Progeny of Vale

by Rhett C. Bruno

  First there was the Lakura. Before the war they were at the forefront of robotics research, until Cassius blew up their main plant on Lutetia, giving a younger Yara her burn in the ensuing battle when she was left as the only surviving member of the Lakura line. The last part of the armistice maintained that any effort to begin producing the “abominations” known as androids again was grounds for the Tribune to invade. Instead, once they recovered from the war they turned to an obsession with trying to get even for what happened on Lutetia. Cassius recalled how they nearly succeeded before he helped Sage rid New Terrene of a bomb.

  The next was the Ventiss Clan. Cassius didn’t recognize their leader. He was young, with dark hair and a sharp chin. The Ventiss were extremely proficient at managing Pico and other resources. During the war they were nothing, but those stores allowed them to gain a great deal of influence as they repaired a lot of the damage. They weren’t much in a fight, but Cassius could respect patience.

  The last was Zaimur Morastus’s clan. His father Zargo was the one who initiated the movement to form the Ceresian Pact years before in order to stand against the spreading Tribune. They had their hands in everything in the asteroid belt, and Zargo gave the Tribunal Fleet a run for its money back in the day. He never wanted to surrender.

  Cassius tried to locate him near the grouping of Morastus soldiers, but all he saw amongst them was a withering old man with loose, sagging skin. He and Yara had both led during the war, but he was at least twenty years her senior, and he looked even older. His hair was disheveled, and his face was so gaunt that Cassius could see the outline of his jaw bones, and over them a web of blue veins as visible as his people’s armor. Two guards sat directly on either side of him with their hands on his back, keeping him upright. Even his baggy clothing couldn’t hide just how frail he was.

  While everyone whispered amongst themselves, Zaimur stopped in the center of the circular space and looked around at his compatriots. He lifted his hand and the guards around Cassius fanned out to surround him at a distance so that everybody could get a good look at him. “Why the startled faces, my friends?” he asked. “Rejoice, for I have captured Cassius Vale!” Cassius couldn’t deny that the young man was quite the performer.

  “Why have you brought this man here, Zaimur? Is he not better suited to hang from the pillars of the Buckle?” the leader of the Ventiss Clan spoke up. There were rumblings of agreement from all around.

  “Perhaps, but I wouldn’t risk him anywhere else but here with us.”

  “You still haven’t answered why!” Yara grunted. “Maybe I did try to take him first, but if I had gotten my hands on him I wouldn’t have let him step into this hall again. Where Cassius Vale goes, only death follows.”

  “You heard the message he transmitted, the Tribune has forsaken him as well,” Zaimur countered. “He has proposed to help us in this war. I wouldn’t dare keep his offer from you esteemed gentlemen.”

  Yara spit on the floor. “Bah, traitor or not, we don’t need his help. Never will.”

  “My son seems to forget that we have not yet entered war,” Zargo Morastus finally spoke up. His voice reeked of exhaustion and a fit of coughing gripped him immediately after. The android at his back handed him a glass of alcohol. He swallowed a mouthful and struggled to wipe his lips with one of his slender, trembling arms. The men at his side then helped him to his feet and held him there as he glared down his nose at Cassius.

  “Why fool yourself Zargo?” Yara growled. “My ships are already prepped and ready to strike first. The longer we sit here on our asses the longer the Tribune has to prepare.” She glowered at Cassius. “More time to send out their spies. But don’t worry, I’ll handle what’s coming for you. By the Ancients, they blow up your mining colony and I’m the only one upset?”

  Zargo swallowed before responding: “I’m just trying to gather all the facts first. Like why they would have any interest in destroying a place with so little value as Kalliope.”

  “They don’t need a why! Fact is, we’re going to die either now or later. I for one would rather go out in flames.” A few other clan leaders grunted in agreement. “What’s wrong with you, Zargo? You were never one to shy from a fight. Blue Death making you soft?”

  “I will not blindly condemn my people to death!” Zargo shouted, the exertion causing him to succumb to a fit of coughing. His men helped him sit down.

  “Yet, you won’t be around to see what the Tribune does to them, will you? Have you forgotten what this man did to Lutetia in their name?!” Yara hopped to her feet and raised her knife. Zaimur’s soldiers quickly formed a line and aimed their rifles at the Lakura leader.

  “The same thing they did to Kalliope,” Zaimur said. He held up his arms and stepped in front of his men, in the path of the knife. “If he can help us stop that from ever happening again, then how can we deny that chance?”

  Yara lowered her blade and sat back down. She laughed bitterly. “You weren’t alive. As far as I’m concerned this is all some ruse they concocted to get him close to us.”

  “Quite an elaborate trick then. They decimated Titan trying to kill him before he could release any of their secrets. I’m not asking any of you to trust him. All I’m asking is that you listen—that we keep him in our custody until we pick his mind clean.”

  The entire room went into a frenzy. Men from all different clans began arguing with each other in raised whispers, so many voices speaking over each other that it was impossible to discern what anyone was saying.

  “Quiet!” Zargo bellowed, the vigor returning to his voice for just long enough for it to silence the entire room. “Everyone quiet.”

  He stood again and his men slowly hoisted him down the steps. He passed by his son who could only watch as he was brought to stand in front of Cassius, his lips trembling. “One war wasn’t enough for you, Cassius?” he said. “I don’t care who split Kalliope. I don’t care how many Solar-Arks you’ve stolen and what your former masters did to your home. I will not have you spew a single word in this chamber! We will not suffer your lies.”

  He turned toward Zaimur. “Already he poisons your mind, my son, but he made the mistake of thinking he could sway the elder minds in this room. Those who saw the war with their own eyes. Yara and I may not agree on many things; however on this matter we share the same mind. There is no man standing before you, only a knight in the darkness—a shadow. We can spend a lifetime trying to extract the real truth out of him, but he won’t break. If I get to see Cassius Vale die before I pass on, then at least I’ll know my life accomplished something. And if war is inevitable, then what better way to inspire all of our people than by giving them front row seats to the end of our gravest enemy. I vote for the public execution of the murderer Cassius Vale! Let him die with his secrets!” By the time his speech was over his whole body was shaking.

  “Finally the man speaks some sense!” Yara hollered. “I say kill him. I’ll ship his body back to New Terrene when we’re done!”

  There was some discussion, but the decision didn’t take long. Cassius maintained his even façade as he watched the hands of every Clan Leader raise. He was hoping he would at least get the chance to talk.

  The guards who had been serving Zaimur took orders from Zargo to seize Cassius. The Morastus Prince bit his tongue and stepped to the side, his cheeks red as apples. Yara sauntered down the stairs and patted Zargo on the back before grabbing his arm to help him to a seat.

  A dying man’s last stand, Cassius thought to himself. He would have found it romantic if it hadn’t slightly altered his plans. As Morastus henchman dragged him across the floor, all he was concerned with was holding out his open palm as if he were signaling someone to stop and mouthing “don’t.” He wasn’t sure if ADIM was watching or not, but the last thing he wanted was for his creation to slaughter the lot of them and give the Tribune their victory before the first shot was even fired. The fact that they were all still living by the time he exited the room was hopefully an ind
ication that ADIM recognized his plea.

  ADIM was the key to his objective on Ceres. He held everything that would be needed to earn their trust. Cassius was just hoping he would have a chance to amicably reveal him to the entire Ceresian Pact. Zargo Morastus saw a quick end to that. Now Cassius knew he would have to improvise.

  CHAPTER TWENTY—SAGE

  Get Her Home

  Sage was fortunate that a storm rolled in as just as her journey across the supple surface of Titan began. There was nothing like a storm on the orange moon. The winds were so strong that they would’ve bowled her over if she weren’t wearing nano-armor. Brilliant bolts of lightning flashed above her, but the towering Hub of Edeoria in the center of the Ksa Crater absorbed most of them.

  Ignoring all of that, the storm provided the cover she needed to get across Edeoria without being spotted by Tribunal scouts. She had to be quick, though. There was no telling how long the storm would last, and there was still the off chance that she could be seen if Yavortha set enough men to the task. She was the only person outside of a construction suit strolling out in the open alone, after all.

  For miles within the Ksa Crater, a relatively flat layer of densely-packed, colorless sand wrapped around the Hub of Edeoria. She’d never walked the surface before, but she’d seen it from the terrace of Cassius’s compound on multiple occasions. Presently, it wasn’t just littered with countless smooth rocks, but also with hulking fragments of debris from the Conduit, all of them completely frozen by the glacial air. Their formerly molten ends would have snapped right off if she placed any weight on them.

  She reached the base of the sizeable mound in the center of the impact crater from which the spindly tower of the Edeoria Hub arose. She’d considered trying to sneak through the damaged lids of one of the sunken Shaft Colonies near where the Calypso had fallen, but decided it was too risky. There were already dozens of construction Mechs outside of them hard at work making reparations. She’d also thought about waiting outside of an operational Shaft Colony, but their outer seals only came open when a ship was scheduled to pass through. It was likely that Yavortha had stopped the movement of every transport in the settlement in order to trap Sage on the forsaken surface of Titan, or at the very least he was monitoring those places.

  A half-hour, she thought. That was how long she estimated she had until her oxygen stores ran out. The Hub of the Edeoria was her only option. Its tower ascended from the largest and most populated of the Shaft Colonies, vanishing into the murky sky. With the storm passing through she could barely make out much beyond its lowest segment.

  After a short trek up the mound of earth packed around its base, she started to climb the Hub. Yavortha’s beating had left her body too sore to ignore, but her artificial arm made it possible. As did the low gravity conditions, coupled with the moon’s extraordinarily dense atmosphere. She pulled herself up the few, narrow protrusions of the structure and tried her best not to pay attention to her breathing. Each inhale was like the hand of a clock clicking toward her end.

  Her foot slipped on the slender ledge of a slightly thicker plate of metal. Her heart fluttered nervously as she hugged the slick surface. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to with the implant staying her nerves. Heights had never been an issue, but neither was a fear of failure. She was getting fairly high however, and repeating the climb would be an impossible task even if she wasn’t injured by the fall. Stay focused, she told herself.

  She shook her head and continued up. The hovering body of the Ascendant wasn’t much farther away based on the massive shadow being cast over her, which along with the storm was enough to make it feel like nighttime.

  Its plating was as extensive as it was dense, but every ship had weak points. When it came to Tribunal vessels she knew them best. Infiltrating such ships had been a part of her job description as an Executor. She’d never had to breach a New Earth Cruiser before, but it had the same manufacturers as all of the rest. She identified a narrow opening between two metal plates on its underside where an exhaust vent was located. It was in between the two low-power, downward thrusters which were keeping the ship hovering along with the docking ports that latched onto the hub. The vent itself was right below the main hangar, which was a bad place to head if you were trying not to be seen, but she didn’t have time to spare. It was only about fifty feet away, and scouring the rest of the mile-long warship for a place to enter wasn’t going to be possible.

  She reached the correct height on the Hub just as a beeping sound near her ear told her that her suit’s oxygen stores were depleted. All she had left was what little had built up inside of her helmet.

  There was no time to panic. An Executor never panics. Even if she wasn’t one any more, her training ran deep. Yavortha couldn’t take that away from her.

  She peeked over her shoulder and judged the distance to the cruiser. Under Earth-G she never would’ve been able to make the jump, but on Titan it wouldn’t be a problem. She pushed off of the Hub as hard as she could manage and soared through the air until her artificial fingers grabbed hold of the Ascendant’s hull. As her body stretched out a sharp pain flared up in her ribs where Yavortha had struck her. She screamed, but held on, and after a few seconds managed to pull herself up into the nook formed by the ship’s overlapping plates.

  Once there, she took one last inhale before holding her breath. She then unsheathed the wrist blade in her arm and cut through the fins of the vent with short, concise strokes. She couldn’t risk exerting herself too much. The razor-sharp blade sliced through the metal fins like they were sheets of paper from Ancient Earth. For all of Cassius’s faults she had to give him credit. He knew how to build. And her arm and all of its parts were his creation, even if his hands had also crafted the abomination ADIM.

  Once the opening was wide enough she shoved her head through and tracked the upward path of the duct. It was slender, but so was she.

  She had to move. Even she could only hold her breath for so long, and the longer she did it the more the pain in her ribs was exacerbated. She sheathed her blade, climbed into the duct, and shimmied up the stack.

  When she reached the point where it flattened out horizontally, the outer seal of an airlock stood in her way. She could wait until the ship’s system expelled exhaust through the shaft and the two layers of the airlock opened and closed harmoniously, but there was no telling how long that would be. However, if she damaged the seal then security systems might be alerted to her presence. It was a dilemma, but she was growing dizzy so she had no choice but to risk it. Sparks showered upon her visor as she attempted to hack through, not bothering to hold back this time. The inner defenses were too thick.

  She exhaled and speedily plotted her next move as she drew in the last bit of oxygen that was left in her helmet. Then, without hesitation, she reached down to the bottom of the seal and dug her artificial fingers under it. The metal beneath it wilted just enough under the pressure for her to shove her finger tips through and allow her to lift. She used her human hand to brace the shoulder connected to her artificial arm and make sure that her remaining tendons didn’t tear from the stress.

  It budged. The change in pressure blew Sage back, but she braced herself against the walls of the tight shaft until finally her efforts revealed a gap large enough for her to squeeze through.

  She was just barely able to get her entire body through before it slammed shut again. There was a soft whistle as the space’s pressure regulated and then she gasped for air. Oxygen rushed through her helmet’s respirator, cold from its brief exposure to the outside air. Once she had her fill she crawled forward through the second layer of the airlock. It’d closed automatically during the breach, but she was grateful to see that it re-opened afterwards. Now she just had to find somewhere to go before the ship breathed her out along with whatever else was expelled through the shaft.

  Sage crawled through the darkness until a small vent cover permitted a few slivers of light. She got as close as she could and pee
red through. It was a storage area tucked into the corner of the main hangar.

  She used her wrist-blade to unfasten the bolts and rolled in gracefully. She was fortunate enough to have arrived as the Ascendant was being prepped for departure. Numerous stacks of supply crates were still scattered around. There was also a tremendous amount of commotion. Mechs were carrying in more supplies from the Hub, and the conversations of hundreds of soldiers and civilians by the entrance to the hangar were drowned out by heavy machinery working on dozens of fighters and transport ships.

  She peered around a supply crate. A Tribunal Soldier was approaching on a routine patrol. He didn’t appear to be on edge, which either meant that Yavortha was trying to clean up his mistake without letting Benjar know what had happened, or that he didn’t think she could’ve possibly made it as far as she did with nothing but limited air and a small blade. She didn’t really care which one was true.

  A soldier rounded a nearby corner and she crouched down. As soon as he was close enough she unsheathed her blade and pounced. It was a simple move. She lifted the bottom of his helmet and reared back to stab her blade through the weak part of his unprotected armor and into the back of his skull like she’d done on hundreds of occasions. Only she froze just before she could land the killing blow. It wasn’t the first time she had to slay a Tribunal Guard in cold blood—such was the right of any Executor if someone beneath them stood in the way of their mission—but it was the first time she had to do it for her own reasons.

  She surprised herself so much with her inability to follow through that the soldier was able to flip over. She recalled her training as quickly as she could in order to wrap her artificial arm around his throat so that he wouldn’t be able to say anything into his helmet’s built-in com-system. If he had it switched on the entire hangar would descend upon her in seconds.