Lucien remembered that his daughter Atara was supposedly still infected with some part of Abaddon’s mind, but her mind was also in there somewhere.
“So keep us both,” he said. “We’ll find a way to separate our minds later.”
“There’s no room for that. I’d have to make a partial transfer, leaving my memories behind in order to preserve yours.”
Lucien’s heart sank. That explained Atara. She didn’t have Abaddon’s memories, just his personality.
“There must be another way,” Addy said.
“I’m afraid there isn’t,” Abaddon replied. “You could go looking for another rebel fleet, but I assure you mine is the only one strong enough to have any chance of destroying the Forge.” He held Lucien’s gaze, waiting for a reply, but Lucien’s was too horrified to offer one.
He had a family, two girls, a wife... Addy. Abaddon nodded and looked away, as if he’d read Lucien’s thoughts. Speaking to Addy, he said, “Tell Korvas about our agreement. I expect supplies to begin arriving within the hour.”
Addy nodded and slowly rose to her feet. Garek stood with her and both of them went over to the doors.
“Lucien?” Addy asked.
He’d remained seated where he was. “I’ll do it,” he said.
Abaddon’s gaze shifted to him, looking mildly impressed. “One life to save trillions. You are a good mathematician.”
“I have one condition,” Lucien said.
“And that is?”
“Two actually.”
“Very well.”
“Allow me to stay alive until it’s clear that the Forge will be destroyed. I don’t want to die if I don’t have to.”
Abaddon inclined his head. “I can agree to that. And what is your second condition?”
“That when this is all over you find my daughter, Atara, and you release her.”
“And she is... a captive of some kind?” Abaddon asked.
“One of your clones transferred himself to her without his memories,” Lucien explained.
Abaddon’s eyes widened and he nodded. “I see. Very well. I accept your terms. I will free her. You have my word.”
For whatever that’s worth, Lucien thought, rising to his feet now, too, and joining the others by the door.
“As soon as Korvas finishes transferring supplies to my fleet, I will find a way to send you rendezvous coordinates. Fly there in your shuttle. I will be waiting with my fleet, and we will leave for the Forge together.”
Addy nodded, and Abaddon joined them by the door. He opened it and they followed him back down the corridor to the hangar.
Lucien’s legs felt wooden, his entire body numb with dread at what he’d agreed to do.
He wasn’t afraid of dying, but he was afraid of leaving his girls without a father, his wife without a husband, and Addy without a... Lucien stopped himself there.
Addy appeared beside him and slipped her hand into his. Her palm felt cold. He glanced at her and found tears shimmering in her glowing green Faro eyes—eyes that somehow looked more human now with tears shining in them.
“We’ll find some other way,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “There is no other way.”
“What about the copy the medics made when they integrated you? They must have kept that data somewhere.”
“It was data from the other Lucien, not both of us,” he replied. “Which means the one you knew will still die.” Lucien shook his head. “Besides, what are the odds that my data hasn’t been overwritten with someone else’s by now?”
A tear slid down Addy’s cheek and she flung it away angrily. “You don’t have to do this. You have a family to think about.”
“And you,” Lucien replied. Addy smiled wanly at that acknowledgment, and he went on, “That’s exactly who I’m thinking about. If this works, at least I’ll know that you and my family will be safe—not to mention everyone else.”
Addy sniffled and scowled. “There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t.”
“You’d better pull yourself together,” Garek whispered gruffly. He pointed to the doors of the hangar looming ahead of them. “Korvas will get suspicious if he sees Lady Tekasi crying.”
Addy nodded and wiped her eyes and cheeks with the heels of her hands, but Lucien could still see a sheen of moisture in her eyes.
“How do I look now?” she asked.
Garek grunted. “It’ll have to do,” he said as the hangar doors began rumbling open.
Chapter 24
Aboard the Etherian Ship, Veritus
—ONE WEEK LATER—
Tyra was on the bridge of the Veritus, pacing circles around the edge of the holo dome. Periodic flashes of light illuminated the deck, causing her to look up as straggling Faro fleets jumped in to join the trillions of ships already besieging The Holy City. They were running out of places to crowd in around the glowing cube. Dark, matte black specks were silhouetted against its golden sides in a dense cloud. Every couple of seconds, crimson lasers leapt out from those ships to converge on the center of their formation. Trillions of lasers all firing at once lit up the Faros’ fleet like an angry red sun, blinking on and off, on and off.
Tyra stopped pacing long enough to catch her sensor operator’s eye. “Lieutenant Asher—”
“Yes, ma’am?” the woman looked up, her blue eyes turning red with the glare of another salvo flashing out from the Faro fleet.
“How are the city’s shields holding up?”
“Still at one hundred percent, ma’am.”
“Incredible,” Tyra breathed, shaking her head. “Let me know if there’s any change.”
“Aye, ma’am...”
Those were standing orders, but she had to keep checking, because she couldn’t believe that the city’s shields were actually holding steady under the combined assault of such a vast multitude.
Tyra went back to pacing the bridge.
Her five ships were standing off at a safe range of four million klicks, their quantum jamming fields engaged to make sure nothing snuck up on them, but the Faros were intent on their target, as oblivious to Tyra as an elephant to a flea.
The last she’d heard from the Gideon back at the wormhole, humanity’s combined forces there were doing exactly the same thing. New Earth had arrived at the wormhole a day ago, and their reinforcing fleets were beginning to trickle in, but it no longer mattered. They were too late. The Faros were already through the wormhole. In fact, it no longer even seemed to matter whether or not the Faros could gain access to The Holy City. Who cared if they disabled the interdiction field now that they’d already crossed the Red Line?
One good thing had come from the arrival of their reinforcements, however: Colonel Drask had turned himself in, and Admiral Wheeler was back in command of the lost fleet. Apparently Drask had no personal interest in command, and he really had betrayed the admiral with all of the best intentions. For whatever that’s worth... Tyra thought.
“Captain, we have an incoming transmission from... it’s from Abaddon, but the signal appears to be coming from The Holy City,” Lieutenant Teranik said from the comms.
“Play it for us, Lieutenant,” Tyra said, and stopped pacing once more.
Abaddon’s silky voice rippled out from hidden speakers, reverberating under the holo dome, and seeming to come from everywhere at once.
“Etherus, this is your last warning. If you don’t surrender and drop your shields, we will hunt down and kill every human and alien inside the Red Line. You decide.”
All the officers on the bridge looked up from their stations, and Tyra felt a sharp thrill of apprehension coursing through her veins. Her ships were first in line for the hunting. I never should have brought my children back on board... Tyra let out a breath and forced herself to focus, to think.
“That message was addressed to Etherus, not to us,” Tyra said. “Teranik, you said it seemed to be coming from The Holy City?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the comms
officer replied.
Tyra nodded. “So this is Etherus repeating a message that was sent to him, for our benefit. He wants us to know that Abaddon is turning on us, just like he said he would.”
“That may be, but it doesn’t really help us, ma’am,” Lieutenant Argos said from the helm. As her unofficial first officer, it was his job to challenge her ideas.
“That depends,” Tyra replied.
“On what, ma’am?”
“On whether you think this is just Etherus saying I told you so, before we’re all too dead to hear it, or if he actually thinks we still stand a chance of defeating the Faros. In the latter case, this is a warning for us to run while we still can.
“Execute our pre-calculated jump and start plotting a course back to the wormhole. It’s time for us to join the rest of the fleet.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Argos replied. “Jump executing...”
The holo dome flashed white, and the pulsing crimson glow of the battle going on around The Holy City was replaced by crisp, steady white starlight.
Tyra strode over to her control station and sat down. It wouldn’t be long before the Faros gave chase. With trillions of ships about to come looking for them, they couldn’t hope to hide, but they could at least stand and fight with the rest of humanity’s forces at the wormhole. Hopefully they could hold out until Lucien found the Forge—or until Etherus’s reinforcements finally came.
The Etherians had supposedly left whole fleets of warships behind when they’d migrated to the other side of the universe, but they had yet to join the fight against the Faros, a fact which made Tyra doubt they ever would. They were safe on their side of the universe. They didn’t need to fight. And maybe they would have volunteered to defend Etherus and The Holy City, but apparently he didn’t need their help. His city was invincible.
If only the same could be said for New Earth, Tyra thought. Maybe Etherus will surrender to save us?
A skeptical thought countered that one: And after that the Faros will just leave us alone?
Tyra shook her head. That was one of the reasons Etherus had bounced Abaddon’s message back to them: so they’d know what they were dealing with. If Abaddon were so keen to live and let live, he wouldn’t be threatening to kill everyone if he didn’t get what he wanted.
No, by sending them that message, Etherus was delivering a quiet warning: you don’t surrender to evil and expect mercy.
“Exactly,” a familiar voice said.
Tyra jumped and turned to see a luminous being standing at the top of the stairway leading off the bridge.
“Etherus?” she asked, wondering if it was really him. Why appear now, after more than a week of silence?
* * *
Aboard the Separatist Fleet
“It’s been a week already! How much longer are we going to sit around here, doing nothing?” Garek asked, while pacing the living room floor. “Haven’t you noticed that we’re practically prisoners? We can’t explore the ship freely. There are guards posted outside our door, and we’ve never once been allowed up to the bridge, so how do we know that this Abaddon is on our side, and that he’s actually taking us where he says he is?” Garek stopped pacing long enough to fix them all with a scowl.
Lucien watched Garek from the couch in their living quarters aboard the Redemption, the largest of the Separatists’ sixty-seven sphere ships. Lucien held Garek’s gaze, noting the hardness around his eyes, and the tension in his scarred face—his real face. There was no point wearing their holo skins in private.
Addy was the first to reply to Garek’s rant. “Abaddon told us we can’t leave our quarters because he doesn’t want his crew to find out who we are, or where we’re going, in case there’s a spy on board.”
“How convenient,” Garek replied. “Maybe when we arrive at the nearest Faro penal colony, you’ll all realize that we’ve been duped.”
“That’s a pretty elaborate ruse,” Lucien objected. “You’re suggesting this Abaddon pretended to be a separatist leader just so that he could capture us? That would mean Korvas was in on it, too.”
Garek shrugged eloquently.
“Why not simply kill us, then? Why bother capturing us?” Addy asked.
“I do not like the blue one. He smells wrong,” Brak put in from where he sat in an armchair beside a broad viewport full of stars.
Lucien looked to him. “Wrong how?”
“Faros give off a sickly sweet odor. This one does not. He has no scent.”
“The Abaddons are all bio-mechanical,” Addy said. “I’m not surprised they don’t have a scent.”
“No,” Brak said, shaking his skull-shaped head. The hood of his shadow robe was folded back behind him, revealing his face. “The other Abaddons we met all smelled sweet.”
“But this one doesn’t?” Addy pressed.
“Maybe he’s wearing a deodorant,” Lucien said with a small smile.
“Ha ha. You won’t be laughing when the Faros kill us all in our sleep!” Garek said.
“So now they’re trying to kill us? What happened to the penal colony?” Addy asked.
A knock came at the door, interrupting their conversation. They all turned to the sound and switched on their holo skins.
Lucien glanced at Brak. “Your hood,” he whispered.
Brak hissed, but pulled the hood over his head, concealing his features.
“Yes?” Lucien asked, now speaking in Faro rather than Versal.
“Your presence is requested on the bridge,” someone said in a clacking voice that sounded like a bag full of marbles. Lucien recognized that voice as belonging to one of the orange, six-legged crab creatures Abaddon had left to guard their quarters.
“We’ll be right there,” Lucien replied. Rising from the couch, he nodded to Garek. “You ready to find out what’s really going on?”
“Are you?” Garek challenged. “Even if I’m wrong, he’s still going to kill you, remember?”
Lucien winced. “It’ll be worth it.”
“I hope you’re right,” Garek replied as they all walked up to the door.
Lucien keyed the door open to see one of the crab creatures standing there, peering up at them with four black eyes. An auto-cannon sat in a harness on its back, the barrel tracking restlessly back and forth.
The second guard skittered into view, its cannon also tracking. “Follow us,” it said.
Chapter 25
The Lost Etherian Fleet
“Etherus, this is your last warning. If you don’t surrender and drop your shields, we will hunt down and kill every human and alien inside the Red Line. You decide.”
Admiral Wheeler glared up at the holo dome, waiting for some explanation from Etherus, but apparently that was the extent of the message. “That came from The Holy City?”
“Yes, ma’am,” her comms officer replied.
“What are we supposed to do with that? Run?”
No one answered. Her new first officer, Major Calla Ward turned from the gunnery control station and shook her head. “If he doesn’t surrender, then I think that’s all we can do, ma’am.”
“Then maybe he should surrender,” Wheeler replied. But even as she said that, she knew peace with the Faros wouldn’t last. They’d keep threatening humanity in an attempt to manipulate Etherus until they either got everything they wanted or lost contact with him. A brief flash of light suffused the bridge. Wheeler blinked and looked up, scanning the holo dome for some new arrival.
“Sensors, report! Was that one of our fleets jumping in, or one of theirs?”
“Neither,” a familiar, resonant voice replied. Wheeler shot up out of her chair and whirled around to see Etherus standing behind her, at the top of the stairs leading down to the ruined doors of the bridge.
“You,” she said, her chest rising and falling quickly. “You have a lot of explaining to do. What happened to your reinforcements? They were supposed to help us hold the wormhole!”
Etherus shook his head. “I’m afraid you misund
erstood. It was your job to hold the wormhole.”
“Well, we failed. So now what? You’ve come to reprimand us for our failure?”
“No, I’ve come to rally your forces.”
Wheeler narrowed her eyes. “For what?”
“The team you sent to find the Forge is about to reach it.”
“How do you know? And why didn’t they tell us?”
“Because they couldn’t. No comms signals can get through the interdiction field, but I have my ways. You’re going to have to trust me. They are about to arrive, and they have a fleet with them. The Forge will be destroyed, but only if you can keep the Faros pinned down here, inside the Red Line.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Wheeler demanded. “They outnumber us a million to one!”
“Fly through the wormhole, and hold it from the other side,” Etherus replied. “You’ll have the same advantage you had before Colonel Drask betrayed you, and this time all of your reinforcements are here. You don’t have to win. You just need to buy time for the others.”
Wheeler considered that. “So you’re not going to surrender.”
“Why surrender when you can win? Besides, my surrender would not save you. The Faros would threaten you again before long.”
“All right, so why are you telling me? Tell the High Praetor, or the chief councilors of New Earth. They’re in charge, not me.”
“I am telling them,” Etherus replied, and he looked pointedly to Wheeler’s comms officer. “Lieutenant Sebal?” Etherus asked. “Don’t you have something to share with the admiral?”
The comms officer was staring at Etherus, distracted by his sudden appearance, but he started when he realized Etherus was speaking to him, and his gaze slid away, back to his station.
“We’re being hailed by Halcyon...” Lieutenant Sebal said slowly.
Halcyon was the capital facet of New Earth, its seat of government as well as the location of the High Praetor’s citadel. “They’re ordering us to fly through the wormhole and clear a path for the rest of the fleet.”
The Last Stand Page 17