Shadows of Divinity

by Luke Mitchell

  The warmth of my mom’s hand finding mine informed me my moral dilemma did not go unnoticed. I gave her a weak smile and focused back on the screen.

  At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what I thought. For mine was not to ask, but to serve. Even if those words did make my skin crawl at times. But that didn’t matter either. Because, once the Sanctum spoke, it didn’t matter what anyone thought.

  Who were we to question the will of Alpha?

  I shot a furtive glance at my mom and saw some shadow of my doubts mirrored on her face. She was wearing that soft frown she got sometimes when she thought I wasn’t looking—the one my father always seemed to meet with a significant look or a hushed whisper.

  That frown made me nervous in a way I’d never really understood.

  But before I could dwell on it, she turned to me, jostling me out of my rumination, and gave my hand a reassuring pat. “Alpha is wise, sweetie.”

  I made a face. “I’m gonna be a legionnaire in a few cycles, Mom. I think we might have to drop the sweeties.”

  She cracked a smile and was about to protest when a gentle tone chirped from the entryway behind us, announcing my father’s return. He strode into the living room a minute later, his eyes distant and sunken with an evident lack of sleep.

  That pang of sickening doubt stirred in my stomach.

  “Come,” my mom said, swinging her legs off the couch and patting the vacated cushion between us. “Sit, Love. You look exhausted.”

  For a second, he considered the armchair to the right of the couch, but then he came, plopped down between us, and started working on the stiff muscles above his prosthetic leg with strong thumbs. My mom, as she usually did, took over for him, and he let out a contented sigh, sagging into the couch.

  Something about the familiar interaction was immensely comforting to me. Maybe it was simply that I couldn’t process a world in which my father could betray my mom and still accept her touch so gratefully. Maybe it was the undeniable reassurance that, whatever else might be happening, my parents still loved one another.

  Maybe it was just a fleeting hope that everything really was okay.

  “Easy, guys,” I said, squirming further onto my side of the couch as my father gave a particularly appreciative groan. “We’re about to watch a man being executed, remember?”

  I’d meant the comment to be light, joking, but of course it wasn’t. We were about to watch a man being executed. Remember?

  Praise be to Alpha.

  Our collective attention shifted to the screen, where the WAN’s darling field reporter, Barbara Sanders, was discussing the details of Kovaks’ case and the mood in the White Tower as they awaited the High Cleric’s arrival in the Great Hall. It was a grim task, but she handled it with respect. Behind her, down on the main floor of the hall, hundreds of people had amassed now. Legion soldiers and officers. Sanctum clerics and acolytes. Praetors. Civilians of all vocations. Everyone come to bear witness.

  “Did you try the new sim build yet?” my father asked.

  I couldn’t tell if he was legitimately interested or just trying to disperse the gloomy cloud I’d accidentally cast over the room.

  “Yeah. Johnny and I just cleared it.”

  He watched me expectantly.

  “Okay, Johnny went demons to the wind and I cleaned up after he got himself shot.”

  That put a dark frown on my mom’s face.

  My father tried mirroring her frown but didn’t quite succeed at extinguishing the amusement in his eyes. “That sounds more believable.” He sobered. “Johnny needs to be more careful, Hal. You both do. You won’t be tyros much longer. Someday, maybe soon, those won’t be simulated slugs flying at the two of you.”

  The sentiment did nothing to alleviate the shadow on my mom’s face.

  Much as she supported our service to the Legion, I knew there was a part of her that detested the thought of us risking our lives for peace—a part that yearned for a world where the peace of Enochia could be maintained in a manner devoid of violence. Which was fair enough, I supposed, as applause in the Great Hall drew our attention back to the screen.

  But that just wasn’t the world Alpha had built for us.

  In the growing thunder of claps and cheers, Barbara Sanders gave her last few kind words for the peace of Andre Kovaks’ spirit, her dark eyes somber and sincere beneath her dark curls. Then she signed off, and the feed switched to a view of the High Cleric emerging at the top of the Great Hall’s gigantic four-tiered dais.

  The ancient man looked frail in his pristine ceremonial robes of white and gold. Kind of ironic, seeing as he probably had more power at his fingertips than any other man or woman on Enochia.

  Two tiers below him was an equally ancient-looking gallows—the same gallows that had been used throughout the centuries of the Sanctum’s reign, or so they said. Andre Kovaks stood atop the worn wood, adorned in black ceremonial robes that were emblazoned across the chest with a great red serpent.

  Beneath shaggy dark hair and a grizzled beard, he looked haggard, his eyes wild. He was shouting something, but the feed’s audio must have been coming directly from up on the High Cleric’s dais, because we saw nothing more than silent, frantic animations of his lips until the feed cut to a close-up of the wizened head of the Sanctum.

  In a calm, thin voice, the High Cleric began.

  The words, for the most part, were familiar ones. He spoke of the importance of structure and stability on Enochia. The essentialness of duty and, above all else, of faith. Familiar words, sure. Especially for a Legion family like us. But Alpha’s wrinklies, did the High Cleric know how to drive them home.

  My parents watched attentively beside me, my father leaning ever-so-slightly forward until the High Cleric finished his spiel and granted Kovaks leave to deliver any last words. Kovaks had a lot of them. And most of it was every bit as loopy as his alien invasion conspiracy theories had been.

  I turned to exchange a look of disbelief with my father only to find him even more riveted to the screen than he’d been during the High Cleric’s speech. Something about his expression struck me as odd. But, given the outlandishness of the things Kovaks was saying, maybe it shouldn’t have.

  The High Cleric allowed Kovaks’ frenzied ramblings to continue for a minute or so before he cut the feed to himself.

  “Alpha grant you peace, Andre Kovaks,” he said, extending a hand toward the hangman.

  Kovaks didn’t die neatly. Sometimes they don’t. But a minute later, he hung limply from the tight rope all the same, his sway slowly diminishing alongside whatever life was left in his unconscious body.

  It didn’t sit right in my stomach. It never did.

  But ours was not to ask.

  I turned to my father, the man who’d taken me to observe my first Sanctum execution when I was only twelve. The man who believed so completely in the Legion and his service to Alpha that I’d heard it told around Sanctuary he actually gave thanks when Alpha allowed him to sacrifice his leg to save the lives of his old fireteam. Except it wasn’t that belief I saw now. It wasn’t the resolute certainty that it was divine justice that had just been served.

  All I saw was unease. And doubt.

  “I think…” he said slowly, standing from the couch. He took a few steps toward his study before seeming to remember we were there. “I need to get some work done before supper. You two go ahead if you’re hungry.”

  I traded a surprised look with my mom.

  “All is right, Love,” she replied, though her hazel eyes were full of concern as he tromped off down the hallway.

  I watched him go in silence, Kovaks’ limp body swaying in my mind’s eye as I wondered what the hell the madman had done or said for his execution to have shaken my father’s rock-steady foundations like that.

  Something was most certainly up.

  And, despite the immortal wisdom of Johnny Wingard, I was starting to think it couldn’t be something so simple as an affair.

  2
r />   Hotshot

  The thinly-matted training floor slammed into my back at just the right angle to drive the air from my lungs in a sharp whoosh. The familiar sensation flooded in, like someone had opened my chest cavity to vacuum and shocked my diaphragm into paralysis.

  “That’s twice today, Tyro,” a gruff voice barked. “You got something you want to share with the class, or did you just get bored with making everyone else look like a herd of softsteel-sipping goat groppers?”

  I looked around the permacrete lot, taking in the glances flitting my way from indignant tyros and satisfied doceres alike. My eyes found Johnny’s, and he shot me a grin. Finally, I looked up to meet the ebony-skinned drill instructor’s stern gaze. Mathis’ reaction to my sorry excuse for sparring this morning was understandable—and, honestly, probably kind compared to what some of the other doceres would have said.

  But that didn’t stop a flicker of irritation from flaming up in my oxygen-deprived chest.

  “I didn’t sleep well last night,” I grumbled as best I could with my shocked diaphragm as I rose to my feet to face him again.

  It was true. I hadn’t slept so well last night. But he didn’t need to know more than that.

  He didn’t need to know about my concerns for my father, or my wriggling uncertainty about whether the Kovaks execution last night could really be called justice. He definitely didn’t need to know that the same thoughts that had troubled my sleep had continued tugging at me all morning.

  “Apologies, Docere Mathis,” I added. “It won’t happen a third time.”

  It was only then I noticed that even some of the patrolmen walking the top of Sanctuary’s massive perimeter wall had paused to look down at the spectacle of Martin Raish’s boy yet again failing to live up to his father’s heroic deeds.

  Heat crept into my face.

  The patrolmen were a fair distance away, but I knew they had zoom toggles in their helmet displays. Perks of being an officer’s son. Everyone was always waiting to see you fall on your ass. Waiting to receive that overdue confirmation that you are in fact an incompetent silver spoon whose only real accomplishment was being born to the right parents.

  Mathis extended his open palm to me in invitation for another bout. “Daddy’s boots are going to be awfully big for those flowers you call feet if that’s all you got, Tyro.”

  The scuddy bastard.

  A part of me wanted to sucker punch him right then and there, demons to the wind with the consequences. The rest just wanted to scream that I knew I was never going to live up to my father’s name and to sink straight into the permacrete and escape all those watching eyes. But neither was really an option.

  So, I squared up with Mathis and tried to put my head on straight.

  At just under six feet tall and an aggressively lean hundred and eighty pounds, the docere had physically outclassed me up until a few seasons ago. Now that our training was beginning to fill out some of the height I’d gained in my last growth spurt, though, Mathis’ physical superiority over me had been slowly diminishing. Now, his main advantages were experience and skill, and I was fairly confident I was closing the gap on the latter of those two as well.

  I was never going to be Captain Martin Raish. That much had been made abundantly clear to me pretty much since I’d learned to walk. But at least I might be able to put Mathis on his scudspout ass and regain a scrap of my wounded dignity.

  I slapped my palm to his in the customary gesture.

  Mathis surged forward without hesitation, eager to teach me yet another lesson in humility. I caught his jab and aimed a kick at his ribs. Mathis twisted into it and caught my knee with one arm while delivering an elbow strike with the other. I snaked an arm up, shielding my head and grabbing around the back of his neck in one motion. Mathis drove in, dropping my leg in favor of a quick gut punch, and tried to lever me into a hip throw before I could do anything more than cough for air and clutch for balance.

  I fought, battling for balance like a boulder teetering on the edge. But Mathis’ feet were planted in a sturdy base, and mine were caught flat and nearly in-line with my shoulders, forcing me to fight the strength of his legs with the strength of my torso.

  It wasn’t a fight I was going to win.

  But I would’ve rather eaten scud than let him take me down a third time.

  So I abandoned my lifeline grip on his neck to grab his chin and drive his face skyward. At the same time, I rotated in, forfeiting my balance and dropping my weight onto the leg Mathis was so insistently trying to trip me with.

  The move wasn’t exactly regulation, but it worked. Mathis’ right leg buckled under my weight, and in his surprise, I managed to scramble into position behind him. I got his throat in the crook of my arm—the first half of a solid chokehold—before victor’s pride took over and I decided a chokehold wasn’t good enough.

  Instead, I yanked the dull, springy polymer practice knife from the sheath at the back of my belt and planted the tip behind Mathis’ clavicle, right above one of the major kill points.

  Mathis stilled. I tensed, half-expecting him to hit me with a concealed stunner or something. But, finally, he reached down and tapped the mat.

  I immediately released him and stood, moving around to his front to offer my hand.

  “Well look who decided to wake up and come to drills.” Mathis kept his expression carefully neutral as he rose to his feet without my aid. He glanced down at his palmlight then around at the several dozen pairs of combatants who hurriedly looked away from us to resume their own contests.

  Mathis shook his head, a hint of irritation finally bleeding onto his ebony features. “That’ll do for the sorry lot of you scud sippers,” he called. “Maybe tomorrow one of you can pull your heads out of your asses long enough to give an old man a break and give Tyro Raish here a proper match.”

  It almost would’ve sounded like praise if I hadn’t recognized the comment for what it was—a double-edged sword, half compliment to me, half encouragement of the festering dislike several of the tyros (and the doceres, for that matter) already harbored for me.

  Oh well.

  After morning drills, Johnny and I filed into our customary seats at the back of the sleek lecture hall where we studied everything from military history and small unit tactics to the more standard hard and soft sciences that every kid, Legion and civilian alike, studied through their teens.

  Normally, I actually kind of enjoyed class. According to my marks, I was even a decent student to boot. Today, though, I couldn’t have told the instructor what he’d been talking about over the two-hour lecture, outside of that it had something to do with communications systems. And that much I knew only because it was written in big block letters at the head of the lecture materials I’d pulled up on my tablet.

  An hour later, Johnny and I sat in our usual corner of the mess hall, mechanically shoveling down highly nutritious, highly bland foodstuff before afternoon drills and lessons. That I barely remembered having arrived or left our live weapons training session just prior probably should’ve been more alarming, but the fact that I hadn’t been yelled at by any doceres told me my years of Legion training must’ve carried me through the mental fog on passable autopilot.

  Why was this whole thing bothering me so much?

  “I mean, I get it,” Johnny was saying. “The comms bunker can backdoor its way into basically every display on Enochia. That could be big if the scud really hits the turbines. Like if our dearly departed Kovaks hadn’t been totally gropping crazy, for instance.”

  The mention of Kovaks snapped my attention fully back to Johnny. “What did you say?”

  He studied me, clearly sensing something was up. “I’m just saying that they didn’t need to spend two whole hours talking about it.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Alpha’s wrinklies, man, where have you been off to all day?” He looked around the room, craning his neck as if looking for the source of my inattentiveness. “I didn’t miss a hot new
piece of tyro swell walking around, did I?”

  I rested my face in my hands and couldn’t help but smile.

  Johnny Wingard, loyal friend and relentless—if fruitless—swell hound.

  Then again, the fruitless part wasn’t necessarily Johnny’s fault. We didn’t exactly have a plethora of available candidates to choose from in Sanctuary. As tyros, relationships with our fellow trainees were forbidden. Once we became full legionnaires, they were merely heavily frowned upon, with plenty of complicated regulations to boot. And outside of the few non-tyro girls our age in Sanctuary, it wasn’t like we got out to go scope the scene in Divinity very often either.

  “Huh…” Johnny’s voice broke into the stream of my deliberately benign thoughts. I looked up and realized he was still glancing around the mess hall. “Hey, you ever seen that guy before?”

  I followed his gaze through the throng, searching. It didn’t take long to spot who he was talking about. Civilians always stood out on base, both in dress and in behavior, but this guy…

  There was something odd about him, though I couldn’t quite say what it was. Gray hair, though he couldn’t have been more than mid-thirties. Plain clothing of dull tones, not quite ragged, but not far off. Mostly, he just looked unassuming. Almost too unassuming.

  As I watched, his brow wrinkled, his pace slowing by a fraction.

  Then he looked straight at me.

  His eyes were pale, almost colorless. They searched my face for all of two seconds before he gave what looked like a forced smile and continued on. I watched him slide smoothly through the crowd and vanish.

  “That was weird.”

  When I finally turned back to Johnny, he just shrugged. “Hey, you’re a good-looking dude. As far as you non-gingers go, at least.”

  “Mmm,” I grunted in non-reply, glancing back to where the gray-haired man had disappeared.

  “What’s up, buddy?”

  I turned back to find Johnny watching me expectantly.

  “Come on,” he said, wiggling his fingers in a gesture of invitation. “Never mind the mysterious stranger. Tell Uncle Johnny what ails you this fine day.”