by Jay Allan
Blackhawk struggled. Inferni fought for everything he detested, but even as the persona inside him that thought as his brother did strove ceaselessly to escape, he felt his own uncertainty in characterizing the man standing in front of him as an enemy. Worse, perhaps, he knew, while twisted and manipulated to serve his needs, Inferni’s words carried truth in them. In the end, Augustin Lucerne, Astra, himself . . . they had all defined the greater good by their own standards, and in the wake of the “liberty” they fancied they offered, they brought immense suffering as well. Did those they conquered with the intent to set free feel as they did? Or did they look at burned houses and dead loved ones and see just another tyrant come to subjugate them? Did they see in Astra and her generals an autocrat committed to surrendering power one day, or just another despot?
Blackhawk felt uncertain how to deal with Inferni. He’d never really believed he could persuade his brother to do as he had, to abandon the empire and join him in the Far Stars. Whatever sequence of events had allowed him to escape his conditioning—though he wasn’t sure “escape” was the correct term, not with his old self still pounding away at him relentlessly—Inferni had spent decades more in imperial service. The mortar on his conditioning was well cured, and even a brother’s appeals were unlikely to sway him from his course.
He tried anyway.
“Please, Ignes . . . hear my words. Think for yourself, fight the conditioning that has ruled your action for so long. I was like you, I fought as you did . . . killed millions as you have. But there is another way. Come with me, brother, and I will help you. Hear my words. Trust me . . .”
Blackhawk didn’t expect Inferni to do as he asked, and he didn’t know what he could do next, what action he could force himself to take against him.
And maybe that was because he’d never been sure of who he truly was.
It was easy to have his crew revere him, or Celtiborians to think of him as some hero. But Blackhawk was an abomination, at least he would be perceived that way by many people, if they knew how he’d come into being. No birth experience for him, no happy parents looking down and smiling. The only woman involved in his birth had been some poor peasant girl, likely kidnapped by imperial troopers to donate her insides to the great experiment. His birth “mother” died as he was born, sliced open to make way for the removal of the genetic anomaly she’d sheltered . . . though she’d been kept alive that long only by machines, her body and mind twisted and tormented to serve as the receptacle for the emperor’s new weapon.
His childhood had been no less extraordinary, endless training and education, ceaseless demands that he excel at everything, from combat to astrophysics. He was driven relentlessly and punished without mercy for the slightest failures. No psyche could endure such a regimen, yet that was only the beginning. When he reached the age of five, the real conditioning began, the warping of his young and damaged thought processes. His memories of those times were partial, mercifully so, though he did remember endless sessions, days long, without sleep, food, even water. The creation of Frigus Umbra had been a long and brutal undertaking.
The man standing opposite him, enemy, brother . . . whatever he was . . . was the only other human being in the universe who truly knew what he’d endured.
Inferni had gone through the same torturous process. They were identical in genetic structure, in experiences, at least in their early years. And they were the same in being utterly alone in the universe, unlike anyone else, save for each other.
They were the only ones who could destroy each other, and yet neither one of them had any desire to be left without someone to truly understand them. Blackhawk had made his offer to Inferni in earnest, because the alternative—fighting and killing his brother—was anathema.
So it was with disappointment—although not surprise—when Inferni responded.
“I cannot do what you ask, though I have no wish to be your enemy,” his brother said, and Blackhawk could hear the genuine regret in the words. “I long to fight at your side again, to have another with me who knows who I truly am. I came here to bring you back, to find the man I called brother. Now, I fear, that man is gone . . . and I do not know what to do. As you stand, you are an enemy of the empire, under ban of death. You are a traitor. It brings me no satisfaction to utter such words, and yet, how can I ignore them?” His eyes moved up and down, clearly evaluating Blackhawk’s condition, his obvious fatigue and weakness. “I ask you one last time, brother: come back with me, fight at my side again. Leave behind this swamp of backward planets.”
His voice changed, then, becoming softer. It sounded strange coming from his mouth, as did his next words.
“I know of your feelings for Astra Lucerne, Frigus. Perhaps we can spare her, bring her back with us. When the emperor accepts you back into his service, we will request that she be given to you as a spoil of war. She will be your slave, brother, yours for all time. You may treat her as you like—chattel or your wife, it matters not, except that she will be alive. If we move quickly enough . . .”
But Blackhawk wasn’t listening—it felt like Inferni had body-slammed him. There were all sorts of gaps in the plan he’d just put forth, not the least of which was the chance that the emperor would refuse to take him back . . . or that he would agree but not grant him Astra. But the thought of a chance to save his doomed love was powerful, and it sliced through his defenses in a way appeals to his own survival instinct or his greed never could. If he said no, would Astra die? He’d done all he could to give the Celtiborians at least a chance, but would it all be in vain if Inferni’s battleship, untouched by the virus and its effects, advanced into the fight? Indeed, Inferni might very well go in with the intention of killing Astra, seeing her as something tying Blackhawk to the Far Stars.
Was this, as Inferni said, a chance to save her?
Go with him. Give up these false dreams, fantasies of a free Far Stars. All your efforts, all your struggles here have done nothing but replace one tyranny with another. The Far Stars will never be what you want it to be. Is that failure worth your own life?
Worth Astra’s?
Blackhawk reeled from the thoughts coming from . . . his own mind. He liked to think of Umbra as a different person, an entity trapped inside him, but in reality, they were one, Blackhawk and Umbra. Two paths he could take. He’d clung to Blackhawk for more than twenty years, sought redemption for all his crimes through that name. Was he willing to surrender all that, go back to what he’d been, to save Astra?
He stared across the small, dusky space that separated him from the one person closest to him in ways no one else could ever understand, and even as he did, old memories welled up, urges, the tatters of conditioning broken, but still there in shards. Images of a return to the grandeur of the imperial court, to a life of almost unlimited luxury instead of the ascetic existence he’d imposed on himself. Had he been a fool all these years? Was Inferni right? Was he only supporting a different tyranny? Were all his thoughts of morality of redemption merely offerings to his ego?
Go back. Remember the feeling of leading armies again during the attacks on the demesne. You were born for war. Blackhawk, Umbra, it matters not. You are what you are. We are what we are. Stop the resistance now. Reclaim yourself.
A name is just a name. Your soul is always just yours.
Blackhawk could feel his defenses crumbling, all that he’d been sure of for so long no longer certain. He stumbled back a step, his legs weak, the fatigue of all he’d been through weighing on him with an intensity he could barely endure.
He was on the precipice, wobbling . . . and he knew it.
What soul? he asked himself.
And he got no answer.
He just didn’t know if he cared anymore.
Chapter 37
“We need those data systems back online now, Commander. You have five minutes more. Then I’m going to have you thrown out of the airlock and give the next ranking engineer five minutes.” Idilus had been shouting at his offic
ers since the strange cyberattack crippled his ships’ data systems, but now his voice was softer, more measured. Only those who truly knew him understood that was when he was really dangerous.
“Yes, General. Understood.”
Idilus wasn’t sure if it was understood, but it would be if those systems didn’t start working again. He wasn’t making empty threats. If the chief engineer didn’t fix the problem in five minutes, he fully intended to have the fool spaced, if for no reason other than to encourage his successor to do a better job.
He’d vent him and his own frustration at the same time.
Because Idilus had no idea what had happened. He wasn’t even sure if just the flagship had been affected, or his whole fleet. All intership communications were out as well as targeting and all but basic scanning operations. His ships were still in the fight, but his gunners were lining up their shots manually, which was a shitty way to hit something moving as quickly as a spaceship in a place as big as space.
Evasive maneuvers were affected, too, and the giant ship had shaken a dozen times as the Celtiborians, now on the attack and closing to point-blank range, planted hit after hit into its sprawling midsection.
In all his numerous victorious campaigns, he’d never faced such a difficult fight. The Celtiborians were better skilled and organized than any enemy he’d ever fought, but even that had been insufficient to seriously challenge the immense power of his great battleships.
Or should have been, until something unseen crippled his data systems.
He still couldn’t imagine how someone had gained access to core systems. He had fifty of his people analyzing every possibility, reviewing all communications, transmissions, even checking for any unnoticed hull penetrations. Something had happened, and he was going to find out what.
Not that it matters if the damned engineers can’t fix it . . .
“Commander Johar . . . you are to get down to engineering at once. I want you to direct the organization of support teams for each reactor. We need to keep power flowing to the gunnery stations.”
“Yes, General.” The officer leapt up and half jogged to the elevators. No one on the bridge—or anywhere else on the ship—was going to move slowly when Idilus gave them an order.
Idilus knew it was a waste of time, though. By the time the officer could get down to engineering and organize the teams, it would be too late. The fight would be over, one way or another. The Celtiborians were closing all around, wildly aggressive. Whatever they had done to his flagship—and, he suspected, the rest of his fleet—they were doing all they could to make the most of it.
And they would pay for that insolence.
“General!” It was one of the comm officers, his head still buried in his workstation as he blurted out his sudden report. “I think I have something. We received a signal, sir . . . just before the system malfunctions occurred.” A brief pause, and then the officer turned and looked over at Idilus. “It was on the priority line, General.”
Of course! Idilus felt like a fool. The priority line bypassed normal security.
But how did the enemy access it?
The line was protected by layer after layer of its own security. A sender needed six separate passwords and codes to get in.
How could the Celtiborians have top-level access codes?
Then it hit him.
He’d laughed to himself as he’d listened to Inferni speak of Frigus Umbra, of finding the general who’d been missing for so many years. It seemed laughable, and only his desire—fear, if he was being honest with himself—had stayed him from saying so. But the last thing he’d imagined was the possibility that Umbra was still alive, somewhere in the Far Stars.
It still seemed almost inconceivable. But Umbra would have those codes.
It should have been impossible. Codes that old shouldn’t still work, but those priority codes were hardwired in, and it required physically servicing a ship to change them. Bringing every battleship into port for updates was quite an undertaking and expense, and it was an infrequent operation.
Why bother changing them, when there was no one who would dare sabotage the imperial fleet, knowing the punishment would be a horrible death for the perpetrators . . . and their families . . . and their planets.
The emperor ensured the need to change the codes unnecessary.
Until now.
But if Frigus Umbra is with the Celtiborians, and he somehow managed to disable my whole fleet, and we get back to the empire, I’ll make damned sure every code on every system is changed.
The ship shook again, twice in succession . . . and hard the second time. He grabbed the side of his chair and barely managed to hang on. A few seconds later, he heard the distant rumbles of secondary explosions. He’d scoffed at the weakness of the Celtiborian ships, of their minuscule size compared to his immense battleships. But they were hurting him now, cutting deep into his flagship, and the rest of his fleet as well, he suspected.
The thought that he could lose the battle began to enter his mind. It seemed inconceivable, but even as he pondered the thought, the great vessel rocked again, and on the far side of the bridge, a shower of sparks sprayed out as a series of relays overloaded. In all his battles, he had never seen a battleship take so much damage, and now, in his mind, where the rage and astonishment dwelled, a new emotion began to take form, one he’d never felt before on the bridge of an imperial battleship in a fight.
Fear.
He commed the sergeant-at-arms.
“Go down to Engineering and tell them they have one more minute. Then throw the man out of the airlock, regardless of whether it’s fixed.”
If he was going to feel fear, then everyone in this ship was going to feel the same humiliation.
Astra Lucerne watched as the battle raged. It took all she had to stay where she was, to remain silent as Admiral Desaix directed the ships of the fleet. He father had been a hands-on commander, but even he had known when to step back, to give a subordinate his due. Astra couldn’t match her father’s experience in ground combat, and she was a virtual rookie in fleet actions. The battle was Desaix’s to win or lose, and for the first time since the engagement had begun, she dared to imagine “win” was a possibility.
That made it harder to stay on the sidelines. It was one thing to stand with your people, prepare to die with them, but now there was at least a chance . . . suddenly, they all had something to lose. Which was all the more reason for her to let the veteran Desaix command unfettered.
The admiral was attacking aggressively. That hardly seemed adequate, even, to describe the wild ferocity of the assault. Desaix had been on the comm nonstop, haranguing unit commanders and even individual ship captains, anyone who wasn’t attacking with the unrestrained savagery he demanded. Desaix knew as Astra did, whatever the Claw had managed to do, the advantage could vanish in an instant. The entire fleet had been doomed, anyway, so there was no reason not to throw caution to the wind, to drive forward recklessly, to push reactors to dangerous overloads. The only way any of them could survive was by getting all they could from the respite.
Astra was still watching when the scanners lit up again, a massive burst of bright white light signifying that another imperial battleship had been destroyed.
That was two of the monsters gone. Astra’s knowledge of imperial history was limited, but a while back, Blackhawk had told her the last time an imperial battleship had been lost in battle. It had been almost five centuries ago, during the last great civil war, when a fleet admiral made a play for the throne, one that had come a hairsbreadth from success.
In that grievous conflict, battleship fought battleship, and the great vessels tore each other to pieces. No fewer than forty of the great warships had been destroyed, a loss that had taken a century to replace.
Now, imperial battleships had again been destroyed in combat . . . at the hands of the Celtiborian fleet. And the battle still raged.
Astra felt pride. Even if her people fell short, if defeat a
nd death were still their fates, they had acquitted themselves well.
“Bring us in at target three, Commander. I want the range under a hundred kilometers.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
Astra sat and listened, and as she did, her admiration for Desaix grew. He clearly understood, as she did, the potentially fleeting nature of their respite, and he was determined to make the most of it.
Even as she watched, her grim acceptance of defeat faded, and her stomach tightened. Victory was there, a shining beacon, perhaps within reach, perhaps just out . . . but there was only one option in her mind.
Fight.
Fight to the death . . . and find out whose death that was.
Idilus sat in his command chair, his raging fury sliding slowly into a morose gloom. He’d done all he could, sent two engineers to horrible deaths in the frigid cold of space and threatened the others with even more terrible fates. Fear, that tool he’d used so many times to great effect, had proven ineffective at pushing his people to solve the problem that jeopardized the fleet. They were stumped, all the experts on his flagship. They’d managed to restore limited short-range scanners, enough for him to watch the destruction of the third of his ships to fall to the enemy, but offering little additional utility.
He’d lost three battleships. He knew the fact of it, but the true reality hadn’t really solidified. The empire didn’t lose battleships. Overwhelming power, immensity beyond the destructive capability of any enemy . . . that was the entire point of the twenty-kilometer giants.
Now, I am the first commander in five hundred years to lose a battleship. And I have lost three.
He didn’t know what to do. He’d tried to analyze the fight, from what little information his scanners, and sightings from his gunnery stations, provided. His battleships could win . . . probably . . . at least that was his best guess. But he’d likely lose more of them, and the surviving force would be a shadow of what he’d led into the fight, and likely, not one of the savaged vessels would be up to a return journey across the Void. His orders had been to recapture Galvanus and to destroy Celtiboria. If he retreated, he would leave the major planet of the Far Stars unscathed. But, if he stayed, he could lose even more battleships . . . on top of the three that were already gone. Whatever he did, he would face a furious emperor, and there were few things more dangerous than that.