The world dissolved beneath a bleak and swift tide. It stole her sight and sealed her ears. Sela drew in a signal painful breath and knew no more.
8
There was no air, only darkness and the molten fire carving through her chest.
But here, pain would not obey training. In the dark, it was her constant companion. It was nothing to be mimicked by broken bones or even the birth of her son.
Atilio. An agonizing emptiness came with that name. Memory surged back.
Atilio was dead.
Sela sat up, inhaling sharply as she surfaced from the black. Her pulse pounded behind her eyes. Her throat was a string of fire. She took in another greedy breath and immediately grunted at the fresh pain that spread out from her chest and shoulder.
She rolled to her side and threw up, gazed blankly at the resulting mess on the floor, and rested her forehead against something blessedly cool and hard.
Moving, she decided, was a long term goal. Focusing on breathing was better. In fact, this was how she should spend the rest of her life. She blearily took in the dim room: Bunk. No windows. The faint smell of ozone, now mixed with vomit. Everything vibrated at a peculiar pitch.
Something wrong with the ’King’s drives.
Disjointedly she wished that the bloody techs would fix it. The vibration made her head split. But memory swelled around her. This was not the Storm King.
Veradin! She sat up sharply. Big mistake.
“Easy. Try not to move.” Her captain stooped over her.
Where’d he come from?
His hands were warm against her skin. She allowed him to push her back into the bunk. The pain did not let her resist.
“Captain?”
The lights in the tiny room were dimmed, but she knew it was the bunk room on the Cassandra.
“It’s alright, Ty.” His voice was strained, hoarse. His tunic hung open, exposing dried blood on his shirt.
Was he injured too?
He saw her notice it and fastened his tunic closed.
She grabbed his hand. “Tell me, sir.”
“What do you remember?”
“The hangar…” She looked away sharply as it surfaced with hideous clarity.
I suffer either way.
“Trinculo’s men opened fire,” he said. “You were hit. Fates… you weren’t breathing. You were dead.”
She could only stare. “Dead.”
Wearily, he sat on the bunk across from her, hands planted on his knees.
“There was no other way out. We were pinned there. I had to move quickly before the security detail advanced. Trinculo’s men wouldn’t listen to me,” he explained. “I pulled you up the ramp, into the Cass. Got us underway. There was a vivject kit in the medikit. I didn’t know how old the stuff was, but I used it on you. I was afraid it wouldn’t work, but I got you back. ”
“And Valen?” she asked eagerly.
Realization flitted over Veradin’s face. “He was the other trooper, wasn’t he? The one that released me from stockade.”
She nodded. “His vox cut off.”
“It happened so fast, Ty. I don’t know.” Jon shook his head grimly.
Sela sank into cushions, her gaze downcast, hoping Valen had survived. Although if he were alive, he most certainly would be in custody, facing Trinculo’s wrath. She had meant to remain on the Storm King and face the consequences with him, satisfied that she had given the captain a chance at being free.
That should be me, not my sergeant.
A renewed bolt of pain shot through her shoulder. Gingerly, she traced the awkward bandage over the left side of her chest and shoulder. Had it not been for the SSD armor, there would have been a not so tidy hole burned through her chest.
A second bandage covered her bicep on that side. She frowned.
“Your tracer-ident. I had to take it out,” he explained.
Groggy, she blinked up at him. “That’s been there my whole life.”
In response, he drew up the sleeve of his tunic to reveal a hastily-wrapped bandage on his right forearm. “Dug mine out too. At least you got to be unconscious for yours.”
“Is there any sign of pursuit?”
He shook his head. “We got free just as the ‘King hit the jump. It’ll take them half a day at least to spool back up and come about, if they do it at all.”
Would they?
She rolled cautiously onto her side and maneuvered to a seated position on the bunk’s edge. They were deserters now, a status likely to earn them arrest warrants from the Regime. It made little sense to redirect an entire carrier like the Storm King for simple fugitive reclamation. But one thing was certain, someone would be coming for them sooner or later.
She looked up at her captain. “Sir, we have to prepare.”
---
The Cassandra was powered down: cold mode. Faint starlight entered through the small oblong portal set into the wall. Sela huddled against her captain on the narrow bench of what served as a common room and galley. Their embrace was born from the desire for warmth more than intimacy, although in another time and place she would not have found it disagreeable.
It seemed a small eternity that Sela kept her arms wrapped about his neck. On and off, she dozed against him. The pain in her injured shoulder woke her with merciless regularity once the pharms wore off. When she stirred, Veradin seemed to sense her discomfort. His warm hand pressed against her waist.
“Pain?” His voice was a tight whisper. Steam marked his breath in the frigid air.
“No. I’m good,” she lied. This trait was coming too easily. Especially in the dimness, when she needn’t meet his gaze. “Is it gone?”
There was a draft of cold air as he shifted. The light of the handheld interface briefly illuminated his features, blue light on cheekbones, eyes intense. He gave a satisfied nod at what he saw there.
“The sensor drone is gone.” He tilted the screen for her to see. “It’s drifted past. Safe range to heat up the engines. That should be the last for this grid.”
Veradin straightened. She missed his weight and warmth. He positioned the blanket over Sela’s shoulders and she rolled her eyes at his mothering.
Another shifting sound of fabric in the dark. The overheads popped on. Both of them squinted under the sudden glow. Veradin made more adjustments to the interface. A rushing hiss announced the scrubbers kicking on. The welcome sensation of warmed air swirled around her arms and feet.
“I’m frozen solid,” he muttered, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands together.
Frozen. A word she understood. Her limbs were made of ice, her fingers tingled with needle pricks even under the gloves. Moves slow and careful, she shifted position on the hard metal bench and squeezed her eyes shut. The dull throb in her shoulder threatened to wrap around her chest.
She swatted away Veradin’s steadying hand. If she had to look at his guilty expression once more, she would shoot him just to see some variety.
Beneath the nearly manageable riot of pain and ice, a great sinking stillness washed over her. She may as well as been adrift in the same void that encompassed the rusted little vessel they called shelter. She was as devoid of course or purpose now.
Where was Lineao and his talk of Paths now? Perhaps he would have laughed at her.
“I need access to get a trans out,” Veradin announced. His voice, so long held at a tight whisper to avoid the detection of the sensor drone, seemed overly loud against the metal walls. “I have to find someone… anyone in Origin that will listen to me. First has to know that they made a mistake.”
She looked at him. It was not just the words he had used but the uncommon pitch to his voice.
Haven’t you heard? First doesn’t make mistakes.
“We must stay away from Origin at all costs,” she said, flatly.
“Or even a way to get a downlink to the Regime datafeeds.”
“To do what, sir? It is strategically unsound.”
The words strategically uns
ound were often his invitation to argue. His shoulders went square and stubborn.
“I need know what’s going on, why this is happening,” he said, kneeling before her. The desperation seemed to radiate from him and enliven the soreness in her chest, increasing it. “I need to find someone. If this is happening to me, then she could be in jeopardy as well. There has to be a way to find her.”
She? That now too familiar icy barb reappeared as she thought of the image capture in his quarters. Her captain with his arm thrown around a dark haired beauty.
“The moment the IDS matches our ident, they will destroy us,” she argued.
Automated weaponized beacons that guarded the outskirts of Origin’s more developed regions were capable of destroying a non-reg vessel like the Cass. Especially one that lacked appropriate clearance. Approach of Origin was tantamount to suicide. But there might be a means to gain the information he wanted. Possibly…
He studied her face. “You have an idea, don’t you?”
“We have to capture a Fleet coms array.”
Veradin smiled broadly. There was no joy in it, only recklessness. She immediately regretted sharing the idea.
“Ty, I could kiss you.”
“One assault per day is enough for me. Thank you, sir.” Sela turned away, feeling her ears grow hot.
---
The gutted remains of the coms array lay scattered across one corner of the deceptively large cargo hangar of the Cass. Sela scowled at the rolling lines of data on the portable interface, but it made no difference. This was her fourth time through the snarled mess.
“It’s just like I said. There’s nothing more here.” She sighed. An intense headache thudded behind her eyes.
“That’s good, right?” Veradin had stopped pacing. Now he sat on the last step into the cargo bay, his interlaced fingers cradling his head.
“I’m not sure how, sir.”
The trans to the account of Information Officer Trinculo had been stark, simple. It called for the arrest of Jonvelish Onid Veradin. No charges or accusing parties listed. Although the trans bore the emblem of the Council of First, it seemed… off.
The branding of a Kindred as a traitor would be prime gossip disguised as news for consumption by Citizens in the Known Worlds beyond Origin. Yet there were no other feeds that mentioned the Veradin Kindred. Nothing in the fugitive codex or the First-controlled media feeds. It was a single bloody missive meant to be quiet, unrecognized. And seemingly designed to not cause a ripple.
“Suspicious does not begin to cover that,” Veradin muttered.
“Is it possible that Trinculo was implicit?” Sela offered. “Perhaps Captain Silva had this arranged?”
Veradin dismissed it with a shake of his head. “Such an action is rather dramatic, even by Kindred standards. Silva is a prideful fool but knows our rules. It’s too risky. And there’s no style to it. No trial means no audience.”
“When they came to get you in the hangar bay, it was a show for everyone,” Sela said. “But when Trinculo arrested you, even the surveillance crawlers had disappeared. They didn’t want a record.”
She had heard tales of the back-biting and political wrangling that took place among the cresters for influence within the Council of First. But to seek to have a perceived political threat killed was the equivalent of declaring war on another Kindred and its allies. As a soldier, that part was easy for her to understand.
“Something tells me Trinculo was not behind this. I’ve known Information Officers like him before. He is a self-righteous functionary, a blind follower of orders—which he’s made abundantly clear today. He lacks the imagination required to become corrupt,” Veradin added. “There’s something missing here.”
A new idea struck her. Who else was curious about Jonvenlish Veradin and might access his file? When she searched the index that monitored file access, she sat bolt upright at the results on the screen: the Ravstar seal. It represented a secretive division within the Regime, largely associated with weapons tech and development. They were black ghosts operating well off radar. And they were not something you wanted to know too much about.
“Sir…” she hesitated. “Why would anyone with Ravstar attempt to access your personnel files?”
“Ravstar.” He breathed the word, eyes widening. “Erelah. But why?”
“Sir?”
“Erelah Veradin.” He regarded Sela with a red-rimmed stare. “Find her, Ty. Please. She’s a civilian consultant appointed to Fleet. I need her location.”
Inwardly, Sela sighed. She did not want to know about this mystery woman.
I am nothing if not duty bound.
Again, she searched the interface. Each time she spliced the interface frame from the array was another chance at their detection. If the wrong person was looking at the right time, the Cassandra’s location would be known.
The response to this search was too quick.
“There’s nothing here, sir. Just a civilian birth record.”
He frowned, quickly striding toward her. “Nothing?”
“There’s no location listed, Captain.”
“I don’t understand.”
Veradin peered over her shoulder at the tiny screen. With an exasperated grunt, he snatched the handheld from her. He thumbed through the screens, muttering. “She has to be somewhere.”
Sela peered up at him, waiting for answers.
A new and strange uneasiness rattled her raw nerves. There were barely visible shapes moving in very murky waters here. That same internal something, a quiet voice that dwelled at the back of her skull and had served her as long as she could remember, now screamed warnings.
This is wrong. Search no further.
“So much doesn’t make sense.” Veradin lowered the handheld. His distant gaze rested on the rusting wall of the hold. “We have to find… someone. There have to be loyal Kindred somewhere. Divus. Novian. Someone.”
Sela knew where this was going.
“Attempting to contact anyone is strategically unsound,” she warned. “Enforcement agents would expect that. We’re not going to be dealing with inexperienced SSD troopers anymore. It’ll be EEs… enforcement elite, sir.”
But Veradin was back to stubborn, gone-square mode.
“Cap’n, why would Ravstar seal your records?” When he did not answer, she tugged at his arm. “Who is Erelah? Your mate?”
His gaze cleared. It was as if he remembered she was there.
“Mate?” He scoffed. “No, Ty. She’s my sister.”
Relief melted the ice. Sister.
She nodded, but did not truly understand. Sela was sure she had half-siblings, dozens perhaps, all sharing the same birth mother, a duty-bound breeder in a kennel along the fringes of Origin. It was a violation of Decca to know them. They had lived and perhaps died, ignorant of those with whom they shared a blood line. The concept of any sort of attachment to them ended there. The men and women of her company were more like brothers and sisters than any of those strangers. That had been the intention.
My strength is the soldier beside me. My heart and mind, I give to the Regime with honor; I forsake all else.
“Erelah was always determined to do what she wanted.” His expression saddened. “Smart. Too smart for Uncle to send her off to study in a temple somewhere. She joined Fleet after his death. I wasn’t too happy with her for doing that. It’s been a while since I last talked to her. We didn’t leave things on the best of terms.”
Sela shifted, unsure. This was alien territory, and forbidden. It had never occurred to her with any great detail that cresters had personal lives and histories filled with complicated entanglements. She was uncertain what she was meant to say or do.
“I don’t know why someone would just… hide her,” Veradin said, slowly circling the dismantled drone, studying the scarred deck plates. “How do I find her? What if she is in danger as well?”
The fact that his sister’s location was unknown suggested that danger had already found h
er. But Sela kept this observation to herself. He was already prepared to take reckless action to make simple contact. It would not serve to motivate him further.
“I still need answers, Ty. I’m going to get them. I know approaching Origin is dangerous. But there has to be a way in.” His eyes were fixed on a distant place when he spoke. “You don’t have to come with me. You’re caught up in something here that should have never involved you. We’ll find some place safe for you—”
“What! No, sir.” Sela stood up. The sudden movement drove a wedge of pain into her chest.
But he kept talking. “This is all my fault… somehow. It’s not your fight.”
“That won’t matter, sir,” she said.
She snatched the handheld back and thumbed through the screens to show him what she already knew.
There, listed like a footnote for daily ship’s business for the Storm King, was the death warrant for Commander Sela Tyron, for desertion of duty, signed by Information Officer Trinculo. Sela thrust the screen back at him.
“I’m as good as dead again anyway.”
PART 2
The Humans. They arrived as refugees, claiming that their home, Earth, lay among the stars well beyond ours. They journeyed an impossible distance, made short by their surprisingly clever ability to make use of a natural tear in the fabric between worlds: wormholes, they called them.
Had they met us first, the Eugenes, the tale of their arrival would have been different. Perhaps we would have even helped them. But the Fates placed them in the path of the Sceeloid, our sworn enemy.
Of course, there were those Eugenes who welcomed the Humans as the Palari, the lost children. It was a story passed down through the hundred ages even before the Council of First sat in judgment of all. Every Eugenes child, noble or base born, knew it well.
The Fates, mystical sisters that governed the lives of all living things: Natus, the mother; Metauri, the task maker, and Nyxa, the cruel. There had once been a fourth sister, Miri, the youngest and granter of mercies. She was the one charged with determining the Paths of Eugenes souls, but the task grew heavy on her heart. Miri sought to rebel against her sisters and created the Palari, brothers and sisters of the Eugenes that had free lives with no set Paths. She hid her children away and sent them into the far darkness of the wild stars, the place we now call the Reaches, to fend for themselves. There they dwelled, well beyond the roving, wizened eyes of her older sisters.
Allies and Enemies: Fallen Page 7