Shadow Hunters

by Christie Golden

  The thought of the Gray Tiger made him think of his friends who had died aboard that ship. He wondered if he would ever remember them without this rush of commingled guilt and pain.

  Eventually you will be able to. Once you fully understand what it was for which they died.

  Don’t suppose you’re going to tell me this century?

  Zamara chuckled at his turn of phrase. There are things you must know first, as I have told you repeatedly.

  Be happy to learn them, so long as you watch out for Rosemary.

  Of course.

  Jake took another sip of the coffee, looked at the green light, smiled to himself, and closed his eyes.

  Jake stood with the rest of the templar as their fallen brother, their leader, their friend, made his final voyage. Jake was not a young protoss, and this was not the first friend to whom he had bade farewell. But it never got easier.

  Zoranis had been popular with his people. Thousands had turned out for this solemn ceremony, lining the Road of Remembrance for almost its entire length. The Road of Remembrance led from the provincial capital of Antioch, wound for several kilometers west, and ended at the ruins of an ancient xel’naga temple. Broken steps led up to a flat surface with a pool that collected rainwater. Here, the honored dead were ritually bathed, dressed for burial, left for a day’s cycle under the watchful care of loved ones so that the sun, moon, and stars would shine upon them, and then laid into the earth for their final rest.

  While the ritual itself was ancient, performed by each tribe even back during the Aeon of Strife, the Road had come into existence only after the protoss had embraced the Khala. The Road of Remembrance was a physical symbol of the Path of Ascension. As all protoss were joined in the Khala, so now all veterans and protoss of note, no matter their caste, were given the honor of traveling the Road of Remembrance. Jake had seen artisans, scientists, templar, and members of the Conclave alike being borne on a floating dais, a stasis field surrounding their bodies with a halo.

  This was the first time he had walked beside the body of a high templar, though, and he hoped it would be the last.

  Zoranis had fallen in honorable combat. He was not one to sit back and let others take all the risks while he made all the decisions. His choice had cost him his life, but had won the battle—as had his decision to have his second-in-command fight beside him.

  The young protoss Adun was already becoming something of a legend. He had fought at Zoranis’s side for over eighty years now. Few had seen a more graceful warrior in physical combat or a more intelligent strategist. Some petty folk had implied that Adun was the real driving force behind most of Zoranis’s decisions over the last fifty years. Jake actually hoped so. Because if it was true, then Zoranis’s good leadership would not have died with him.

  He walked solemnly, his heavy, formal robes brushing the earth. On either side of the white-paved road were lines of mourners. They were hunched over, shaking, their skin mottling in the unmistakable sign of grief. Zoranis was not only well liked, but well loved.

  In the Khala, there was nothing but heart, and hearts were full today. Jake let the respect, admiration, and sorrow wash in and around and through him, adding his own genuine grief to the mix.

  Beside him walked Adun. Young, vibrant, intense, and strong, he was everything the templar were supposed to be. As an active warrior—Jake was too old to participate in combat, though he had excellent tactical knowledge—Adam wore his armor, and it gleamed golden as the sun that glinted off it. A half a head taller and a bit larger than any of the other templar, he was a commanding presence. His grief was a bright thread woven into the tapestry of the Khala, shimmering in its purity. Adun had loved Zoranis almost as an elder brother. More than any of the other templar, he grieved this loss. He looked over at Jake and their eyes met.

  Ah, my old friend Vetraas, came Adun’s pain-filled thoughts, I am glad you walk beside me. Your composure gives me strength.

  There is no shame in deep grief, Jake sent back. To not mourn the dead is to dishonor them. But we must also be thankful for their lives.

  I am, Vetraas. I am.

  The walk took almost an entire day. They reached the temple at sunset, and it was Jake, adviser to Zoranis, and Adun, Zoranis’s protégé, who had the honor of bathing and dressing the body and sitting with it. Traditionally this was done to protect the body from scavengers. Now the corpse was safely preserved in stasis until the moment of burial, but the ritual of lovingly protecting it lingered on.

  Jake looked down at his old friend. Clad in robes of simple white as opposed to the armor in which he had spent most of his life, Zoranis looked at peace. The robes hid the horrific wounds that had claimed his life. The large eyes were closed, the flesh looking almost alive.

  Jake wished he could speak with Zoranis one more time, tell him how well he had served his people. How greatly he would be missed. Instead, he contented himself with pressing the dead hands and thinking the traditional farewell: “Und lara khar. Anht zagatir nas”: “Be at peace. The gods watch over you.” Night was falling on the last day of Zoranis’s leadership. Before the sun rose, as tradition had it, there would be a new executor.

  The Templar caste, like any group whose members were finite, was not without its flaws, disagreements, and occasional corruption and infighting. This time, the templar would rise to the heights of which he knew it was capable, the heights of what Khas intended when he created the Khala. There was one among their number who exemplified all that was right and good with the templar. One whom everyone respected. One who, if he accepted it, would greet the dawn as executor.

  And quite possibly, Adun himself was the only one who didn’t know it.

  Jake opened his eyes as he heard the slight hissing sound of the door irising open. “A highly successful run,” Rosemary said. “Can you give me a hand with these?”

  He turned to see her standing beside the door, behind her another nav frame. She was still in her suit, which was clearly too large for her. At her feet was an opened container filled with a variety of items, none of which Jake recognized and all of which he was glad he had very little to do with. He carefully took the piles of chips, plating, and wires and moved it into the main cabin.

  “Not only were we able to ditch the tracking device,” she told him as she emerged from the bulky suit, “it’s now going to lead anyone who’s latched onto its signal on a wild-goose chase. I’ve rigged it to engage from here. We’ll want to beat a quick retreat once I activate it, though, just in case the movement attracts any attention.” She hung up the suit and turned to Jake. “I’m certain that those Wraiths are in the area. Let’s put you to work monitoring Dominion standard com channels while I hook all this stuff up.”

  She directed him into a seat and entered a rotational sequence in the com system. “Maybe they’ll give their presence away and allow us to get a fix on their location.” The minutes ticked by as Jake monitored and Rosemary tinkered. Annoyed, Jake finally began to suspect that she had given him this task to keep him out of the way and occupied. Finally, Rosemary emerged, looking grubby and tired. As she took her seat, she said, “So. Hey, Zamara, how do we get to Aiur from here?”

  I will require an accurate map of the sector.

  “Pull up a map and show her where we are,” Jake said. Rosemary did.

  “Zoom out,” Jake said, again speaking for the alien intelligence inside his skull. “Again,” he instructed. And a third time he asked her. She raised a raven brow.

  That is sufficient for my needs. I shall enter the coordinates.

  … Okay.

  Jake leaned forward and relinquished control of his hands and watched, bemused, as they entered a series of digits. How did Zamara know how to program a—of course. Zamara had been linked with R. M. on a very deep level a few hours ago. She’d have the same knowledge the human woman did. Rosemary looked on with interest.

  “Well, it’s no day trip. Good thing I scrounged up some extra rations. Okay. We all set?”
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  Jake and Zamara nodded.

  “All right. Getting in was fairly easy. Getting out won’t be. Those Wraiths will scan for power sources and movement inside the debris field, so we need a little diversion. There’s no way they won’t come here looking for us, so we might as well make the most of it. Now. Watch that ship right there.”

  Rosemary pointed at a freighter. She lifted a small device and thumbed a button. Sure enough, after a few moments, the freighter powered to life and began to move steadily away from them.

  “Nice job, Rosemary,” Jake said.

  “Thanks, Professor.”

  It was quite possibly the most pleasant exchange the two of them had ever had.

  However, the good mood was short-lived. A few moments later, as R. M. was slowly and carefully steering them out of the debris field, she swore under her breath.

  “Yep, looks like our decoy’s stirred up a bit of interest. Buckle up, Jake. We might have to make a run for it, and it could get pretty bumpy.”

  He sat down at once, strapping himself in, and peered over at the screen. He could see a few blinking red dots, and knew by this point that red signified Dominion.

  “You think they’ve found us?”

  “Not sure yet.” Both of them watched the screen intently. After a few seconds, the red dots began to converge on the decoy. Jake felt a quick stab of horror, relief, and then fresh worry in rapid succession. Rosemary’s ploy had worked, but pursuit had found them much too quickly for comfort. It wouldn’t take their pursuers long to determine that this was a trick. And then they would start looking around the ruins of this old battlefield to see where the real quarry was.

  With perfect calm, Rosemary continued to move the system runner. Jake bit his lip nervously. The Dominion vessels closed in on the decoy freighter.

  “Rosemary …” Jake said.

  “Not yet,” she murmured. Her face was focused, intent. Jake felt sweat break out beneath his arms.

  The red dots stopped moving. The decoy freighter continued on.

  “They figured it out,” Rosemary said. She hit something, and the system runner surged forward. The red dots stirred to life and began to close in on them. Jake gripped the metal arms of his chair.

  “Now!” Rosemary pressed the button. Space shimmered around them. There were no more small blinking red dots on the screen. Rosemary leaned back in her chair and laughed. “Piece of cake.”

  Jake smiled weakly.

  “A decoy. I see.”

  Valerian’s voice was cold with disapproval, and the woman on the screen looked dreadfully unhappy. He supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised that, once again, the damnably clever Rosemary and Jake had slipped through his fingers. The handful of people set to guard what had essentially disintegrated into a space junkyard were hardly the best and the brightest the Dominion had to offer. He’d never have gotten even this close to finding the two fugitives—or was it three? Should he count the protoss intelligence in Jake’s brain as a separate entity? How unfortunate that he did not know—had it not been for Devon Starke’s knowledge of the tracking code.

  “There, uh, is something,” the woman was saying, shuffling papers with a rather frantic air. She was clearly going to do everything she could to make this not seem like the disaster it was.

  “Oh?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Security did report seeing another ship power up shortly after we caught up with the decoy. Now, Mr. V, you understand that that’s not unusual. The wreckage is tempting to a variety of scroungers and we aren’t sufficiently manned to patrol it as thoroughly as we would like.”

  He gave her a smile. “I understand. But please continue.”

  She seemed heartened. “Let me send you the documentation we have on it.”

  A few second later, Valerian and Starke were watching a poor-quality hologram. They watched in silence as the somewhat battered Wraiths followed the Valkyrie, took a scan, and listened to the two pilots express their annoyance in colorful words at having been tricked. More colorful words ensued as they realized another vessel was moving out of the debris field and into open space. The Wraiths turned to follow, but the system runner they were following had made it to a clear place and had subwarped to who knew where, and who really cared, and it was time for lunch anyway.

  “I hope that was helpful, sir.” The woman was slightly pink, realizing, as she knew he had to, that it hardly painted security in a particularly inspirational light.

  “It may well be. Thank you.”

  Unable to continue smiling politely, Valerian thumbed off the switch and scowled. “We almost had them. If my father staffed these places with intelligent people rather than lazy buffoons, we would have.”

  Even as he said the words he knew they were unfair. A government that had the luxury of staffing remote space junkyards with top-notch staff by definition would have far fewer problems than the Dominion had.

  He sighed and turned to Starke. “The question is, where would they go next? There are hundreds of places in this sector alone they could hide.”

  Starke nodded thoughtfully. “In the … the link, for want of a better word, I managed to sense a little something of this protoss that’s using Professor Ramsey. Of course, it is much more adept at hiding its thoughts and feelings than even the best-trained ghost is, because it’s a protoss. But one thing I did get was a trace of annoyance at the links being utilized, and a hint of concern. Dahl was right. The protoss didn’t just force itself into Professor Ramsey’s brain for amusement or as part of a normal cycle. It did it because it felt it had to. So, knowing this, my best guess is that the protoss would want to rejoin its people. And look at this.”

  Starke pressed the rewind button and again they watched the hologram. He paused it at one point. “Look at where the system runner is heading.”

  “It leaps, Devon; we can’t follow it if we don’t know its destination.”

  “True enough. But think about what we know of human nature. You’ve been discovered, you know where you are heading, you make a run for it—silly as it might sound, even if you’re planning a jump—wouldn’t your first instinct be to flee in the right direction?”

  Valerian smiled slowly. “Yes. Yes, it would be.” He called up a star chart of the galaxy and smiled. “Of course. They’re heading for Aiur.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AS JAKE HAD KNOWN IT WOULD, AIUR HAD PROSpered under Adun’s guidance as the executor of the templar, which managed to be strong and yet not heavy-handed. Directing the templar to the will of the Conclave, Adun had overseen the settling of several colonies that were thriving and content. Any disputes with other races that had broken out had been quickly quelled with few casualties to the pro-toss. It was a good time to be alive.

  Jake entered the executor’s citadel, which was a small, private retreat that hovered gracefully above Antioch. He found Adun in deep contemplation, wearing the heavy purple, black, and white robes of his office, staring out onto the cityscape below. In the distance, the lush green and blue hues of the rain forest softened the line of the horizon.

  Jake inclined his head deeply, respectfully. Adun turned from the view and repeated the gesture.

  “You sent for me, Executor?”

  Adun nodded. “Yes, Vetraas. I have been called in front of the Conclave. It seems they have some information they wish to impart.”

  Curiosity flickered in Jake, but was quickly hooded before Adun could pick up on it. Over two millennia ago, the great Khas, as he had become known—“He who brings order”—had rediscovered the profound link all protoss could have with one another. He had drafted a series of rules on how best to navigate this intimate space, and the collection of rules and the emotional and mental link itself had become known as the Khala. Jake knew that Khas had had another name, but it was lost to everyone but the preservers now, and besides, what Khas had done was more important than who he had been before such a significant discovery.

  “I don’t know that that’s true,” Jake
said to Zamara. As before, when Jake had relived the memories of a protoss named Temlaa as if they were actually happening to him, Zamara was with him, guiding him through the process so he retained himself. “Savassan was a pretty remarkable fellow before he even found the first khaydarin crystal. It’s a shame his name has been forgotten.”

  “The preservers know it. The preservers know all. Well, almost all. And that is what matters now. Khas he has become, and Khas he shall be, until the final protoss closes his eyes for the last time and all becomes lost to the stars.”

  Part of the dictates of the Khala had advised a caste system, with various tribes falling into one of the three castes of judicator, templar, and khalai. The vast majority of protoss tribes were collected under the khalai, who were the artisans, scientists, and builders of their people. This caste was as valued as the others, for without them, there would be no infrastructure, no development in culture and science and art. Their contributions were vital.

  The templar, of which Adun and Jake were a part, was the warrior caste. The templar tribes were those who had great physical prowess or agility, or tended toward sound military insight and strategy. In the early days of the Khala, they fought to protect the newly unified protoss culture from those who did not agree with the tenets, or were too afraid to do so. It was, Jake mused, an indication of how relatively primitive the protoss were then. It did not take long for all the protoss to eventually realize that the only way to peace and prosperity was through the Khala. There could be no hatred then, for even if you disagreed with someone, you felt him as yourself. Once this harmony was achieved, the pro-toss society flourished quickly and healthily, and the templar were free to focus on protecting their people, at first from the fearsome creatures who prowled Aiur, and later from hostile alien beings they encountered while settling their colonies.

  The third and final caste, the judicators, were the elders and statesmen, the governing body of the protoss. Their highest members were known as the Conclave. This was a select group of elders, chosen for their wisdom and knowledge of the Khala and a passionate adherence to its rules. Some of them were protoss whom Jake deeply admired and respected. Others were … not. Nonetheless, Adun and the other templar answered with unquestioning obedience to the Conclave. Which was why Jake was surprised to note Adun’s discomfort at having been summoned to appear before them at the Great Forum, the Khor-shakal, the seat of Aiur’s government.