by Jay Allan
Sarah knew he’d left to take out his grief on the universe, and she’d been deathly afraid she would never see him again, that his rage would drive him to a tragic death in some misadventure. But two years to the day after he’d left, he sent her a message. He was fine. Indeed, he was an officer in one of the new mercenary companies, a warrior just like his father. The one thing Erik Cain hadn’t wanted.
She’d seen him several times over the next decade, while he was founding the Black Eagles and building his reputation—and his infamy. She pretended not to hear later, after his reputation had spread, when people called him a savage, a butcher. She knew her son wasn’t an evil man. Better than most people, she understood the seeming inevitability of conflict. Blaming the soldiers who fought the wars, while absolving the politicians who created them, was unjust. But it still hurt her to realize that most of the people in Occupied Space feared her son.
She often wondered what Erik would have said to Darius. Would he have approved of his son’s steadfast resolution, been proud of his martial brilliance? Yes, probably, she had decided more than once. But would he also have spoken to the boy, tried to instill more tolerance in him, to help him to see people in less entirely absolute ways? Yes, again, she thought, though with a bit less conviction. Erik Cain had been the love of her life, but he’d been a hard man, forged by bitter experiences. He tended to think the worst of people all his life, unless they proved him wrong. She didn’t know how he would have reacted to seeing the extent to which his son took that disdain for humanity.
Elias was just as steadfast—pigheaded would be a better word, she thought. He plunged into his career with the patrol, rising quickly in its burgeoning ranks. Atlantia hadn’t been one of the richer colony worlds, but it was growing rapidly and beginning to exploit the resources of the other planets of its solar system. The exploitation of previously undiscovered resources kicked off an economic boom that put the planet on a trajectory toward the top tier of colonies.
Atlantia’s colonists had created an old-fashioned, traditional society, and they strove to maintain it in the face of rapid expansion and population growth. Politicians ran on law and order platforms, and layers of new rules and regulations followed every election. The patrol took on the task of enforcing Atlantia’s ever-growing body of law throughout the new mining colonies and trading posts.
Sarah had seen Elias more often than Darius, at least in the earlier years, and she’d watched him grow harder, more aggressive and pitiless in his inflexible enforcement of the edicts of the Atlantian government. She knew Erik would have respected his son’s work ethic and his devotion to duty, but he would have been disturbed by Elias’ robotic—and increasingly mindless—dedication to imposing a seemingly endless series of new diktats, without so much as a thought to whether he agreed with them in principle. Erik Cain had never allowed himself to become the unfettered tool of those in the halls of power, despite his long career in the military. He had always remained his own man, with his own thoughts and beliefs, and it would have hurt him to see his son behave differently. Erik—and Sarah—had seen where such mindless obedience led, to the stratified societies of the Superpowers, which had seen the vast majority of mankind living in appalling conditions, completely stripped of their freedoms.
Sarah had remained on Atlantia for a few years after Erik was lost, rambling alone through the waterfront home they had built two decades before. But the sorrow and loneliness grew on her. Time did nothing to diminish the pain she felt for her loss, and she reached the point where she couldn’t bear the endless, empty hours. Her surroundings were a constant reminder of what she had lost, of the life she had waited decades to achieve, only to see it slip away. She finally returned to Armstrong, where at least a few old friends and comrades remained—and where she could spend her hours doing something truly productive.
She’d resumed her post running the Old Marine hospital. The massive facility had transitioned into Armstrong’s primary care facility, for both military and civilian patients. The leading edge capabilities, built over years of handling vast numbers of Marine and naval casualties, made the hospital a revenue source for the vastly-shrunken Corps. It was the premier medical center in Occupied Space, and wealthy individuals flocked to Armstrong for treatment of serious illnesses and injuries, pumping large amounts of money into the local economy.
It took Sarah a considerable time to get used to dealing with non-military patients. Her new position required a significantly more nuanced approach than had been required when the hospital was full of recovering Marines. Still, the Corps owned the facility, and she’d officially come out of retirement to assume the top job. She’d been a colonel when she’d elected to retire, but the Corps had bumped her up to brigadier general just before moving her to inactive status, and now she had a single star on each collar. When she wore a uniform, which was rarely. Most of the time when she wasn’t in scrubs, she dressed in civilian clothes.
The com unit on her desk buzzed. “Yes?” she said as she pushed the button to activate the device.
“General Cain, you asked to be alerted when the patient regained consciousness.”
She leapt up out of her chair. “On my way,” she snapped, and flipped the com unit off.
She walked across her large—uncomfortably so, she’d always thought—office and slipped out into the reception area. “I’ll be down in the ICU,” she said as she trotted out into the hallway.
Her stomach was tight. Anderson didn’t have much time left, and she knew each time he woke from his near-coma could be the last. Anderson-45 was, to the best of her knowledge, the last of Gavin Stark’s Shadow Legion warriors still alive. He’d been created, as they all had, to fight the Marines and conquer mankind for the psychopathic Stark, but he had been captured in one of the early battles, and by the end of the war Sarah had broken his conditioning and Anderson-45 had become an ally of the Marines. He’d helped rehabilitate the few clones who survived the war, but now they were all gone, and only he remained.
The clone soldiers had been the work of a brilliant scientist, whose name was lost in the devastation of the climactic war. Likely, he was murdered by Stark as soon as he’d served his purpose. The cloning technology was perfect, and the hundreds of thousands of soldiers created were identical copies of their parent beings. Anderson-45 had been one of the senior officer class, the 45th quickened from the DNA of a kidnapped Marine colonel whose name had also been Anderson.
The Shadow clones had indeed been perfect, but with one complication. They began their existence as embryos, and they developed in their mechanical crèches until they were normal human infants. But Gavin Stark need adult soldiers, and he hadn’t been prepared to wait almost two decades for his clones to mature naturally. The Shadow project developed the answer, an accelerated growth process along with a program of direct neural input, capable of creating a fully-grown and totally trained soldier in less than five years.
It had been an amazing leap forward, but it had not come without cost. The enhanced growth caused chromosomal damage, dramatically reducing the natural lifespans of the clones. And despite three decades of medical research, no way to significantly reverse the damage had ever been found. Anderson-45 was 38 years old, but he was the physical equivalent of a 130 year-old man.
Sarah put her palm on the access panel for the ICU, pausing for a second as the system confirmed her ID and cleared her for entry. The outer door slid open, allowing her access to the airlock entry. It slid shut behind her and, an instant later, the inner hatch opened. She walked inside and down the hall to Anderson’s small room.
“If it isn’t my favorite doctor,” he said slowly, with great difficulty. It was clear that every word caused him pain, but he managed a reasonable facsimile of a smile for her.
She forced herself to return the smile, but it was difficult. She’d become very fond of the clone over the years, and she counted him among her few true friends. Watching him wither away was enormously painful. “And
my favorite patient…and the one I’ve had longest too.”
Anderson had been a strong and intelligent man, possessed of the DNA of one of the Corps’ finest. Once she’d freed him of his conditioning, he’d made the most of his short life, doing his best to help his brethren. The Shadow Legion soldiers had been the Marines’ enemy, but they had been tools, victims themselves, created to fight and die and controlled with experimental brain surgery and psychological conditioning. When Sarah had removed the conditioning, many of the survivors were wracked with guilt at the things they had done under Stark’s control, driven to the edge of insanity. Many committed suicide, others turned to alcohol and drugs to block the pain. Anderson had worked with many of them, helping them to adapt and become productive members of society.
When the First Imperium returned, the old Shadow soldiers flocked to the Marine standards, despite the fact that they were already beginning to show signs of accelerating physical deterioration. They served with great distinction in that war, many of them fighting under Erik Cain in his last battles.
He shifted, trying to get comfortable, apparently without success. “It just hurts everywhere,” he finally said, sinking back again. “Might as well accept it.” His speech was slow and labored, but that was all physical, the best he could manage between his rasping breaths. But Anderson had kept his wits about him, and his mental state was as strong as that of any man in his late thirties. Sarah didn’t wish that her friend suffered from dementia, but it somehow made it worse to watch such a young and strong mind trapped in a decaying body.
“Sarah,” he said, looking up at her, “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me all these years.” There was a sadness in his voice, and a weakness that made her eyes watery.
“Anderson…”
“No, Sarah,” he croaked softly. “Please, let me say this. I remember how hard you worked to break that terrible conditioning, to allow me to live as a human being and not a slave. My life may have been a short one, but it wouldn’t have been mine at all without you.”
He reached out a trembling hand and put it on her arm. “I know how much sadness you have endured. Don’t give up on the rest of your life, Sarah. You have more time, and where there is time, there is always hope.”
“Thank you, Anderson. But you have already given me your gratitude…in how you have lived your life. You have shown me that every bit of effort was worthwhile. You may have begun life in a laboratory, but you are more of a human being than most I have known.”
She sighed softly, and sat in the chair next to the bed. Her eyes were on his chest heaving up and down, her ears listening to the raspy, liquid sound of his breath. She had seen far too many men and women die in her years in the field hospitals, and she knew in her gut her friend Anderson wouldn’t wake again when he slipped back into unconsciousness.
The clone lay still, silent, drawing increasingly shallow breaths. Sarah laid her hand on his and sat with him quietly. The minutes slipped into an hour then two. Anderson’s breathing was becoming increasingly difficult, and he’d slipped back into a gentle delirium. Sarah sat and listened as his labored breathing became quiet, slow. A few minutes later she stood up and looked down at him, reaching out and gently closing his eyes. Anderson-45 was dead.
“General Cain? I am sorry to disturb you…”
Sarah always felt a pang when someone called her that. To her, General Cain would always mean Erik. But she was General Cain now as well. She had decided to change her name when they’d gotten married. It was old-fashioned to be sure, but that had been the trend on colonies like Atlantia then, and Sarah had wanted nothing more than to fit in and live a normal life. And she’d lived that life, if only for a short while.
“Yes?” She turned and looked back toward the door. One of the ICU techs was standing there.
“There is a messenger waiting in your office, General.”
That’s strange. Who would be visiting me? “Did they say who it was?”
“No, General.” A short pause. “Only that he was sent by a Roderick Vance.”
Chapter 13
Just Outside the Ruins of Jericho
Planet Earth, Sol III
Earthdate: September, 2317 AD
Axe was adrift, floating in darkness. He knew it was over. Everything was lost—Ellie, Jericho, all of it. He was dying, or was he already dead? He didn’t know. Nothing seemed real.
Then he felt something different. Pressure. On his shoulder, his leg. It was firm, not like the gauzy sensations he’d been feeling. Then pain. Terrible pain, agony. His whole body hurt. His arms, his gut, his legs—and his tortured lungs. Then he saw light, dim at first, spotty, cutting slowly through the blackness. Brighter. Sunlight. Shining through hazy eyes. I’m alive, at least for a few moments more.
But there shouldn’t be light. He’d been shot. He remembered now. He’d been lying on the ground, watching one of the raiders raise his gun to finish him. But it had been the middle of the night. What was this light? Had he been lying here for all those hours?
“Axe?” He heard his name, softly, far away. He felt the pressure again, harder this time. Hands gripping his shoulders, shaking him. “Axe, you awake?”
Axe heard a sound, a groan. He realized it had come from his lips. His throat felt like fire as he tried to force words out. “What…” The pain was almost unbearable.
“Axe, come on, man. You’re going to be OK. I got you out.”
He turned his head slowly, so slowly he wasn’t even sure it was moving at first. The light was brighter, his vision beginning to clear. He was in the woods, not Jericho.
“I managed to get the emergency message off before we left. To the Martians. I don’t know if they received anything, but there’s a chance at least.”
Axe moved his head toward the voice. It was familiar. He forced a word through his agonized throat. “Where?”
“Axe, we’re about half a klick from Jericho.”
Jack. Jack Lompoc.
“I managed to get you out. They left you for dead.”
“Jack?”
“Yes, Axe. It’s Jack.”
“What happened?” Memories were coming back. I was fighting, the shot in the leg, falling back—that face staring down at me. Raising a pistol...
“The town is gone, Axe. Whoever they were, they took almost everybody.” Jack’s voice was firm. There was a commanding sound there, a calmness in the face of disaster. “It was some kind of knockout gas. I’d say about 200 are dead, but the rest were dragged out, still alive. At least I think they were. They brought in a bunch of transports and loaded them all up.” He paused. “Axe, they didn’t take anything else. The grain, the equipment in the shed, none of it. They just burned it all. They didn’t come to steal. They came for the people.”
Axe looked up at Lompoc. His thoughts were still fuzzy. “The people?” he repeated, half question, half statement. He coughed hard, spraying blood all over himself as he did.
Lompoc dropped to a knee right next to him. “My God, Axe, what is that? Are you shot somewhere else?”
Axe stared down at himself, confused for a second. “Oh, the blood,” he said, coughing again. His chin was covered with red, and it was splattered all over his shirt. “No, not a wound.” He felt terrible, but his head was starting to clear. And he damned sure wasn’t dead. Not yet, at least. “No, it’s not a wound. I haven’t told anybody, but…”
Jack nodded. “I got it, Axe.” His voice was somber. No one survived thirty years after the Fall without watching friends and loved ones die from the long-term effects of radiation. “How long?”
“A while. It’s been getting worse. But we don’t have time for that now. We have to do something.” He stared up at Lompoc. “Ellie?”
“I don’t know, Axe. I really don’t. I searched for survivors, and I didn’t see her with the…” He paused for a second. “…bodies. My best guess is they took her. And they didn’t come for a pile of corpses, so I’d bet she’s still alive.
”
Axe struggled to sit up, and Lompoc reached over and helped him. “We have to do something.” What, he had no idea.
“Once I got you out and set you down, I went back and followed them. It took them a few hours to get everybody loaded up, and then they drove about three kilometers to some spot that looked like a makeshift base. They’re still there, I think.”
“Anybody else make it?”
Lompoc sighed. “I’m not sure, Axe. I think a few must have gotten out and run to the north. Tommie’s with us. I sent him to get some water. He got clipped in the leg, but he’s OK.” He paused, and his voice became darker. “Reg was helping me search for survivors, but then I lost him. I don’t know if he’s dead or if they captured him.”
Axe let out a deep breath. “You said you sent the distress call?”
“Yeah, Axe, but I’m not sure what that’s going to do for us. The Martians send us food and meds, and that’s great, but I’ve never seen a Confederation soldier down here, have you? That message won’t accomplish anything. Probably just let them know they can scratch one drop from their schedule.” There was frustration in Lompoc’s voice. Axe figured he’d been trying to decide what to do over the last ten hours, and he’d come up with almost nothing.
“We need to track them when they leave, Jack. We need to stay on their heels until we figure out what to do.” Axe sat up. He felt like death, but he didn’t have time for that now, and he pushed himself by sheer force of will. He looked up at Lompoc. “Give me a hand.” He reached out.
Lompoc stared back doubtfully for a few seconds, but he didn’t argue. He grabbed Axe’s hand and helped pull him to his feet.