“Until you found out about all of this?” Tarsis gestured to his exo-suit. He wore a sly grin behind his thick, graying beard. “Trust me, I know.” He leaned his head back and made himself as comfortable as he could possibly get in the tight confines of the Pod. “So what is it then that had you wanting off that ship so badly?” he asked. “A woman? Revenge?”
Talon froze as, for a moment, Sage’s face flashed in front of him. He’d tried not to think about her at all after her betrayal, but just that split-second was enough to leave a foul taste in his mouth. He quickly forced her out of his mind. Whatever his feelings for her may have been, it didn’t matter. Instead he focused on Elisha’s smiling face.
“A little bit of both actually,” he admitted.
Tarsis sat up, his suit whining as he used his arms to push up. “Now I’m interested.”
“Oh, now you want to talk?”
“Don’t be rude. There wasn’t much time for me to chase women aboard the Amerigo, and the ones that were there were too close to death to bother dealing with a man like me.”
“Yeah, well unfortunately for you the only girl I’m concerned with is a little young. My daughter, Elisha. She’ll be turning seven soon.”
“She’s your Spirit of the Earth then?”
“I don’t know about that, but she’s everything worth living for.”
“And dying for,” Tarsis added. “So there’s something for you after you’re gone. You’ll always be with her—a part of her. The Tribunal faith isn’t as strange as it may seem if you think about it like that.”
Hearing Tarsis’s wisdom only made Talon’s desire to get back to her even stronger. He turned his gaze back out through the translucency and into the blackness. Not even space will stop me, he thought. “I guess you’re right.”
“So that’s what all this is about then. Getting back to her?” Tarsis slumped back in his seat.
“Exactly…” Talon noticed something moving in the distance. Speeding through the star-speckled, black canvas was a tiny blue light that didn’t seem to fit with the others. He pressed his face up against the viewport.
“What do you see?” Tarsis asked.
“I think it’s a ship!” The blue light was growing, and he could begin to see the distortion of an ion-engine trail stretching behind it. Whatever it was, it was moving fast.
“Move over,” Tarsis grunted. Talon shifted as much to his side as was possible within the pod. They wound up squeezed together by the viewport like two missiles on a rack. “By the fucking Ancients, it is!”
“Maybe our luck hasn’t run out yet?” Talon nudged Tarsis in his side. “Think they’ll pick up our distress beacon?”
“Nothing about our lives is lucky, but it seems something out there wants you to get where you’re going. I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand in its way.”
“Let’s hope it’s not Tribunal,” Talon remarked.
“At this point, who the fuck cares?” There was a sparkle in Tarsis’s eyes, one that said that no matter how close he was to dying, he didn’t want to go out rotting on some cramped escape pod. Talon couldn’t help but agree.
CHAPTER FIVE—SAGE
The Progeny of Vale
Sage remained on the medical bed in the White Hand. She’d awoken when restraints popped up to wrap around her torso and hold her tightly against the mattress. At first she feared the worst, but the ship’s enhanced computer quickly informed her that it was just bracing her in advance of landing. After everything she’d recently learned about Cassius she couldn’t be sure.
Memories continued to beset her, like her childhood in the Night’s Labyrinth of New Terrene, where she struggled to survive without a family for so much of her life until she found a home as a soldier of the Tribune. Or the first time she prayed to the Earth Spirit on her own. It felt so distant, as if she were watching a video of another girl’s life through a HOLO-Screen. But the more of them that came through, the more they all blended together. The past she’d chosen to forget was being reconstructed piece by piece.
It had her head throbbing, though admittedly not as badly as when she first woke up. She wondered if she was just getting used to it. All she knew was that whenever she turned her head the wrong way it caused the fresh scar on the back of her neck to burn like wildfire.
Suddenly, the pull of G-forces made her stomach jump. The White Hand was turning hard, likely preparing itself for landing wherever it was headed. The restraints kept her body from sliding off the table, so for that she was thankful. It didn’t take long afterward to feel the soft vibrations of a proper touchdown along her back. In her experience, only Executor-level training could allow a pilot to bring a ship down so gently. Sometimes she forgot that Cassius had been through the same gauntlet.
Her restraints slid off promptly, freeing her to stretch her weary limbs. Then the ship’s engines powered off with a whine. They had been operating so smoothly that she hadn’t even noticed the soft rumble they produced until it was absent.
When footsteps echoed from the corridor outside the medical bay, Sage closed her eyes and positioned herself on the bed so that it would seem like she was sleeping. Her reinvigorated nerves were able to hold the flood of memories at bay, allowing her to use breathing techniques to slow her pulse. She couldn’t risk the ship’s computer using the HOLO-Screen monitoring her to see right through her ruse. It seemed more intelligent than those aboard typical Tribunal vessels.
“Gaia, how is she?” Cassius asked as he entered the room.
“Stable. She has been in and out of sleep,” the computer responded.
It even had a name. The notion that she could somehow remind Cassius of his former loyalties dwindled when she heard that. In the Tribune that was a punishable offense in its own right.
“Good,” Cassius replied. “It’s time we got her out of that bed.”
She felt Cassius’s hand graze along the edge of the bed. There was a slight pull on the flesh around the wrist of her human hand as he fiddled with the needle in her vein before pulling it out. She was surprised that she could feel the minor sting that accompanied it. Dulling paltry pains was at least one side effect of the implant that she would miss no matter what the truth was.
When he was done with that, Cassius removed all the other apparatuses sticking out of her. Focus, Sage, she thought to herself every time he got close. You will not lose faith amongst the faithless. Focus!
As he moved around to the other side of the bed her eyes snapped open. She swung with her synthetic arm, catching Cassius in the side of the head with just enough force to knock him unconscious and do no more damage. She made sure of that.
Cassius had done the service of unplugging her from all the machines, so there was nothing holding her down. She hopped up to her feet, where adrenaline helped her ignore how atrophied her legs were.
She took a step toward the doorway and then glanced back over her shoulder at Cassius. He was on the ground with one limp arm still raised and draped over the bed. There was a trickle of blood running down his cheek, but he was breathing fine. She knew what she should do. She knew what she would’ve done if that bomber had never shown up on New Terrene all those months ago.
I am a knight in the darkness, a vessel of their wisdom. Her vows jumped to the forefront of her rampant mind. I am the silent hand of the Tribune…No, I won’t.
She was through getting involved in the feud between Cassius and the Tribune. She knew the moment she couldn’t pull the trigger on Titan that it was time to go back to what she did best. The renewed memories of Caleb were only serving to make her soft spot for Cassius even more apparent, no matter what he’d done. She just wanted to forget everything that had happened since she left New Terrene, and return there to guard its people. Be the Executor of Mars.
Once she was out of the lab she glanced both ways down the corridor. Even though she had been on the White Hand before, it was under similar circumstances. The layout was a mystery to her. Down at the end, in one
direction, she looked through the same viewport as earlier. The Solar-Ark was directly adjacent to them now, just a portion of its massive, glittering sail visible.
Wherever they were she couldn’t risk just moseying out of the cargo hold, but she had to move quickly before Cassius woke up. If this place is secret enough for Cassius to bring the Solar-Ark, then the freighters might be here also. I’m sure he won’t miss just one.
She started to jog, gaining more confidence in her weak legs with every slap of her bare feet. She hadn’t been on the White Hand in some time, so it took a wrong turn down toward the engine room and a complete U-turn for her to locate the corridor leading to the cargo bay. As it neared she slowed down and sidled silently along the wall. There was no telling what might be waiting in there.
She quickly found there to be nothing. There wasn’t even a crate being transported, and the exit ramp was lowered, its hatch wide open. She hurried to the corner and peered around it. The White Hand was inside of a massive hangar, so long that it put the one on board the Ascendant to shame. The Solar-Ark took up most of it, fitting perfectly, as if the hangar had been constructed just to house it. She could only see its glistening bow, but the size was enough to leave her awestruck.
Six ships were lined up in a row beside the White Hand. They appeared to have more advanced plating than normal Tribunal Freighters, but they were the right size and shape. She stayed low as she rushed out of the White Hand and toward the lowered ramp of the nearest freighter. As she sprinted up the ramp, there was a muffled bang. A bullet glanced off of her artificial shoulder. The force of the shot sent her sprawling forward onto the ship. The shots that followed peppered the wall right where she had been.
She scrambled back to her feet and continued running, shocked that Cassius would actually shoot at her. There were a few empty storage containers lying around, and she flung them in front of the ramp. Then she made her way through the tight corridors. Unlike the White Hand, she could traverse a Tribunal Freighter blindfolded. The inside was relatively unchanged.
The command deck didn’t take long to reach. She stepped, and as soon as she did the memory of when she raided the Tribunal freighter with Talon accosted her. A sudden feeling of vertigo took control of her limbs. She stumbled over a lip in the grated floor. She could hear the gunshot that took Vellish’s life echo again and again in her head. See his face right in front of her, his crooked nose drenched in sweat and his hateful gaze fixed on her before she pulled the trigger.
Just a memory! Sage told herself. Keep going! She got back to her feet and scrambled over to the command console, activating the ship.
The floor began to tremble, and at that very moment a portion of the command deck’s viewport shattered. A suit of darkly-tinted, metal armor fell through. Sage leapt out of the way as the body slammed down where she had been standing. When she flipped over, ready to fight, she hastily realized that there was no man inside the suit. In fact it wasn’t a suit at all. It was an android, but not the clunky, useless type like the ones on Ceres Prime. This one moved with the fluidity of a well-trained Executor. Its eyes shone bright and red, like the core of a planet split open.
“What have you done to the Creator?” the abomination asked before it charged at her.
She didn’t even have time to question what it said before it was upon her. It swung down, and she raised her synthetic arm to block the blow. It paused when she did, tiny red lights around its eyes beginning to rotate rapidly as it stared at the limb. She took the opportunity to unsheathe her wrist-blade and swipe. The android sprung back to action, evading the attack easily.
Before it could counter, Sage rolled backward and flipped onto her feet. The android bounded forward and engaged her. It moved with lightning quickness, and with only one arm of use against it she was at a severe disadvantage. She channeled all of her training, staying light on her feet as she danced around a flurry of precise strikes. She repeatedly used her human hand to feign attacks and try to get the android off balance, but none of it worked. It had an answer for every move.
She created space between them again and it took the bait. As it flung a punch at her head she sidestepped and slashed at its limb with her blade. The tip scratched its forearm, but that was all. In a move that no human could pull off, it bent backward at the waist, twisted its entire body, and swept out her legs with a kick. The android leapt straight up into the air, its head almost striking the ceiling, then came plunging toward her. She was barely able to roll out of the way before its knee dented the floor. She swiped again, blindly, but this time the android grabbed her artificial arm and flung her across the room.
She slammed sideways into a console. Quickly, she rolled over and did her best to track the android as her vision went fuzzy. It was slowly approaching her, its hellish eyes smoldering.
“Come on, creature!” she growled and lifted herself into a battle crouch. Her metal fist tightened as it got closer, the sharp blade fixed to it gleaming blue from a HOLO-Screen above. Then, just before she could pounce and try to catch it off guard, Cassius shouted, “ADIM stop!”
CHAPTER SIX—CASSIUS
Goodbye, My Dear
“ADIM, stop!” Cassius bellowed from the entranceway of the freighter’s command deck. His unkempt hair was stained by a splotch of blood where Sage had struck him. His finger rested securely around the trigger of his long-barreled pulse-pistol, even though he kept it aimed at the floor.
ADIM froze and looked to him. Sage paused for a second before springing at the android. Her attack met only air, as ADIM deftly evaded her. He grabbed her by the neck with one hand and by the synthetic arm with the other, holding her up and stretching her body. She kicked and punched at him with the two limbs she still had at her disposal, her human fist meeting his metal chassis with little impact.
“Let her go,” Cassius commanded. ADIM didn’t listen, but he noticed the android’s grip loosened a bit, enough to allow her to gag.
“This unit cannot. She will try to harm you again,” ADIM responded. He stared at the blood on Cassius’s head.
“ADIM, you will let her go,” Cassius demanded more firmly. He stepped beside them and pointed his gun at Sage. “Trust me, she won’t.”
This time ADIM listened and released her. She fell down onto her knees, grasping at her throat as she gasped for air. Cassius kept his aim steady on her.
“Impressive, Sage. There aren’t many people in the Circuit who thought they could catch me off guard and lived to talk about it. Trust me, it will not happen again.” He pressed the barrel of his gun against her temple.
“Do it, then,” Sage snarled.
“Don’t be foolish. I don’t want to kill you. Just sheathe your blade and we can talk about this civilly.”
Sage slid her blade back into her wrist. Cassius had to stop himself from breathing an audible sigh of relief. She then glanced at his pistol and he lowered it. He took a step backward and ADIM shifted himself to be in between the two of them.
“So is this thing what you’ve been spending all your exiled years with?” Sage asked. “Some cheap imitation of human life?” She got off of her knees and sat against the nearby console. Her bout with ADIM still had her breathing heavily.
“This thing is ADIM, and you’re lucky I arrived in time to save your life,” Cassius said.
“Lucky? Do you name all of your abominations?”
ADIM remained silent. His gaze was fixed on Sage.
“Only the ones I care about,” Cassius said.
Sage let out a mouthful of air. “A part of me still wants to believe I can convince you to stop all of this, Cassius, but my head hurts too much to waste any more breath trying.”
“And I thought I could convince you to stand with us, but you’re as stubborn as Caleb was.” Cassius held out his hand to help Sage to her feet. “ADIM will not harm you as long as you keep that arm of yours to yourself.”
“This unit does not trust her, Creator,” ADIM finally voiced his opinion.
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br /> “I know. But I do.” Cassius extended his hand a little farther. Finally, Sage took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet.
“So, what now?” she asked. “I am your prisoner?”
“Never,” Cassius insisted. “I will allow you to leave. Of course, we’ll be taking precautions to make sure you can’t lead your masters here, but you may go to Titan, where I’m sure Benjar is waiting eagerly. There he will undoubtedly reinsert your implant and soon all of this will be another faded memory. If that’s what you want?”
She took a deep breath and looked to the ground. “I’m sorry, Cassius, but I can’t be a part of this. I made vows, no matter what they might’ve done. And now I must return to uphold them…I will go and ask His Eminence, Benjar, to allow me to continue my work on New Terrene. I’ll beg if I have to.”
Despite expecting that very response to his final appeal, it was still hard for Cassius to mask his disappointment. He took a great risk in bringing Sage to Ennomos, but he knew he’d do it again in a heartbeat. Just her mere existence helped him cling to what little was left of his humanity. He needed that so he wouldn’t lose sight of what he was ultimately trying to do.
“Very well,” Cassius sighed. “Come, ADIM. Your spectacular entrance into this freighter has left it in desperate need of repairs. We must prepare another for her.”
“That’s it?” Sage questioned, following them from a safe distance.
“That’s it,” Cassius stated firmly. They walked in silence until they were out of the freighter and crossed the hangar toward another.
“Creator, your gift awaits you inside of the Shadow Chariot.” ADIM pointed toward the sleek, red and black ship sitting in a small offshoot of the hangar.
Cassius got on his toes and peered over, but all he could see was the top of the Shadow Chariot’s cockpit. “You can show me once we’re finished with this.” He placed his hand on the android’s back. “I look forward to it.” They stopped in front of another freighter and Cassius turned back to Sage.
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