“I still wished we could have searched for survivors,” Awen said, looking into her tea.
“I get that. But you have to remember the big picture in moments like this.”
“And what’s that?”
“There’s a reason you survived.”
“And a reason they died?” she asked.
Magnus pursed his lips. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Listen, the big picture is that you’re still alive and you have something important in your possession.”
“I’m alive because I had a split second to do something about it, and it still wasn’t enough to save them too.”
“You… you did something back there? When the first explosion happened?”
Awen nodded.
“More magic?”
“Not magic. It’s just that some of us… are different. We’re able to sense things before they happen.”
“The concrete,” Magnus said.
“Yeah, like the concrete. We can’t see everything before it happens. It can be… fuzzy. But I felt something in time enough to get a partial field around me and most of the mwadim.”
“Yeah, but not his head,” Magnus said with a sniff, remembering the giant dog’s mutilated muzzle.
“Like I said, a partial field. It was all I could do.”
“Well, it probably saved your life.”
“And it didn’t save theirs,” she said, feeling a sudden wave of bitterness.
“Awen, listen. Blaming yourself isn’t—”
“Isn’t going to solve anything?” She shook her head, agitated. “For all the mystics! I’ve heard that speech so many times. When will we learn that it doesn’t make people feel any less guilty?”
Magnus swirled his tea then took another sip. “I think we say it because we don’t know what else to say. And it’s what I keep telling myself.”
Awen searched his face. She suddenly realized, to her shame, that Magnus had lost people too. Sure, they were troopers, and they’d expected to die. They were paid to go into those kinds of situations. But that didn’t make it any less painful.
“Magnus… I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t even—”
“Bottom line is, you’re alive, and now you need to make it count.”
Make it count. Awen considered the wisps of steam that appeared above her cup and then vanished. “And what if I don’t?”
“What do you mean?”
Awen fought back a sudden urge to cry. She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. This work might be about as meaningless as a wisp of steam—here one second and gone the next. The years of mounting tension with her parents, her tireless work for the Luma, the Jujari, and then it had all been snuffed out in a matter of minutes. Lives had been snuffed out.
“What if I just want to go back home and be done with all of this?” she asked then cleared her throat. “You know, I was just seventeen when I was asked to attend observances.”
Magnus looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“Sorry. It’s six years of monastic training in the Luma’s academy. Anyway, I was seventeen. I had top scores in school, was civic minded, and wanted to make a difference. So, when I got the letter, I was beside myself. I thought, you know, this is it. This is my chance to change the galaxy. I loved what the Luma stood for, preserving galactic cultures and keeping them from—”
“From getting swallowed up by the Republic. Yeah, I get it.”
“It’s just a different way of making progress, that’s all.”
Magnus didn’t look convinced, but it didn’t matter. This was her story, not his. “Anyway, my parents fought me on it for months. Said it was a mistake.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “But I knew it wasn’t. After my first year, my tests revealed that I was a true blood.”
“A what?” he asked.
“A true blood. It’s believed that everyone can learn to move in the Unity of all things, but true bloods can move through it more powerfully.”
“That’s what you meant by ‘some of us’ earlier? About sensing things before they happen?”
“Yes.” She nodded and pushed a strand of hair over her ear. “So I thought, that was it. It would prove to my parents that I was destined to be a Luma—that I’d chosen well for myself.”
“But they didn’t take it that way, I’m guessing.”
“No. No, they didn’t.” She sipped her tea. “The gap widened, and I threw myself into my studies.”
“The Jujari?”
“And quantum mechanics,” she added with a smile.
“Huh. Overachieve much?”
Awen smiled. “Yeah, well… I excelled in school. No surprise there, I guess. And by the time I graduated and became an elder, I knew more about the Jujari than even my masters. So when the Order received word from the mwadim that they wanted us to serve as council for negotiations with the Republic, I was asked to lead the diplomatic mission.”
“That’s quite the honor for someone so young,” Magnus said then hesitated. “I don’t mean any disrespect.”
“None taken. And I agree. At twenty-four years common, I’m the youngest emissary to lead a mission in the Luma’s multimillennial history.”
“Whoa, I had no idea. That’s impressive.”
“You’d assume my parents would think so too. But now that everything’s fallen apart, maybe this was all just a big mistake. Maybe my parents were right.”
“Maybe they were,” Magnus agreed, “and maybe they weren’t. But as far as I can tell, they’re not the ones writing your destiny, Awen. You are.” He set his tea down on the mess table beside him. “Back on Caledonia, during my first deployment, our platoon had been pinned down on a beachhead, and our CO was trying to come up with options. I noticed a stand of palms to one side and offered to take my fire team to flank the enemy. It was risky. There was no cover between our position and those trees. But I felt that if we had a shot at catching our enemy off guard, this was it. My CO said I was an idiot, called me a bunch of names not worth repeating here. But in the end, he let me go. Said it was my call.”
“What happened?”
“I ran my fire team across the beach, took up firing positions in the palms, and surprised the enemy emplacement. My idea worked. CO said it saved the platoon. Bottom line is, my CO wasn’t writing my destiny, and neither was my enemy. I was.”
Awen caught herself staring into his green eyes longer than she’d intended. She looked down and sipped her tea some more.
“Listen, Awen. I get feeling like you’re not in control. Like, other people think you’re crazy for doing what you do. And I get wanting to give up. I do. And you know what? You can. No one is stopping you. But I’m not sure you realize what’s about to happen—what has happened.”
“And what’s that?”
“We’re at war. I don’t mean a clash with some small-sector rebels; I mean all-out war. A war that I’m not sure we’re going to be able to win. You and I both know that the Jujari lead the largest non-Repub alliance in the galaxy. So, whatever’s on that stardrive, and whatever the mwadim saw in you, you’d better make it count, because that may be the only play you have left. You’re in charge of your own destiny, so live it before someone else kills it.”
12
Abimbola knew something was wrong as soon as he saw the orange glow hanging over the Dregs. Berouth slowed the skiff as it crested a bluff so they could survey the scene below. Flames and billowing smoke rose from the center of the city and stretched into the night sky like the torrent of some violent funeral pyre. Abimbola lifted himself out of his seat to hear klaxons blaring and the cries of a city in upheaval.
“What happened?” Berouth asked.
“They are after her,” Abimbola replied, more to himself than to his second-in-command. “Come on, let us go.”
* * *
The skiff entered the city limits and fought against a rush of pedestrians and vehicles flowing in the oppos
ite direction. Berouth did his best to point the skiff to the city center, as Abimbola was increasingly confident that the fire had begun in his warehouse.
The streets became less crowded with the living and more populated with the dead as Abimbola and Berouth neared the epicenter. Abimbola saw badly burned bodies, some missing limbs, others torn in two. This hadn’t been a fire; this had been a detonation, and the flames were just the aftermath. More explosives, he thought, his mind connecting this violence to that in the mwadim’s tent.
Whoever had terrorized the mwadim’s meeting had done this too—Abimbola was sure of it. But was the girl worth so much devastation? Perhaps. He thought of all the women whose lovers had decimated entire worlds for their sake. But maybe they weren’t after the girl. Maybe they were after the stardrive and believed that whatever was on it was worth killing innocent lives for.
Abimbola thought of his men, most of whom, he feared, were now lost. And if any of them had survived, they wouldn’t be alive for much longer. Still, he wouldn’t be the one to abandon them. He wouldn’t be the one to go back on his pledge to protect them.
“Let us go on foot from here.” Abimbola leaped from the skiff as it slowed. He drew his bowie knife and headed down a side street to avoid the worst of the heat. The roar of the flames moving through the tops of the buildings sounded like a stampede of Limbian granthers on their way to a new watering hole.
Despite the likelihood that the bombers were long gone, Abimbola kept his head on a swivel, eyes searching for prey. The last thing he wanted was to be picked off by some low-rate sniper, all because he had been too hasty to return to his men. He’d seen too many good warriors lost that way. He hadn’t survived this long by luck alone.
Abimbola and Berouth made two more turns before they approached the remains of the hideout. The building now resembled the charred skeleton of a defeated behemoth, its metal spine and ribs twisted from the force of a blast, the corrugated flesh chewed away by flames. Abimbola felt the ruins’ pulsing heat against his skin, the blackened metal glowing a dark red near the worst of the tears.
“Look for survivors,” he said. “But do not expect to find any. Meet back here once you have done what you can. And be careful.”
“Yes, my lord,” Berouth said.
They moved into the derelict building, picking their way through the wreckage. Abimbola used his knife to move debris aside and pry apart sheet metal. Fortunately, the worst of the fire had already consumed most of what was available to burn, but the heat and burnt rubble made searching difficult.
Twice, his boots stepped on humanoid corpses. At first, he thought they were merely the contents of a supply room or blown-up refrigeration unit. He cursed, kneeling to identify the remains he’d desecrated, but it was no use. The bodies were so damaged that as far as he could tell, they could have been one of the game carcasses from the hunting grounds of his youth. He closed his eyes, made the sign of blessing, and moved on.
It wasn’t until he neared the former holding cell where Awen and Magnus had been kept that he heard the first scratching sound of a survivor. He moved toward the toppled metal wall of the cell and started ripping at it with his knife. Abimbola pried away a corrugated plate to reveal the ash-covered face of his prison guard, the one Magnus had called Weasel.
“Hey, boss,” the man said in a daze, squinting in the orange glow. “Is that… really you?”
“Yes, yes,” Abimbola replied. “Hold on, let me—”
“I don’t want to die, boss.” The man started crying. Tears created fresh pink lines on his blackened face. “Splick, I don’t want to die.”
“I know you don’t,” Abimbola said, trying his best to comfort the man but not wanting to lie to him either. He’d seen too many well-meaning people tell those doomed to death that they were going to be all right. He never understood how lying to someone in their last moments of life was honorable. “Did you see who did this to you?” Abimbola hoped to help the man get his mind off the inevitable and provide something useful.
“They were… were…” Weasel coughed globular clumps of red from his mouth, then his eyes went wide in terror as if looking as some demonic apparition.
“Were what? What were they?”
“Ruthless. I was so afraid.”
“Who were?”
“Blasters. Anyone they didn’t kill, they…” The guard coughed again, wincing in pain. “Interrogated. Wanted to know where the Luma was. Stardrive.”
“What did they look like?”
“Said if we didn’t tell them, they’d torch the city.”
“What did they look like?” Abimbola asked again. “What can you tell me?”
“But I didn’t tell them, boss. I didn’t crack. So they cracked my ribs. Spine.”
Abimbola lowered his head, knowing the guard was moments from death. In truth, he couldn’t believe the man had survived at all. “Well done,” Abimbola said. “I am proud of you. Any idea who sent them?”
“Darkness. They were darkness.”
“Darkness?”
“And black armor,” the guard said, his voice fading. “White lines.” He started choking, head tossing, eyelids flitting in a spasm. “Please! I don’t want to die.”
Then the man’s face froze in place, suspended in a state of fear. Abimbola reached out and closed the corpse’s eyes and made the sign of blessing for the departing soul.
Black armor with three white stripes on the shoulder—Abimbola knew that look. He had seen it before, as if in a dream. He’d been a boy then, hoisted into an air ventilation shaft and told to stay put and not come out until two sunrises after he heard the last blaster shot ring out. The caring people, the ones who resembled Awen, spoke to him and tried to reassure him that everything was going to be okay, that nothing was going to happen to him. But he sensed their fear. He knew they were all going to die. They’re coming, he heard them whisper to each other. Try not to make any sound.
* * *
“I believe they left the system on a highly modified light freighter.” The trooper in the holo-projection wore a sleek helmet that looked more like the nose of a racing sled than a Marine bucket. The black full-face shield reflected a spotlight from the hoverbot that transmitted the video link.
Admiral Wendell Kane inclined his chin, insisting the report go on.
“Katana class,” added the trooper. “Most likely headed to Worru.”
Kane nodded. “Plumeria.”
“That would be my guess, sir.”
“Good work.”
“Thank you, Admiral.”
“Any witnesses?” Kane asked.
“All loose ends have been taken care of.”
“Good. Level the warehouse, and then get back to the ship. Your work there is complete.”
“Right away, sir.”
Kane swiped the channel closed and looked to his XO. “Ready the Peregrine and her crew, then prepare a course for Worru. I’ll depart the moment Captain Nos Kil and his platoon return and are aboard the Peregrine.”
“Aye, sir,” the XO said, but then he hesitated.
“What is it?” Kane asked.
“You plan to go after them without any assets on Worru, sir?”
Kane smiled at the man but without any genuine mirth. “Who said I didn’t have assets on Worru?”
The XO stared for a moment then nodded and walked away.
Kane turned to face the observation windows, his gloves squeaking as he made fists behind his back. “We’ll have the coordinates soon enough. Soon enough. And then the long slumber will be over.”
13
The Stones had been aboard Destiny’s Carriage for exactly two days when Piper started to have the visions. The ship sailed through subspace, bound for an obscure water-covered moon in the outskirts of the Theophanies system, and without a playmate, Piper soon found she was terribly bored. She was curled up in the crash couch in her quarters, drawing on her holo-pad, with Talisman acting as half companion, half pillow.
&
nbsp; The picture Piper drew consisted of three people standing on a mountain, looking over a picturesque valley. To one side of the green expanse lay a vast ocean, and to the opposite was a forest. Her mind had begun to wander when suddenly, the drawing came to life. It was not that the lines were animated, as all art programs could do, but that the lines became real. Piper was no longer looking at a little girl who held the hands of her parents; she was the little girl. Immersed in the image, she was aware of the wind playing with her hair, the warm sunlight dancing across her skin, and her mother and father holding her hands in theirs. She couldn’t see their faces, but she knew they were there, were real, and that they loved her.
Far below them, stretching to the horizon, lay the valley. Wild horses raced through it while sea creatures splashed in the ocean and birds flocked in twisting swirls over the forest. The moment felt as real as any she’d ever had—perhaps more real.
Then the sunlight dimmed, and a cold breeze pricked Piper’s skin. She shivered, drawing herself close to her parents. She watched as the sea creatures disappeared, the birds dove into the trees, and the horses made for cover. Something evil was coming.
She felt her parents pulling her, their hands yanking on hers—only they weren’t pulling her forward or backward. They were tearing her apart. Piper yelled to them, wondering if in their panic they didn’t realize what they were doing to her. Quickly, however, the forces working at her hands became painful, so painful that she screamed. It was as if the darkness grew fangs and bit at the middle of her heart. Her parents were literally tearing her apart.
She screamed again, the pain filling her with fear, until she realized that she could no longer hear her own voice. It was as if her mouth were covered with a muzzle: no matter how hard she thrashed her head about, she couldn’t shake it free.
She felt powerless, at the mercy of the two people she loved and trusted more than any in the cosmos, at the mercy of their warring hands and lack of concern for her torment.
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