Son. This unit is a son? ADIM pondered to himself, looking down at his arm as his camouflage emitters projected the image of human skin upon the limb. It could’ve just been a manner of human speech that he didn’t yet understand, but the Creator had never referred to him in such a way.
This unit must ask the Creator if a son, by definition, must be human.
The Shadow Chariot pierced Earth’s grim veil while he contemplated the notion. He pulled up over an expanse of water as far as the eye could see. Violent waves crested with relentless frequency and hewed foam across the ocean like it were the mouth of an incensed beast.
ADIM kept his ship at a low altitude, weaving a path over the ocean as he headed for the landmass at the edge of the hazy horizon. Nobody was in sight. Not a ship, not a station. If he had been seen, the Tribune would already be on him, but he was never seen.
He guided the ship to a gentle landing atop a low bluff. The cockpit slid back, and the circuits linked to his forearms disconnected. ADIM carefully deactivated the engine and pulled a thicker cord out from his chest. The ship’s fusion core was undersized in order to keep the Shadow Chariot as small as possible, so Cassius had designed it to work in concert with ADIM’s, like a symbiotic being.
ADIM vaulted over the side of the ship once he was completely disconnected, the frozen dirt cracking beneath his feet. An oppressive gloom hung all around him, unlike any sort of night the other planets throughout the Circuit could muster. The stars were imperceptible. Only the silhouette of Luna could be seen, shining faintly like a faded skull.
He switched his vision to infrared and began sprinting across the countryside. There was nothing. A few patches of petrified forests here, some rubble there, but nothing worth slowing down to analyze. It was difficult for him to consider that the stumps once held life. There were no heat signatures anymore, no cities with innumerable towers and with vehicles whizzing over paved streets. In half a millennium, no human had walked the Earth without an enviro-suit and lived to talk about it.
This was his first time ever visiting the human homeworld, but to him it was as lifeless as any other world within the Circuit naturally was. He began to realize that even though it had fostered its creations for more ages than he knew to exist, in the end, it was as expendable as an obsolete ship.
Crossing a low hill, a group of heat signatures popped up. ADIM was half a kilometer out, but he had arrived at the NA-412 Drilling Site right on schedule. He kneeled at the summit and scanned the horizon.
The tremendous drilling assembly sat in the clearing—an island of dim light within the oppressive darkness. The drill itself was a thick cylinder of layered shells pumping out of the base, lowering a plasmatic tip deeper and deeper into the crevice over which it hung.
At the top of the rig was a sphere of offset rings that rotated feverishly around a reactor core much like ADIM’s, only larger. Three towering metal arms rose in a tripod formation to support it all, hoisting a boxy structure at the very top, which not only served as living quarters for those who worked the mine, but that was fitted with jets underneath. In case of volcanic activity rupturing the excavation site, it could lift off and safely carry the drill away.
The drills had been constructed by the Ancients, and the Tribune fiercely guarded them so that they couldn’t be destroyed or reproduced.
Anti-air turrets were positioned on the ridge adjacent to ADIM’s position. They posed no threat, but there was a time before he was constructed when Earth had been contested and the Tribune and the Ceresian Pact waged a war over who would control their homeworld. When the Earth Reclaimer War ended, only the Tribune owned Earth.
ADIM approached the drill, pulling up behind a turret. Scanners left over from the war beeped nearby, but they were searching for traces of biological life. The only thing ADIM had to worry about were the three lumbering combat mechs patrolling the site.
As he ran through myriad calculations for how best to infiltrate, Earth decided to offer him assistance. In the distance, molten rock began oozing out of a tall peak, like a trail of glowing rubies when all else was obscured. He waited for a moment until the ground started to rumble from seismic activity.
Each of the mechs turned to observe the minor eruption. ADIM sprinted down the hill as they did and lay down in between the legs of the nearest one. Being that close would make his heat signature nearly imperceptible against the mech’s.
ADIM’s enhanced auditory systems were able to perceive the pilot inside speaking to the others over comms. “How long you think this hole will last?”
The mech began to move with heavy steps that made the ground shudder even more intensely. ADIM sleuthed along, staying directly beneath it as it neared the drilling hole.
“I give it a month,” another pilot responded. “Can’t wait to get off this rock. Homeworld, my ass. Give me the clean glass sky of New Terrene any day.”
ADIM sprawled out and wrapped his limbs around one of the drill’s massive supports once he was close enough. He activated the magnets on his hands and feet to remain secure against it. Then he waited, making sure that none of the mechs took notice. A few mining bots scurried down the drill into the impossible depths of the mine like spiders down a web. They wouldn’t be a problem. They were inferior robotic constructs, built to perform only menial tasks like mining.
Lifts built onto the cambered columns supporting the drill could carry ADIM up to the living quarters, but the risk of human contact was far too great. He waited until the mechs were at a safe distance, then began to climb until all that was beneath him was an endless hole. If he wasn’t careful, even he could risk burning up down in Earth’s lower mantle.
A long climb brought ADIM to the top of the drill. The noise emitted by the layers of the machine rising and falling would be deafening to human ears. He muted it out.
The fusion core directly above whirred, the rings around it revolving so fast they could cleave a man in half. Completely upside down, he crawled along the living quarters’ underside towards the core. If he could heave himself toward the rotating blades and demagnetize in time to pass through, he would have direct access to the drill’s command terminal. But it would have to be perfect.
Getting as close as he could, ADIM hung by one arm and began to swing himself. One revolution, he thought. Two revolutions. Three. Four… 263 milliseconds between.
He timed it, then, without hesitation, flung himself. His torso twisted through the narrow space between the blades, but the lower portion of his legs were slapped with such force that he was shot across the circular platform inside. When his imaging systems settled, he scanned for damage.
Only superficial, he assessed.
The interior of the core was equally chaotic. Even more revolving blades surrounded the smoldering reddish-orange fusion reactor at its heart. Thick circuits draped from it, weaving along a grated platform toward more churning gears and blades below. The heat would boil a human alive. It was no threat to ADIM.
Rising to his feet, he approached the command terminal at the base of the core. A holoscreen prompted him to enter a password. As the Creator had estimated, the drill’s controls were reserved for specialized Tribunal engineers in the case of a malfunction. That was a rare occurrence, so ADIM had plenty of time to work.
He spread his fingers across the terminal. Even the Tribune’s most complex encryptions were as simple to crack for him as slicing paper with a knife. The screen flickered and his eyes began to spin. Data streamed through him. It took only a few minutes for every ounce of data on what constituted the Ancients’ plasmatic drills to be transmitted.
ADIM erased any trace of his entry, down to the source code, then backed away. The Creator will be pleased that there were no casualties, he thought as he grasped the base of the ladder and plotted his departure. It was all too easy.
10
Chapter Ten—Sage
Sage Volus waited in a seat on the public tramline ascending Pavonis Mons to the space elevator. Not ma
ny people were heading to the Mars Conduit Station that morning.
She stared blankly out the window, watching as the smooth, ruddy landscape rolled by. She hadn’t lived anywhere else in the Circuit for long. Executor missions had taken her to nearly every Tribunal settlement, but for the majority of her twenty-six years of life, she had dwelled in New Terrene. Protecting it. Now, she was being forced to leave despite saving thousands of innocent lives.
She knew this was the path she’d chosen. Nobody ever told her the life of an executor would be easy. In fact, when she’d walked the surface of Earth eight years earlier to take her vows, death seemed all too enticing. She’d lost the only man she’d ever loved. Lost her dreams.
That seemed like ages ago now. Her memory of him had grown so distant, she could barely picture his face. In fact, she couldn’t even remember the last time he’d popped into her head. She immediately shoved the thought to the back of her mind. She had to stay focused.
Going undercover on Ceres Prime wasn’t going to be a vacation. There was no greater haven in the Circuit for the faithless and corrupt. But the Tribune needed her service, and she would provide it as she always had, without reservation or doubt.
Glancing at her reflection in the window, she hardly recognized herself. Probably because her skin had had some color sapped from it to be as pale as a Ceresian’s, and her hair was arranged differently to help disguise herself. Instead of wavy, auburn locks draping over her slender shoulders, she wore it in a short, straight style, temporarily dyed dark brown. But her green eyes also seemed different, like they were drained of their former luster.
She watched as she forced her lips into a smile. It hardly looked natural. From her hair to the artificial arm hanging from the stump of her shoulder, she hated everything she saw. All she wanted at that moment was to smile one day again and mean it, but after so many years it seemed that day would never come—
“Miss… Miss… Miss!”
Sage snapped out of her trance. “What?”
“We’ve arrived at Pavonis Mons. Are you getting off?”
“Yes. Sorry.” She stood and stumbled slightly. The sudden movement made her so woozy that she felt as if she were going to faint.
“You all right?” He tried to help her, but she dodged him and caught herself on the back of a seat.
Must still be from the blast, she thought as she shook her head. Not only was it making her more prone to emotional thinking, but it was still affecting her physically. Great. She couldn’t seem to stay focused no matter how much she told herself to, and she could hardly walk a straight line.
“I’m fine,” Sage hissed as she shoved past him.
She stepped off the tram with her pulse-pistol holstered on her belt alongside anything else she could possibly need. Personal holopad, some rations, CP card, and of course her combat armor. The nano-fiber suit with carbon plating fitted smoothly over her muscles, with layered sleeves extending all the way down to her hands to conceal her artificial right arm. The armor was custom made, unmarked by any designer, as was typical of her order. Countless dents and scratches mottled what was once a stunning white set.
She couldn’t, however, go traipsing into Ceres in such expensive armor without raising suspicion. Tribune Vakari had taken care of that. This time, Agatha Lavos was the name prescribed to her—the orphaned daughter of a wealthy smuggler family operating out in deep space beyond Saturn’s orbit during the Earth Reclaimer War. In the attack that claimed their lives, she apparently lost her arm. A merchant uncle took her in, and Agatha had spent a great deal of her life working with him throughout the conduit stations. He used the wealth left to her by her parents to build her a new arm, and when he passed away, she’d finally decided to leave it all behind in order to start a life on Ceres Prime.
All the history was there, lovingly fabricated by the Tribune to make her identity as real as any other. Sprinkle in some facts about how her parents died and why she was drawn to Ceres, of all places, and the character was complete.
Some of it was based on truth. Her arm had been built for her by a man, and she could never forget him. She also never knew her birth parents. Only that they’d died toward the end of the war when she was a young child. But they weren’t rich, and neither her armor nor her pistol were heirlooms. They had been designed for her when she was named an executor.
This was her life. It didn’t matter why she initially wanted to be an executor, because now it was the only thing she was good at. She enjoyed being as amorphous as a shadow, guarded by her anonymity. As far as the outside world knew, Sage Volus never existed. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
Serena and Paulus Lavos. Killed in 494 K.C. by Tribunal forces outside New Terrene. She recited the story of her false identity over and over in her head as she rode the space elevator up out of the atmosphere, her ears popping. Agatha hates… I hate the Tribune and want vengeance for my family. The Ceresian Pact can help me.
It was a simple story, but that made covers work better. Less room to make mistakes. Although, nobody in Ceres would care where she came from as long as she could prove her worth with a gun.
The elevator released her into the Mars Conduit Station. Sage stopped to take a breath. The recycled air of the station was fresher than she was used to in old New Terrene. It made her feel a little bit better. She couldn’t tell whether her head pounded from thinking too much or from the explosion, but she knew she had to relax.
There was nothing to be afraid of.
Expertly trained in the arts of combat and subterfuge, if Sage couldn’t convince a few Ceresian grunts that she was worthy of their cause, then she didn’t deserve to be an executor anyway.
A towering projection of Tribune Benjar Vakari suddenly rose through the Tribunal arrivals concourse. “People of Mars,” his semi translucent hologram said, “this is Tribune Benjar Vakari, and I speak on behalf of your Tribunal.” Benjar spread his arms, and the rest of the Tribunal Council appeared behind him in a straight line.
Sage began riding up the escalators weaving around the station, heading up through the security checkpoint between the Tribune-run portion of the station and the neutral side. She observed the hundreds of people wandering about beyond the divide, some of them waiting to catch the next solar-ark, many of them homeless. Mercenary guards were everywhere, most densely stationed near the mobile merchant stands set up at every level.
“Trust in the spirit that binds us, the Spirit of Earth dwelling deep in your soul,” Benjar’s hologram continued. “Together, we will deliver mankind to a new golden age, one of green pastures, of life outside these walls.”
Wares from all corners of the Circuit were presented. People could come and barter with traders who tried their best to remain unaffiliated with any faction. They accepted almost anything, from food to possessions, but were mostly interested in acquiring what was known as pico.
The currency only remained in existence amongst the Ceresian Pact and the fringe settlements out beyond Jupiter. Since generating gravity was crucial for humans to be able to colonize the Circuit without being adversely affected, it was a credit system backed by a certain volume of gravitum. One pico could very literally be converted to one pico-unit of the element.
The system had generally been eradicated throughout the settlements of the NET, reserved for only its wealthiest citizens who associated with outside parties. It was, however, necessary to negotiate personal passage on a solar-ark, making it almost impossible for most people under rule of the New Earth Tribunal to ever leave the settlement of their birth. Sage had a small amount wired into her counterfeited CP card.
A hologram of Joran Noscondra handed Benjar a glass tube containing a wiry plant suspended in the water within. Benjar presented it proudly. “There is hope,” he said. “One day we will all return home. But we must remain faithful.”
Sage’s heart skipped a beat as she saw what was in the Tribune’s hands. She nearly bumped into the back of the line snaking out of the transf
er platform she was headed to. Just seeing the plant made her short of breath. The memory was a haze, but she’d been there the day it was discovered on Earth. That tiny pathetic piece of life was more than just a symbol of the Tribunal’s faith to her, it was a piece of her that she could never reclaim.
Benjar placed the plant aside. “The cowardly dissidents of the Ceresian Pact will try to strip us of that faith,” he said sternly. “But I urge you to ignore their heretical rambling!” The face of his projection was currently at her level. Its eyes bored into her, as if speaking to her directly.
I am a knight in the darkness, a vessel of their wisdom. I am the silent hand of the Tribune. I will not lose faith amongst the faithless. She repeated her vows in her head. They soothed her, made her forget that she had ever seen the image of that wiry plant.
“They raid and pillage our unarmed ships!” The floor vibrated as Benjar’s authoritative voice rose to fill the entire terminal, even beyond the Tribune’s section. “They attempt to strike us in our very heart! But we will not be dismayed! The New Earth Tribunal is here for you.” His voice quieted to a passionate whisper. “Here for humanity. Together, we cannot fail.”
The line began to file into the transfer platform to the Ceres Conduit. Sage had nearly missed it while she listened to Benjar’s spirited message, unable to look away from his giant all-seeing eyes.
Had he programmed this new message to play specifically as she passed through?
Was he talking to her?
11
Chapter Eleven—Talon
22 Kalliope was one of the latest M-type asteroids in the Circuit to be targeted for mining. Its craggy exterior was dappled with deep channels and voids. After years of exploitation already, on the outside it appeared to have no more metal left to offer, but the asteroid belt was fertile. 22 Kalliope had barely been scratched.
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