her mother talking to her paternal grandparents. “How can you just turn your back on them? I don’t care if you don’t want anything to do with me, but the children are your blood! They are the only parts of him that are still living!”
Her grandmother’s reply was still seared in her brain. “They are tainted with your blood as well. We’ve just gotten into the emperor’s good graces. We can’t risk that status by mingling with such undesirable company.” Cierra had never heard such cold-hearted rejection. Her father’s side of the family didn’t want anything to do with Cierra or her brothers. They were very firm on their position. They had been against her parents’ marriage because of class differences. To them, Cierra’s mother was getting what she deserved.
Cierra remembered her mother crying herself to sleep at night when the servants were dismissed. She had climbed in bed beside her mother, and the two of them found comfort in each other. Her mother had whispered something that night that broke Cierra’s heart. “I feel like I’ve failed him. He worked so hard to keep our family afloat. Now, everything is falling apart.” She didn’t know what to say to comfort her mother. All Cierra could think to do was hold her, and stroke her hair, the way her mother used to do to her, when she was young.
Without her father’s income, they had no way to pay their wages. Slowly, Cierra watched her once luxurious home be ripped to its bare bones. All of the furniture had to be sold. Even the frames around the portraits were hawked in order to put food on the table. When the furniture was gone, the house went up on the market. Cierra’s mother tried to keep the family together by a tight grip on what business remained, but it did her no good. Soon, the family was left with little more than their clothes.
They had moved to a small cottage outside of the city. It wasn’t much, but her mother did what she could to make it feel like home. Wildflowers often decorated the rickety dinner table. Patchwork curtains, sewn together from whatever scraps of fabric they could find, framed the small window.
Her mother, a beautiful woman, was reduced to embroidery work. It was the only thing she’d learned that had some real value. At least people would pay money to have it done. Her fingers were blistered and calloused from working long hours by candlelight. Desperate to help anyway she could, Cierra worked to clean houses. Her brothers found gainful employment at
a tool shop down the road from where they lived.
Every so often, a social worker for the local government would check in on them. “We can set you up with a weekly food delivery. The emperor wishes to care for all of his subjects, even those who feel they have been forgotten. All you have to do is sign the papers.”
“We are doing perfectly fine.” Her mother was too proud to accept charity, especially from a program the emperor had established. She was always firm when she answered the social workers, but Cierra knew that sometimes it was hard for her to say no. Her mother would cry every night for a week after the representatives visited. Truth be told, her mother blamed the emperor, and his imperial businessmen, for the death of Cierra’s father.
Her mother died with her sewing needles in her hands. She’d suffered a seizure days earlier, according to the local coroner, but she never told anyone. She didn’t want her children to worry. The worst day of Cierra’s life was when she accompanied her brothers on the graveside procession. That was the day she decided to do something about the empire.
The lift ship made contact with the cargo hauler two days later. The Masters of the Carbonari only gave out what information the team needed to carry out its mission. They knew the general outline of what had to be done, but not the specifics. They didn’t even know the name of the Yasta monastery they were supposed to hit.
“I never did learn where the name of this group comes from.” Theo shifted anxiously in his seat, next to Cierra. They watched the rear access door of the massive cargo ship open to take the smaller orbital lift inside it.
Cierra kept her eyes on the docking bay. “You mean the Brotherhood? I would think it’s pretty obvious.” They both wore standard work coveralls for the trip. Should any local customs officials search the cargo hold, the team would have an alibi as common workers on the smaller vessel.
“No, I meant ‘Carbonari’. What the hell is that supposed to mean? It never came up in the degree ritual.” Theo’s foot tapped rapidly on the floor. It was a nervous habit.
The Relissarium Wars Omnibus Page 10