Allies and Enemies: Fallen

by Amy J. Murphy

  One day the fierce dragon, Sceelo, came to the Fates, demanding the gift of Sight that the Fates possessed. He wished to see into the hearts of all Eugenes, his enemy, and to better know their weaknesses.

  The Fates laughed at Sceelo’s boldness, sending him away. But Miri followed him in secret. Worried for her lost children, she struck a deal with him: She would grant him the Sight, and in exchange, Sceelo would protect the Palari. The cunning dragon agreed, but the moment his Sight was granted, he killed Miri and consumed her body. The children of his body came to possess the Sight as well.

  When the remaining Fates learned of Miri’s murder, they were powerless to destroy Sceelo, for he could see into their hearts and minds and outsmart their schemes in battle. For many years, Sceelo terrorized the Eugenes, slaughtering them easily by using his stolen gift. Although the Fates could not take back Miri’s gift, they could change the Eugenes. If a Fate touched a newborn Eugenes within three nights of his birth, his heart and mind would be protected against the prying eyes of Sceelo’s wicked Sight.

  After many years, the Eugenes grew stronger, vanquishing Sceelo and his soldiers. He was forced back to his lair at the entrance to the Reaches, where he ruled all. The children of the Fates were safe from Sceelo, except for the forgotten Palari, who would forever be vulnerable to Sceelo’s Sight.

  When the Humans came in their great battered vessels full of many families, you would not know one from a Eugenes. The differences were minor and easily missed by the untrained eye. Of course, their speech was indecipherable. Their tech was miserably primitive. To many it was an embarrassment to embrace these frail backward beings as kin. This small, pitiful group fell upon Eugene’s shores seeking refuge from the Sceeloid, who had tried to consume them like the great fabled dragon from long ago. The Sceeloid had enslaved many of them, burning into their minds with the Sight.

  The Humans that had escaped this danger brought the disease of weakness with them. And, in the end, some believe we had little choice but to do what came next: extermination.

  “Observations on a Ruined World”

  Helio Veradin, Seventh Councilman of Argos

  Excerpt from his speech to the 498th Assembly of the Council of the First Children of the Fates in protest against the Purge of Humans from Eugenes space.

  9

  Two Years Earlier…

  “Beautiful.”

  Erelah Veradin did not realize she had said the word aloud, watching the twisting azure swirl of the nascent flex point’s visible light distortion wave on the monitor. The phenomenon, a very safe fifty thousand meters away from the station, was easily explainable as a matter of excited electrons colliding around the fold-center—a rather dry way to describe something so lovely.

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Senior Tech Adan Titus muttered under his breath.

  Erelah glanced at him, realizing he was staring, again, at her. She briefly met his gaze. He grinned. The blood rushed to her face and neck. Adan never missed an opportunity to flirt.

  Old Sissa would have frowned in disapproval. A proper lady would have discouraged Adan’s overtures from the start. After all, Erelah was to join the Order of Miri to become a priestess one day. What would Uncle say…?

  Neither one of them were here anymore. Were they?

  Quickly Erelah looked back at the monitor, dismissing. As she blinked, the light evaporated, replaced by the silver-skinned stryker prototype her team had dubbed the Jocosta.

  She released a relieved sigh, shared by the other members of the team. Then all remained silent, anxious for the sensor report.

  “Systems nominal. Shielding at full. Internal sensors indicate increase in temp,” Myrna called, reading breathlessly from the transmission of the unmanned craft. “Hull’s intact. Impulse, atmo, are all good.”

  Someone whooped joyfully. It was probably one of the other civilian consultants. Like Erelah, they tended to be a little more obvious in emotional displays. She joined the collective chuckle. There was good reason to celebrate. They had succeeded where prior NeuTech teams had failed: the first vessel to make a jump without a flexpoint in history of Fleet or anywhere, to her knowledge. The test results were far from final, but this was an incredible breakthrough.

  This could change travel among the Known Worlds forever. Transport between regions would no longer be governed on control of mapped flex points and the territories surrounding them. A vessel—more accurately, a vessel equipped with a j-drive device like the one on the Jocosta—could create an artificial access and egress point. And to demonstrate this ability with something as small as a single-manned stryker compounded the success. Until now, the smallest vessels with conduit travel capability were the outmoded Cassandra models. But those still relied upon mapped flex points.

  Erelah tried to stem her excitement. There was still a great deal of data to review, but there was a glimmering certainty to today’s success she could not deny at her core. This was it!

  It was not her team’s efforts alone that had allowed them to reach this point, only continued research that they had been chosen to undertake. Each success and failure had been built upon the last. The Jocosta project was decades old. She had dug up early records, basic notes really, that dated back to the time of the Purge. None of the prior NeuTech teams had gotten this far… until now.

  If only Uncle could have lived to see this. What would he have said? Would he have been proud?

  That thought muddied her excitement. Her uncle had been a pacifist, and stern in his criticism of the Regime. Even now she could visualize his disapproving frown. And she was not foolish. She knew the backers behind the NeuTech installation were far from peaceful in their dealings. That was not how the Regime enforced the will for the Council of First. It would be childish to assume otherwise.

  Certainly her brother, then would share her joy, were she not bound to secrecy. The level of security at the installation raised paranoia to an art form. It was nearly half a year after her arrival before she had been permitted to send a carefully worded and highly edited trans to Jonvenlish.

  “Excellent work, Lady Veradin.” Adan placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezed once. “Congratulations!”

  Erelah smiled, allowed herself to be pulled back to the present. The moment Adan had learned of her hereditary title, he wasted little time in using it to embarrass her. She had begged him not to call her that around the Jocosta team. But he meant it now as a form of good-natured teasing. No one else had seemed to notice.

  The title had been bestowed upon Erelah with Uncle’s death. Helio Veradin had disowned the only other surviving member of her Kindred, her brother, Jonvenlish. It was a little family drama that had no use on a research installation, except as distracting gossip. Having a title of lord or lady here only set the owner apart. It was not very useful when trying to promote a smooth work environment, especially when surrounded by conscripts and techs.

  Erelah’s teammates pressed closer, all talking at once. It was a victory for them.

  She held up her hands, beseeching their attention, having to raise her voice to be heard over them.

  “I know this is exciting. But we can’t get ahead of ourselves here,” Erelah cautioned.

  Adan groaned. “Spoil it, why don’t you?”

  This encouraged a few chuckles.

  She grinned. “You know as well as I do, Mr. Titus, that we have much data to analyze before we call today an absolute success.”

  There was still the very significant issue of the subspace instability for creating an artificial flex point near active velo drives, the design still employed by the vast majority of Fleet’s carriers.

  As the small group broke up, returning to their consoles, the excited murmur continued. Adan remained at her elbow.

  “There seems to be the small matter of a wager that needs collecting,” he said, leaning closer still.

  It was a risk on his part, his open fraternizing in front of his crew. He was like no other Erelah had met before. Adan was
refreshing, alive with an irreverence that, at times, flirted with dangerousness. He was a very rare commodity in this environment.

  “No clue what you’re talking about,” Erelah sighed dramatically, switching to High Eugenes, playing into his performance.

  She affected a haughty lift to her chin. It was a game they sometimes enjoyed. Erelah as the Kindred lady and he the ardent courtier. Like something from the old holo-vids of courtly life during the times of the great Expanse. They continued this performance in unspoken agreement, each attempting to outdo each other.

  “I believe, my lady, I owe you dinner,” Adan answered in the same stilted language. He stooped into a low bow. Before she could pull away, he kissed the back of her hand.

  Erelah laughed, pulling her hand free of his before any of the others noticed. Not that it would matter. Even if they were not preoccupied with today’s success, they had long turned a blind eye to the game Adan and she played.

  Not long ago Adan had made her a wager that the Jocosta would not be successful with new alignment to the resonators. Something he knew was improbable. He chose the losing end of a bet on purpose. And now he expected Erelah to collect on it.

  “All right.” She sighed, feigning resignation. “If I must, Titus. But on one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  “Stop calling me ‘Lady’.”

  Adan burst out laughing. “Agreed, your worship.”

  ---

  “How does a Last Daughter find her way all the way to NeuTech, of all places?”

  Adan grinned at her across the empty plates and half-full glasses of very dull wine. Twice he had poured a clear amber liquid into his glass from a flask he secreted from an inside of a pocket of his neat black tunic. Each time, Erelah turned down the proffered anonymous drink, so he drank it himself. As a consequence, Adan’s grin broadened more and more on his flushed face. One of them should be able to walk a straight line after dinner, she reasoned.

  “How indeed, Adan,” Erelah replied. “I was too old for Fleet school, so I petitioned to be a civilian consultant instead.”

  “A surprising choice,” he observed. “I would have thought certainly a political course would have suited one of your pedigree.”

  “Not much of a choice, really. I am the Last Daughter of a Kindred with nothing left to offer but a name, a marred one at that. As you might imagine, it would limit one’s options.”

  “A pity. But our gain, then…”

  “Mine as well. Or so I tell myself.” She flashed a thin smile. “When I was little I wanted to study conduit travel at one of the Fleet training facilities in Origin. Of course, my uncle would not allow it.”

  “Helio Veradin,” he nodded. “He was quite the figure… or so I’ve read.”

  Erelah sat taller in her chair, puffing out her chest in an imitation of her uncle. She pulled her mouth into a frown and furrowed her brows. Her voice deepened with a rolling High Eugenes accent.

  “‘Erelah, a young woman of your position does not have the luxury of choice. You are a gift of Miri. One that should not be wasted on their machines of war and subjugation.’”

  “He called you that: a gift of Miri?” Adan chuckled.

  Erelah ducked her head, feeling her face grow hot. Perhaps the weak wine had been too much for her. She was unused to it.

  “Uncle wanted me to be a Temple priestess, join the Order of Miri. And he always got his way, but he did permit me to study my other interests in private.”

  “A priestess?” Adan raised an eyebrow.

  She nodded.

  What other choice did she have in the end, when Uncle passed? This, or the cloister school at Acryia and being joined to the Order of Miri. Jonvenlish was an officer of the Regime; he was off in the fringes of the Known Worlds, commanding troops and living on a carrier. He had no means to support or shelter her. Even the Kindred who had once called her family an ally had seemed to evaporate the moment Helio Veradin died.

  Even before she and Jonvenlish became his wards, Helio’s outspoken political views were considered unpopular and controversial. He routinely decried the exploitation of breeders for combat use and dangerous labor, and rallied for their equal treatment. Ultimately, he and other like-minded Kindred were sanctioned by the Council of First, stripped of territories and titles that were not protected by inheritance laws.

  Intended for a life in the temples, Erelah had been left very little as inheritance. There was nothing to present her as a lucrative match for a mate, even if there had been another Kindred willing to wed her, a peasant member of the elite, to one of their offspring. Erelah was, then, the Last Daughter of Veradin. When she was younger and taken by the romantic, it was a title she thought of as sad and poetic, like a lost cause. Only now, she realized how apt that notion was.

  With Helio Veradin’s death, Erelah had become a ward of the Council of First which readily reclaimed the estates on Argos, her home for as long as she could remember. And now, she existed at the whim of First.

  Although she did not possess the might and prowess of her brother, she did hold some value. Her intellect was recognized immediately at the intake center. And, after a laughably short period of training, Fleet had slapped an honorary consultancy title on her and trundled her off to tech division. Within two years, she had been shipped again, like cargo—important cargo, but a possession nonetheless—to NeuTech.

  “Perhaps you can offer a benediction for the next test flight,” Adan offered.

  Erelah rolled her eyes.

  “I notice that you have not had your eye color corrected. Daring choice.”

  She stiffened slightly.

  “I’ve embarrassed you. Apologies.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  In her childhood the light green hue of her eyes was the subject of despair, as she suffered the taunts of the few other Kindred children she encountered. Erelah and Jonvenlish were born of favored servants that had died when the hard fevers struck Argos. Although they were raised in a life of modest privilege, to Erelah her green eyes were a reminder that she did not fit in. Sometimes she would pray to Miri for her eyes to be the rich, deep brown that was considered “correct” among the high born Eugenes. Her brother had been lucky in that regard. It meant you came from good stock. A pure bloodline. It meant you belonged.

  “Certainly your family would have had this remedied,” Adan said. “I understand the capital cities in Origin have some of the best genetics designers.”

  “Genetic manipulation is forbidden. ‘To alter one’s body for vanity is an affront to the Fates.’” Erelah recited, defensively. She winced, suddenly realizing how much a zealot it made her sound when she saw the odd expression on Adan’s face.

  “My uncle raised us in the beliefs of the Order of Miri.” Erelah added, apologetically.

  “I see.” Adan sobered. He cleared his throat and pulled another too wide smile at her. “Let’s talk of more cheerful things then. Shall we?”

  “Yes, let’s.” She grinned. It was easy to forgive him. The giddy high from the success with the Jocosta that morning still had her head spinning deliciously. The awkwardness of the exchange did little to deflate it.

  The vox device affixed to Erelah’s lapel chimed, then:

  “Consultant Veradin, you must come to the flight lab at once.”

  “For the love of the Fates, this had better be good,” Titus groused, gulping the last of his wine.

  Erelah recognized the voice of Tilly, her assistant. The girl sounded rattled. Impressive, as techs were seldom prone to displays of emotion.

  “What is it?” Erelah replied.

  “They’re taking everything, ma’am.”

  Erelah locked eyes with Adan across the table.

  “Tilly, who are they?

  “Ravstar.”

  10

  Erelah rounded the corner to the flight lab, Adan a half-step behind. What chaos she had imagined on the brief walk over did little to prepare her for the all-out cannibalization that gre
eted her. Myrna, one of the team’s two other civilian consultants, stood off to the side, her arms crossed. There was no sign of the remaining four team members.

  Tilly’s small pale face was pinched with distressed beneath her closely clipped hair. The waif like girl rushed up to Erelah, speaking quickly. “I am not authorized to stop them, Consultant Veradin. My apologies.”

  Erelah glanced at the young tech’s frightened expression and turned to regard the lab. “It’s alright. I’ll find out what’s happening.”

  A flock of technicians, jumpsuits emblazoned with the unmistakable bright red Ravstar icon high on their sleeves, had infested the lab. As one pulled dataclips from a compbank, another began to physically remove the boards. One unceremoniously dumped highly sensitive calibration equipment into a crate.

  “What in Miri’s name are you doing?” Erelah called out.

  When none of the techs turned to look at her, she glanced at Adan. His buoyant personality was now gone. Any giddiness from dinner evaporated. His face pinched with anger. But, oddly, he said nothing.

  “I’m talking to you.”

  Erelah grabbed the elbow of the closest tech. The young man frowned down at her hand and then up at her, as if she bore some type of contaminant. She realized she had never seen this technician before.

  “Orders. All project materials are to be removed.”

  He pulled his arm from her grasp and returned to his task.

  “What order? This wasn’t cleared by me. Who gave it?” she demanded, pursuing him as closely as she dared. This tech did not resemble the meek, subservient variety that she often encountered on the NeuTech base. He was tall, firmly built and vaguely hostile.

  “Erelah. Leave it alone.” Adan put a hand her elbow. There was an odd caution to his voice.