The Coming Storm_A Pax Aeterna Novel

by Trevor Wyatt

  My palms are sweaty on the steering grips. What am I doing here? I’m a scholar, not a warrior. Though I received some basic military training when I was younger, as all Sonali do in wartime, I’ve always been a man of peace. I barely remember how to hold a weapon like the rifle. But I find myself about to face a dangerous enemy, so I had better remember as much as I can.

  “Computer,” I say to the car as we float past a cluster of tall office buildings.

  “Sir.”

  I peer at the readout of the wrist-comm given to me by Rosaline—or whoever she really is. “Take me to these coordinates.” And I reel them off for the machine.

  “At once.”

  “Full emergency power,” I add.

  “I cannot comply, as we are within the city borders,” says the machine. Stung, I respond with a crude biological directive.

  “I am unable to comply with your request,” says the computer.

  “Just give me the maximum available velocity, please,” I growl.

  It’s silly to take my frustrations out on a computer, but I’m angry and afraid. How could I have allowed myself to become entangled in this madness? For a moment I am consumed with rage against the Terrans, but my fury quickly burns itself out. The Terrans are not the ones to blame for what has happened here in my beautiful world, other than indirectly. No, it’s those who are seeking to profit from the misery of the war who are responsible.

  I am ashamed to admit that they are Sonali, like me. Well, not like me; I am not looking to make money from the sorrow of innocents. I am seeking to understand how it ever could have happened in the first place so that it will never happen again.

  It is men like Master Merchant Byuren who are guilty. He is a traitor, and worse. I must stop him from escaping if I can, and make sure he is brought to justice for his crimes.

  The car arrows through the clear air, and as I see the sunlight glinting off the buildings around me, I think that I have never seen a more perfect day. There is barely a cloud in the sky. Below me on the sidewalks I see people going about their lives; women hand in hand with children, young men walking with their loved ones—for today is a festival day, and the lower floors are decked with bunting and flowers.

  But then my eyes clear, the vision dissipates, and I see the reality: smoke and fumes from the looming terraformer, polluting the air. Drifting clumps of filth and a rain of grit. This is what Byuren and his fellows have done, all in the name of profit—they have set themselves against their fellow citizens, they are raping their own world. I can’t let it continue. Even if No One is successful in her attempt to cripple the horrible device, I have got to do all I can.

  A part of me was wondering why the Sonali Navy or the planetary defenses don’t just blow up the section of the city. But now I see with the machine at work how it would make things even worse. It would eradicate most of the planet.

  The fact that the Terrans use this for peaceful exploration baffles me.

  Now the aircar is descending. The emergency enveloping the city has sparked a flood of cars seeking to escape the horror. There is very little cross-town traffic, making it easier for me to get through air-lanes that would otherwise be crowded at this time of day. Now the levels are all but deserted as the black clouds curdle the sky above me.

  I am approaching the commercial district. I know exactly where Byuren is: it’s his own company’s warehouse. I’m not sure why he’s there, because once inside he’ll be trapped. My car settles to a landing, and I climb out, clutching the rifle. I switch it on, and it hums to life in my hands.

  Power. I remember what it feels like.

  I check the settings as I stalk toward the warehouse’s entrance. Almost half a charge. I try the door, but of course, it’s locked. I hear a strange rumbling sound, but have no time to take full notice of it.

  I stand back, take aim, and blast the door.

  The concussion all but knocks me off my feet. I have used too high a charge; the door is open, but the rifle is all but emptied of energy.

  I shake my head, a little dazed, and step inside through the smoldering doorframe. Inside, nearly in the center of a huge open space, sits a bulbous escape pod.

  So that’s why he wanted to come here: this small spacecraft will provide him with a way off Solani Prime. The roof finishes rolling back: that’s the source of the rumble I heard outside.

  The pod’s PA system crackles. Byuren’s voice addresses me. “Stay back,” he says and underscores his demand with a laser shot that burns a hole at my feet. I dance back but don’t let go of my useless rifle.

  “You know, Master Merchant,” I say, “I used to regard you as a man whose zeal to rid our world of Terran influences was laudable. But since then I’ve come to know some Terrans—one in particular. And the truth, as I learned it, was that despite our differences, we Sonali and the Terrans want essentially the same things: to be left alone to live our lives in peace, without bothering anyone. It doesn’t seem like a lot to expect from life, does it?”

  “You’re a fool,” is all he says in response. “Like those in our government. I do not think that they would send one Sonali to stop me. So you must be working with that bitch of a Terran who guises herself as Sonali. You are the true traitor to your race. Now get back before I kill you.”

  I start walking toward the pod. “I am thinking now that your zeal was misplaced,” I say. A beam sizzles over my head, barely visible in the dusty air. As I thought... like me, he’s no warrior. He’s a terrible marksman.

  But if I can rattle him more, he’ll be even worse.

  “You’ve gone too far, Byuren,” I say. “You know this will cause another war. And yet you will kill every Sonali citizen on this planet. For what? Profit?”

  “The Terrans are the embodiment of evil amongst us!” he shouts. “They are godless. They kill each other without a thought. They value nothing we do. If they did, they would not have bombarded my world. They would not have burned my mother and father, my wife and daughter from the skies. They didn’t even land and look me in the face as they destroyed my world and my family. They only referred to it as Gemma Astro II. I want to throw the Terrans off our world!”

  “And many people agree with you. But it was war. We did the same,” I say. I am about halfway across the naked floor to the pod, which sits venting pre-launch gasses as it flushes its systems. “So you cooked up this course of action and lost control. That terraformer...we could put it to beneficial use.”

  “I—I can’t,” he says, in a choked voice.

  I am very close now. “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t understand. Th-there are those would kill me if I back down now.”

  “Who?” I demand. “Some combine of merchants? Higher-ups in your caste?”

  “It would be as much as my life is worth to tell you,” he says squinting as he sees my robes and my build. “But you won’t be leaving here alive anyway, Scholar.”

  He’s sized me up and knows exactly what kind of threat I am. None. I fear he is correct about that. The rifle’s stock in my hands is slick with my sweat. “Your perfidy is known,” I say to him. “Do you think I simply stumbled upon you, here?”

  “No—that bitch of an agent told you, I’m sure.” His scorn is deep, biting. “You are ineffectual, Scholar...an effete, simpering fool. In moments I will blast off, and rendezvous with my fleet. Up there I will be a law unto myself.”

  “You are filth, Master Merchant,” I say, and break into a run, rifle at the ready as if I were storming an enemy encampment—which, in a way, I am.

  The pod’s countdown alarm begins beeping. A minute until its engines fire. A laser beam lances the air beside me. I angle off, but not solely to avoid Byuren’s weaponry: I rip Rosaline’s communicator, which has been recording my conversation with the traitor, off my wrist. “I don’t know if you can hear me,” I gasp as I zig-zag toward a pile of crates off to one side. “Have to try to disable his ship. I’ll try to hide this thing out of blast range.” I st
uff it down between two sturdy metal packing containers, where it may be safe.

  “Affirmative,” comes her voice, muffled against the crates. “But don’t risk yourself!”

  Before I can reply, Byuren fires again, and this time he is lucky: the beam sweeps across my left arm, slicing it clean off above the elbow, but fortuitously cauterizing the wound as it does so. The pain is intense, and I know I will fall prey to shock in moments.

  I stagger toward the pod. In moments, I am too close for him to bring his lasers to bear on me, and I half dive, half fall under the engine fairing. The take-off alarm bleats: seconds left.

  In agony from my injury, I worm my way further under the pod, toward the main engine, and thrust his useless rifle up side it, as hard as I can, lodging it firmly. Then I scramble back, gasping in pain. I can’t make it. I can’t get out from under the escape pod.

  But I think I have managed to cripple it. The countdown ends, and with a click, the main engine comes on behind me, and the impact of the blast is so great that for a moment all I feel is pressure as I am flung out from beneath the ship into a pile of shipping containers. I am broken, dying. But I know the ignition pulse is erratic: the rifle is diverting the exhaust flow to the sides of the fuel chamber.

  There is a greater explosion.

  Then everything goes white.

  No-One

  It has been a month since Gresh’s death.

  After being debriefed following the successful conclusion of the mission I have been put on leave. I’m in my home—a small four bedroom apartment in Bryson City on the planet Devidia. It’s far enough away from the border of any other spacefaring nation that I can forget that Terrans now co-exist with other races in the galaxy. I’ve just vegetated.

  Out of the last month, I’ve spent most of that time playing games on my console, drinking more than is good for me, engaging in recreational sex with men I’ve picked up in bars, ignoring the news, and trying to not think. I have ignored private communiques and all other forms of messaging as well. I’ve earned the right to be left alone for a while.

  People have called me a hard case. I didn’t use to be. In trying not to think about my current situation I have inadvertently opened a channel to my childhood. Amazingly enough, most of what I recall before the terraformer is good. I was a happy kid. Average. I ran around and played with my friends, I loved video games (well, that much is sort of still true, though they don’t consume me like they used to), I did well in school. I even played the cello for a while. I had a life.

  Then my family was wiped out, and I became a ward of the state. If it wasn’t for Admiral Shane during those years, I wouldn’t be here today. He pointed me and made me work, and I worked mindlessly, training myself and immersing myself in challenges that made others balk. It was a way to not think about things, to avoid introspection, and to make a difference. I could get as far away from my home as possible, to other worlds.

  All the activity and action helped me achieve all my goal of not thinking. I became the very best agent I could be, better than anyone else. Not for nothing (as my grandmother used to say) but I am “No. 1” for a reason.

  Along in the process, I became a hard case. I put a shell around me. No one and nothing could get through. This is what Intelligence tells you to do, of course—and it’s good advice for agents. You’re not supposed to care; you’re not supposed to get emotionally involved with your assignment, or with anyone else.

  And I was good with that, for years. Proud of it, in fact. I had no long-term relationships, no pets, no friends. It was just me and my houseplants, and they knew to look after themselves for long periods. That eliminated Terran houseplants, of course, but there are other options.

  And so, being responsible for nothing and no one else, I always thought that I’d be prepared to offer the ultimate sacrifice for my job. But while I’ve been sitting in my apartment playing video games, it gradually dawned on me that a job is not worth dying for. Yes, it may be a person’s responsibility to die for a job, but that’s not the same as Gresh dying for a principle—which is what he did. He sacrificed himself for his beliefs, not for his non-disclosure agreement. He died so that his fellow Sonali could have the choice whether or not to remain in their birth gender.

  Me? If I died on the job, maybe I’d get a plaque somewhere on some corridor wall and my photograph in an annual memorial.

  That used to be enough. But while I’ve been sitting here playing point-and-shoot against gooey aliens, my not thinking wall has been breaking down.

  Because of Gresh.

  I admired the guy even before he died. I liked him. He did what he had to do, and I am sure he was absolutely terrified the entire time. But he did it because he believed in something. He wasn’t the type of person to not think about things.

  Dammit, Gresh, what are you doing to my head?

  Despite all the distractions with which I have surrounded myself, I am no longer able to not think about things.

  Part of this, of course, is because he used the communicator I gave him to record the last hour of his life. I was in the aircar with him...I stormed the warehouse with him, and I watched as he threw himself under Byuren’s escape pod and damaged its exhaust nozzle. I saw him drag himself out from under the vehicle. He must have known it was a futile gesture.

  I also saw the huge grin on his face as the pod exploded behind him, killing him. The bastard was happy. He was proud of what he had done. He had even managed to save the communicator...it was damaged, but when it was found in the wreckage of Byuren’s warehouse it was still functional. That’s how we know what happened. With the damning evidence given by Byuren himself in his own words to Gresh, the Union, working with the Sonali government, was able to indict the merchant’s co-conspirators, up to and including High Cleric Szaad’s allies within the Sacred Temple.

  Grateful Terran Union officials established a memorial scholarship fund for xenoarchaeologists at the Academy a few days ago. Sonali educators did the same. He was well on his way to becoming a folk hero.

  As far as I am concerned, he deserves it.

  All I know is, I’ll miss him.

  Gresh had served his people well. My own part in the incident would, of course, be redacted, covered up, but that’s an agent’s lot: when we screw up, it usually means our cover gets blown, and we’re in the news. When we do well, no one knows.

  There’s always that memorial plaque, though.

  After four weeks, the messages popping up on my screen are becoming more impatient and exasperated in tone. I can’t avoid it any longer: I have to go speak with my colleagues and apply for my next assignment. The attitude in the service always is, “Thanks a heap, but what have you done for us lately?”

  So I pack up my game console, make sure the plants can reach the tap in the kitchen I’ve left dripping for them, and head out.

  A few days later, I return back to Sonali Prime and to the Embassy.

  Making my way past the Marines in the lobby, I take the elevator up to the ambassador’s office. As always, Violet is sitting there, typing industriously at her computer. When I slouch in, she looks up from her work. With a sympathetic look on her face, she says, “Anika, have you heard the news?”

  I give her back a perfunctory smile and a shrug. “I’ve been avoiding the news. What’s up?”

  “You’ll love this.” Her tone becomes ironic. “It seems that the ambassador has received so many kudos for solving the crisis that he’s been offered the chance to run for president.”

  I open my mouth to say something acerbic but close it again. All I can do is shrug.

  “I know,” she says. “Go on in, Anika... he’s expecting you.”

  My slouch must be even more pronounced as I push open the door to Esteban Asis’s inner sanctum. He’s behind his desk, chirping to someone on the commlink, looking cheerful. I take some consolation in the fact that if this two is indeed going to run for office, at least he’ll have to give up his post here. With any luck,
the next ambassador will be someone competent. Or at least less incompetent. It’s hard to imagine anyone less able than Asis, whose only talent, as far as I have seen, is being able to delegate his responsibilities to others. His staff does the work, and he floats around from breakfast to ceremony, from cocktail party to photo opportunity.

  Without waiting to be offered a seat I slum down into a chair in front of him and wait patiently for him to finish his conversation. He seems to be talking with someone from the media.

  At last, he’s done and puts his phone down with obvious satisfaction.

  “Congratulations, sir,” I say, robbing him of the pleasure of bragging. “Violet gave me the news.”

  A quick pout flits across his features. “Ah,” he says lamely. “Well.”

  “So when are you leaving?” I don’t bother to keep the anticipation out of my voice. “We’ll sure miss you around here.” What I want to say is, Don’t let the door hit you in your fat bureaucrat’s ass on your way out, you penis-bearing pencil-pusher.

  He seems mollified. I’m sure he knows I’m lying, but at least I am following office protocol, so he is happy.

  “The Dejah Thoris leaves for Earth at noon,” he says. I’ve heard of the Thoris; it’s a luxury liner. Passage aboard such a vessel would cost me two years’ pay.”

  “I’m jealous,” I say, even if I’m not. “I hope you have an uneventful flight. And a successful run.”

  “Thank you,” he says. He reaches into a drawer, takes out an envelope, and hands it to me. There is no name written on it, but I recognize TAOIC paper when I see it.

  “Your new assignment,” he says. “I haven’t looked at it.”

  Well, sure—why would he give a fuck? I’m going to be back here doing work while he is having his picture taken with starlets.

  I slip the envelope inside my jacket. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing what assignment Terran Armada Intelligence Operations Command has for me. He’s out of the loop now, and he knows it.