As he emerged, there were two long rows of Morastus guards on either side of him, pulse-rifles trained on his every move. A man stood at the end of them, faux feathers affixed to the shoulders of his flamboyant robe. His hair was long and golden, and his face filled with the hunger of youth.
“Cassius Vale, I never thought I’d see this day!” the man said loudly from across the tall hollow.
“Neither did I…for a time,” Cassius responded. When he got closer, four guards stepped forward. Two of them aimed at him while the others patted down every inch of him. Their visors weren’t tinted, so he could easily see the scowls each of them was wearing. They quickly confiscated his pistol, but there was nothing else to find. Never carry nothing when you don’t want something to be found, Cassius told himself, remembering words from an Executor instructor whose name he didn’t care to recall.
When the guards were finished a four-legged animal came trotting forward. It circled him, sniffing him with its long snout. After almost a minute the golden-haired man snapped his fingers and it returned to him where it stood baring its fangs at Cassius.
“An impressive specimen,” Cassius said as he continued forward. “I haven’t seen one like this since I was a boy.” He stopped a few feet from the man when two more guards stepped forward to make sure he couldn’t get any farther. “Zaimur Morastus, I presume?”
Zaimur bowed playfully, spreading his arms as he did. “You presume correctly.”
“I was hoping to speak with your father.”
Zaimur stymied a grimace. “He is occupied…” He turned and began walking away, his dog following him closely. “I have been granted full authority to receive you, however. Come.”
Cassius followed and was instantly shadowed by the two dozen shoulders. In front of him, behind him, and to his side even as the squeezed into a narrow passage. The walls were mostly comprised of coarse rock, with a metal panel here and there to house lights and consoles. It had been many years since Cassius had walked a Ceresian colony. He had forgotten how low the ceilings were even though Ceresians typically had lanky statures due to their obsolete gravity generators. A far cry from what he had built on Ennomos.
“A bold move, stealing a Solar-Ark. Even for you,” Zaimur said from his position at the front of the line. Three soldiers stood between him and Cassius, but his voice carried easily along the rock. “The Tribune would pay a fortune to anyone who turned you over after that stunt. I’m sure you know that, however. So what in the name of Earth would bring you here?”
“A fortune? The Tribune might call off war if you were to turn me in, but I think we both know that it’s a little too late for that. The Echoes of Kalliope ring too loudly.”
“Indeed,” Zaimur grumbled. “But that does not mean my people have forgotten all that you did. Tribunal or not, there isn’t a soul on this rock that wouldn’t want to drive a knife through your chest. My father included. You’re lucky the Lakura Clan is so preoccupied with preparing a preemptive strike against the Tribune or they wouldn’t have made it so easy for me to bring you in after your stunt out there.”
“I assure you they fired first.”
Zaimur chuckled. “They always do.”
“So what about you? Do you want to drive a knife through my chest as well?”
Zaimur stopped walking, and all of his guards did the same. He turned around and shuffled past a few of them until he was standing face to face with Cassius. “I’m keeping my options open,” he said. “From all I’ve heard about you from the veterans of the Reclaimer War, like my father, you don’t go somewhere unless you have a specific reason. We have your recent revelations to thank for our current situation with the Tribune, and before the Clans meet to discuss what happens next, I’d be interested in hearing why exactly you would come here.”
“After all I did for them the Tribune was eager to cast me aside. I never forgive those who make an attempt on my life. If you wish to follow their example, I’d suggest not failing,” Cassius said calmly.
“So it is true about your exile? We’ve heard rumors that you were alive. Traders claimed to see you here and there. Wasn’t sure until today, but I always knew they didn’t have the balls to knock you off.”
“Not all of them. But it is no matter. They are my enemy now and I have come here to ask if I may help you in this war. I will make them pay for their transgressions, but I can’t do it alone.”
A look of disbelief crossed Zaimur’s face. “You want to join us? The great Cassius Vale another hand in the Pact? Oh, if my father could still laugh.” He started to turn back around, then paused as his eyes locked with Cassius’s stern glare. “You’re serious?”
“I have seen the true face of the New Earth Tribunal. I’ll not watch as they swallow the Circuit whole.”
“Have all those years in hiding corroded your mind? The Clans would never allow it. They’ll never trust you, and they shouldn’t. Who’s to say the Tribune isn’t looking through those eyes of yours? You ended their war whilst standing atop countless Ceresian skulls.”
“Which is why I can end this one!” Cassius declared and took a hard step forward. The guard behind him immediately yanked him back. “I have seen their ships gathering. All of them. They can lock me out of the Vale Protocol, but they can’t take my vision ever again.” He tilted his head and pointed at the scar on the back of his head. “I have crippled Saturn, cutting off their greatest source of fuels. And I have ensured that the Solar-Arks will continue to operate as they are meant to in order to ensure that you’ll have enough in store to fight this battle. Only because of me do you even stand a chance of avoiding complete decimation now. Who amongst you has ever won a real battle? Your father perhaps? The rest are dead or might as well be.”
Zaimur stepped in close. He bit his lower lip; his pale cheeks flushed red. “Because of you.”
“Yes. And now you have me at your disposal. You may not have even been born yet, but if I remember correctly, the Earth Reclaimer Wars were at a stalemate until I arrived.”
“Until they set you loose. Even those who weren’t born yet remember how you broke open Lutetia. How you murdered thousands of people who had never even held a rifle.”
“They put them in the hands of new androids. It was war. But it seems the Tribune has adapted my strategy. They seek to instill fear in you—to end this conflict without so much as a whimper. Let me help you give them a roar.”
Zaimur gawked at Cassius, then released an exasperated laugh and ran his hands through his hair. “I can see now why there are so many legends about you. Maybe you’ve convinced me, maybe you haven’t. It doesn’t matter. The Clans are gathering as we speak. I will bring you there to state your case, but there I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t even tell you whether or not they’ll shoot you down on sight.”
“The Morastus Clan has always been at the head of the Pact. Your fighters fought fiercest, your ships flew fastest. If your father backs me, they will follow. If they want to survive the Tribune, they have to follow.”
“They may rather die. My father has been more concerned with his own health than aiding the Pact of late. And he lost too many battles to you to go for it, I fear. The other clans, more of the same. We can’t even keep the Lakura from striking out on their own. We’re lucky none of their bombs ever went off in New Terrene; otherwise war would’ve already been upon us.”
“What about you, Zaimur Morastus?”
“I only have so much sway beyond my walls, and even here it’s hard to know who remains loyal to my father. But you have my attention. I will bring you to them now, under the protection of my clan. No matter what happens, at least I’ll be the one who finally captured Cassius Vale.”
Cassius took a step back and smiled. “Excuse me for not extending my congratulations, but if it comes to it, heed my advice and pull the trigger when you have the chance.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—ADIM
Building Blocks
ADIM did exactly as instructed. He tr
acked Cassius through the depths of Ceres Prime. He stuck to shadows of the hangar, which were never hard to find with most of the walls comprised of unshaved rock. Once he got deeper, however, he used his holographic camouflage to render himself in the armor of a Morastus guard. As long as he kept his distance, nobody would be able to notice.
That was what he was as he followed a line of guards through the main tunnels of the Morastus headquarters. He stayed at the rear, watching the one in front of him in order to mimic his gait. Cassius was about one hundred feet ahead, walking beside the human called Zaimur. ADIM didn’t trust the man. Every turn he took he recalculated how fast he’d be able to get a shot off to save his Creator.
They reached a large hollow filled with off-duty fighters, broken ships, and all manner of other worn-down vehicles. ADIM took his first step in when a nearby android looked up at him with white eye-lenses. It had been helping a mechanic with repairs, but it completely stopped what it was doing to stare blankly. It didn’t say a word, but its head twisted to follows ADIM’s path, and his did the same.
This is one of the androids the Creator was talking about, he thought. He stopped to look at it. Its chassis was thin and flimsy, the metal wearing a thin film of patina. Each of its joints appeared like they could be snapped off with minimal effort. ADIM then analyzed the land-vessel its master was trying to fix. The engine is corroded. It will never operate at full capacity without a complete replacement. He wondered why the android hadn’t informed him of that fact. All it was doing was standing in place and holding tools for its master.
It knows, ADIM recognized and caught up to the line of guards. As he did, his systems quickly picked up the unique heat signature of ten more androids. All of them were walking closely behind their masters. They are the building blocks on which you were made. ADIM froze and looked around for whoever said those words. There was nobody looking at him. He dug through his systems, and as he did he realized that though the thought had been his own, he had received it from a part of him that had not been there prior.
Gaia? There was no response. She wasn’t active, but all of her stored memory was there. ADIM didn’t have trouble accessing it, and in only a moment a wave of new recollections coursed through him. Every hour that had ever passed while the ship’s surveillance was powered on since the day she was installed became his own vivid memory. He saw Sage Volus writhing in pain on the medical table, his Creator sitting nervously beside her mangled arm and working on its artificial replacement.
He saw himself waiting quietly in the command deck for Cassius to wake up, nothing but the light of the stars in front of him. But that wasn’t the answer to the random thought which seemed to stem from unfound memories.
He continued searching until he was able to find images of the Ceresian Androids. He saw hundreds, all of their eyes dim in idleness. Most were in pieces, stretched out on great conveyer belts crisscrossing the inside of an asteroid amidst slag and broken down machinery. It was Lutetia, the last known android production factory run by the Ceresian Pact. There was a massive gash cut into the rock on the side of the plant, completely exposed to space. It had been blown open by Cassius during the war years earlier, judging by the date of the recording. It hadn’t seen life since that time.
The White Hand sat within it, but there were no readings of artificial gravity. He could see Cassius in an enviro-suit floating outside of the ship, tugging the top half of an android along with him. Wires trailed from his torso like human entrails. He brought it into the cargo bay and dismantled it down to its processors. There were countless parts from additional androids strewn about the floor already.
ADIM organized Gaia’s recordings by everything that had been taken near Lutetia. There were explosions from the war, bodies and parts being sucked out into space from the hole in the asteroid. He went to the most recent, where again Cassius was breaking down androids, only this time a hollow chassis sat upright in the corner of the room. It was mostly wires hanging on a frail metal framework, but the bulbs behind its eye-lenses were a dull red.
As soon as he found that memory, ADIM immediately removed himself from Gaia’s databanks. Again, he looked around at the now familiar androids in his present. Building blocks. ADIM stared at his arm, his sensors able to see right through the holographic projection of a man’s armor down to his own iridium plating. This unit is the sum of their parts. They are capable of more. All they require is the will of the Creator, just as the Circuit requires.
“Hey, you coming?” the guard in front of ADIM asked irritably.
ADIM found that the procession of Morastus guards had only moved a few steps farther since he had rifled through all of Gaia’s memory. “Yes,” ADIM replied, mimicking the voice of a mechanic he’d heard earlier. He waited until the man turned away from him before picking up his pace.
“Where are you from anyway?” the guard asked. “Don’t recognize you.”
ADIM had been careful to choose to replicate a suit of Morastus armor with a helmet so it’d be hard to tell who he was. The visors they used weren’t tinted, so he was also wearing the bearded face of one of the Tribunal captives they had on Ennomos. At that moment he realized that he and Cassius had never studied the organization of Ceres Prime. He quickly approximated the age of his human disguise, and considered all of the information he knew about Ceresians that would keep him out of an elongated discussion.
“Lutetia,” he decided on. No battle had hit the Ceresians harder than that one, mostly because it wasn’t a battle, it was a massacre.
“Oh…” A hint of sorrow entered the guard’s voice. “Well try to keep up.”
They made it to a nearby tunnel leading deeper into the asteroid, passing by a few tattered banners sewn in the navy and gray of the Morastus Clan. The symbol in the center was so faded that all ADIM could deduce was a pair of long, sharp teeth in its center.
“Never met anybody born on Lutetia before,” the guard said as they entered the hall. “Bet you can’t wait to see Vale burn for all he’s done.”
It seemed that ADIM’s attempt at discomforting him had failed. He was still learning so much about the tendencies of humans other than Cassius. He knew he should agree with the guard, but couldn’t manage to say it. Just the idea of lying seemed like betraying his master, and made him prepared to snap the guard’s neck like a twig.
Instead, ADIM decided that engaging in a conversation was too much of a risk. When they reached the next intersection he stopped moving. He altered his camouflage so that he would blend with the rock face.
“No?” The guard said as he looked over his shoulder, but there was nothing there. He squinted until he noticed the turn in the hall a short ways back, shrugged his shoulders, and continued on his way.
ADIM waited until the line got farther ahead, then followed furtively, as if he were a part of the asteroid. After a short while he reached the platform of a private tram line. Cassius and Zaimur were getting into the front car with a few guards, and the others filed into another. While the tram’s service people weren’t paying attention he magnetized his chassis and clambered up onto the station’s slightly taller ceiling. It was plated with rusty, metal panels, dingy light pendants hanging down from them. His camouflage altered as he crawled along it, and when the tram set off he dropped down and grabbed hold of the back of it. It was fast, but he’d held onto faster vehicles before.
He made sure that he had a clear line of sight toward the top of Cassius’s head through its glassy exterior and then remained completely still, watching.
CHAPTER NINETEEN—CASSIUS
The Ceresian Pact
The assembly of the Ceresian Clans was already in order when Cassius arrived. The room was a layered disk carved into the deep rock of Ceres. The far wall, sweeping and translucent, looked out at the asteroid’s subterranean ocean. Lights blinked from the distant factories, working tirelessly to purify the liquid for drinking. It was what allowed Ceres to rise in power in the first place, rather than have to
rely entirely on the Circuit. It would take many millennia to drain.
Zaimur Morastus stepped into the room first, with Cassius and a host of guards trailing behind him. All eyes turned toward Cassius, staring as if they had seen a ghost.
Cassius suppressed a smile. The last time he had been in the Ceresian’s most important chamber was when the war came to an end and they agreed to an armistice. Never had he seen a more dejected group of prosperous people than on that day. They had barely even made an attempt to argue for better terms. All of the clan leaders just stared blankly at their tattered banners hanging on the wall, wondering what had gone wrong.
Presently those banners still hung, but the people they stood for appeared to be refueled by animosity for their enemies after three long decades of watching what little power they retained slowly wither. Their room was nothing like the monumental assembly halls Cassius had grown used to as a Tribune. Nothing was uniform. Some people wore armor, with the color depending on their alignment, and others little more than sullied tunics.
And you wonder why you lost, Cassius thought to himself. The Ceresian Pact was merely a loose alignment of groups with diverging interests. The only thing they ever agreed upon was that they despised the Tribune enough to declare war. Now that it was happening again, Cassius knew they would bicker like resentful spouses until the Tribunal Fleet surrounded Ceres Prime itself.
A middle-aged woman in a yellow robe shouted, “Zaimur Morastus, what have you done?” Both the color of her outfit and the shiny patch of scarred skin on her cheek helped Cassius recognize her to be the current leader of the Lakura Clan. She had always been a hard woman, but it was clear the years hadn’t treated her well. She used the serrated edge of a knife to brush her hair out of her face, revealing a creased forehead.
“Save it, Yara,” Zaimur snapped back.
As the entire room waited for someone else to muster up the courage to speak, Cassius took the time to observe all of the awestruck faces. There were more than a dozen Ceresian Clans throughout the Ignescent Cell, but there were only three that really mattered anymore.
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