“We’ve declared a cease fire with the enemy while negotiations are conducted.”
“What negotiations?” Lucien said. “Has the enemy made any demands?”
“We’ll let you know the result as soon as the negotiations are concluded, Commander. Until then you have your orders.”
Lucien shook his head. “We’re wasting time. We can’t negotiate with the Faros. Inform the admiral that we’re breaking the cease fire. Astralis will have to decide whether or not to join us.”
“Are you threatening insubordination, Commander? If you are, I’ll send over a platoon of Marines and take your ship myself!”
“You’re welcome to try,” Lucien replied.
“Are you prepared to fire on friendly forces? Because if you’re not, you will be boarded, and we will take control of your fleet.”
“Then I guess you’d better start launching shuttles. Good luck dropping our shields.”
“This is not the time to turn on each other, Commander!”
“I agree, so I suggest you convince the admiral to fight with us rather than against us,” Lucien replied.
There came a sudden shriek of weapons fire, followed by a thud. Lucien looked up in time to see Brak falling to his knees, his muscles spasming and head lolling as the blue fire of a stun blast skittered over him. Garek stood on the other side of the bridge with his arms raised and the integrated cannons of his exosuit deployed. Addy gaped at him from the helm, her eyes wide.
Lucien shot up from his station, hurrying to deploy his own weapons, but Garek was faster, and his weapons were already deployed.
The next stun blast hit Lucien in the face. Everything went white, and he felt himself falling. The brightness faded and he found himself lying on the deck, blinking up at the holo dome. It was blurry with stars. Muffled voices argued all around him.
“What did you do?” Addy’s voice...
“What I had to.” Garek.
“Gideon, what’s going on?” Colonel Drask from Astralis.
“The situation is under control,” Garek replied. “We’ll follow our orders.”
Lucien blinked, trying to clear his blurry vision. How was he still conscious? The stun blast mustn’t have hit him as directly as he’d thought. He heard booted feet go clomping by him and caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eyes. His arm snapped out and he grabbed what he suspected to be Garek’s ankle—
“Atthy, thoot fim!” Lucien slurred.
“Lucien?” Addy asked, sound surprised.
Garek’s blurry face appeared, looming into view. “Night-night,” he said, and fired into Lucien’s face with another blinding flash of light.
* * *
Astralis
Lucien Ortane watched as four squads of Marine bots and their human sergeants escorted the Faro king into hangar bay sixty-six. Abaddon’s hands were bound behind his back with stun cords, though Lucien suspected he could break those bonds easily enough if he wanted to.
Beside him, Tyra’s whole body went suddenly rigid as Abaddon appeared. Lucien could feel the hatred radiating from her. This was the being who had possessed their daughter, Atara. He reached for Tyra’s hand and squeezed.
“It’s okay. We’re going to get her back now,” he said, and desperately hoped that was true.
On the other side of Lucien, Brak hissed and flashed dagger-sharp black teeth at the Faro king. He’d made a miraculous recovery from the injuries he’d sustained while trying to apprehend Abaddon-possessed Chief Councilor Ellis, but he was understandably still carrying a grudge about it. Ellis had shot himself in the head with a sidearm set to overload, killing himself and very nearly taking the Gor with him.
Standing behind them, also under guard, were all of the remaining human-Faro agents. The surviving ones, anyway.
Lucien glanced behind him and his eyes found Atara. Like Abaddon, her hands were also bound, but it was almost absurd to think of her as a threat. She was only five years old. And yet... that five-year-old body now harbored some version of Abaddon’s own twisted mind. Even as Lucien considered that, Atara’s green eyes found his, and she smirked at him.
“That’s far enough,” Tyra said, and the Marines escorting Abaddon stopper where they were.
The alien king offered them a winning smile. “I came alone, as you requested. And you can see that I am bound and unarmed. What are you afraid of?”
Tyra ignored the Faro’s goading words and took two long strides to step in front of her entourage. Her hand slipped through Lucien’s fingers, and he cringed to see his wife standing out there by herself, exposed.
“It’s time for you to prove you can reverse what you did to our people.”
Abaddon shrugged. “You’ll have to cut my bonds if you expect me to do that.”
“Very well.” Tyra nodded to his Marine escort. “Turn the Faro ninety degrees, so that he is facing away from us. Restrain his arms and cut his bonds, but do not release him.”
The Marine sergeants standing around Abaddon directed the bots holding him to do as Tyra had instructed, and then Tyra turned and to indicate one of the human-Faro agents in the hangar bay. “Escort High Court Judge Cleever to stand in front of the Faro, within reach of his hands.”
Marines and security officers shuffled their feet and looked to one another, as if asking whose responsibility it was to escort the judge. Admiral Wheeler settled the question for them before Tyra could say anything.
“You heard the councilor! On the double, Sergeants!”
The Marines took over, with two sergeants grabbing Judge Cleever by her arms and dragging her forward to her meet Abaddon.
She sneered and spat on the face plates of their helmets, struggling in vain against the augmented strength of their exosuits.
“Don’t do it,” Cleever said to Abaddon once she was standing in front of him. “I’m you. If you kill me, it will be like killing yourself.”
Lucien saw an amused smile spring to the alien’s lips. “It won’t be the first time I’ve killed myself,” he replied. Turning to one of the bots holding his arms, he asked. “May I?”
The bot gave no reply, but the sergeant commanding it said, “Omega Four, please allow the prisoner to use his arm to touch the woman standing in front of him, but do not allow him to make any other movements.”
“Copy that, Sergeant,” the bot said in a gender neutral voice.
Lucien held his breath, watching as Abaddon raised a glowing palm toward Judge Cleever’s face. She looked terrified, and she began struggling in earnest against the Marine Sergeants holding her. She tried to wriggle free, but they were too strong.
As Abaddon’s palm drew near, Cleever’s face was inexplicably drawn into it, forcing her neck to stretch out to its limit. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream, and her eyes flew wide.
Anxious murmuring filled the air, bouncing from Marine sergeants to police officers and back again. None of them had witnessed this before, but Lucien remembered seeing Abaddon do this to Atara. This was how he’d transferred his consciousness in the first place, so hopefully it was also how he could reverse that transfer.
After just a few minutes, Abaddon withdrew his hand, and Judge Cleever sagged lifelessly in the arms of the Marines holding her.
“Doctor Fushiwa!” Tyra called out. “Check her vitals.”
A familiar man in a doctor’s smock stepped out of the group and hurried forward with a life signs scanner. He passed the scanner over Judge Cleever with a flickering blue fan of light, studied the result, and then turned to nod in Tyra’s direction. “She is fine, but she has lapsed into a coma. That is consistent with what happened after infection.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Tyra said. “Please take the patient behind our lines and wait with her there for now.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Abaddon turned to Tyra as the Marines and Doctor Fushiwa withdrew with Judge Cleever. The bots holding Abaddon refused to budge, so he was forced to twist his neck to face her rather than his bo
dy. “I have kept my word. Now where are the Faro prisoners?”
“Not so fast. There are still others that you need to un-infect, and we still have to confirm that you are able to do so.”
Abaddon’s upper lip twitched. “And how long will this take?”
“A few hours, no more,” Tyra replied.
“And what am I supposed to do while I wait?” Abaddon demanded. “Stand here and look pretty?”
Before Tyra could reply, Admiral Wheeler strode up to her and whispered something in her ear.
“So... this was a ruse to buy time for your reinforcements!” Tyra roared. Admiral Wheeler retreated to stand with hands clasped behind her back, and steely eyes glaring at Abaddon. Tyra went on, “I’m told that another one of your fleets has just arrived. They’re moving to surround us as we speak.”
Abaddon gave a sly smile and shrugged as best he could while restrained by the Marine bots flanking him. “They were on their way here before the negotiations began.”
“Call them off now, or the negotiations will be over.”
Abaddon’s expression turned contemplative. “Very well... they are leaving.”
“Just like that?” Tyra demanded.
“Ask your slave woman to check. You should see them moving away now.”
“I am not a slave,” Admiral Wheeler replied.
Tyra scowled. “Listen to me, you snake. I will happily deny you what you want out of spite, if you give me even the slightest reason to do so. We’ll fight you to the death if we have to.”
A nervous shuffling of feet answered that ultimatum, but Abaddon didn’t seem concerned. “You would sentence your people to die in order to satisfy your need for revenge?”
“Not revenge. The strength of our position lies in our resolve, and in the knowledge that we have something you desperately want. If our resolve falters, then so does our position. The stakes are all or nothing.”
“They were never anything less,” Abaddon replied. “Has your council issued a response to my... request?”
Abaddon put an odd emphasis on that last word, as if to imply that his request for them to cede ten Etherian ships to him wasn’t a request at all, but a demand.
“Yes, we have. Assuming we can establish here that your word can be trusted, we have decided to agree to your terms.”
“I’m pleased to hear that,” Abaddon replied, smiling once more.
“But,” Tyra held up a finger. “We need assurances that we’ll be allowed to depart in peace after we give you what you want.”
Abaddon’s smile faded dramatically, and he glowered at Tyra. “Such as?”
“We’re going to send out probes to scout ahead and find a safe destination for us to jump to. You will not attempt to stop the probes from leaving. When they return, in approximately two hours, we should have the results of the tests to determine if you have really un-infected our people.
“At that point, you will withdraw your fleet so that your jamming fields no longer encompass our ships, and we will direct the ten Etherian ships you requested to keep them inside of your jamming field. If the screening tests come back clean, the Faro prisoners will be released to you, and your shuttle will be allowed to leave with them on board. We will then jump away and leave you with the ten ships you negotiated for.
“If, however, our people still show signs that they are harboring your consciousness, or if your fleet somehow moves to prevent us from leaving, we will fight you to the death and self-destruct the Etherian Fleet long before you can ever set foot on any of its vessels. Those are our terms for a peace treaty, and they are non-negotiable. Do you accept?”
Abaddon’s glowing blue eyes glittered. “You would make a good Faro, Tyra Ortane.”
“Answer the question.”
“I accept your terms. Bring the others to me and I will release their minds.”
Tyra turned and nodded to the police and marines standing around the remaining human-Faro agents. “One at a time, please,” she indicated.
Lucien watched as Marines dragged the next one, a young man this time, to face Abaddon and be touched by his glowing palm. The others were all forced to stand in line and wait their turn. They struggled against the Marine bots and sergeants holding them while they waited. Some of them pleaded for Abaddon not to kill them when it was their turn, while others remained stolid in the face of their fate.
Abaddon regarded all of them with contempt as he erased his mind from the human hosts. One by one they sagged in the arms of the Marines holding them. To Lucien’s eyes, the scene began to take on a quasi-religious tone—a kind of reverse baptism.
Atara was last in line to be touched. She whimpered and begged for her life just as some of the others had, and it was all Lucien could do not to run to her rescue. She’s not my daughter. She’s not my daughter. She’s not...
Abaddon ignored Atara’s pleas and wrapped his glowing palm around her face just as he had with the others. Atara’s mouth opened in a soundless scream, and then after just a minute, she, too, sagged lifelessly in the arms of the Marines holding her.
“Doctor Fushiwa,” Tyra began in a throaty whisper. “Would you please escort the infected individuals from the hangar and have them all screened?”
“Of course—everyone, follow me, please,” Doctor Fushiwa said as he turned and strode across the hangar bay to the nearest exit. A mix of twenty Marine sergeants and bots followed the doctor, carrying ten comatose Faro agents—hopefully now former agents—between them.
Tyra nodded to Abaddon. “We’ll meet back here in two hours, as soon as we have the results of our tests and our scout ships have returned.”
“You never answered my question. What am I to do in that time?”
“You’ve been alive since the beginning of time, correct?”
Abaddon’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing to that.
Tyra offered him a bland smile. “Then I would think that by now two hours is nothing to you. You’ll wait here, under guard. If you need to use a restroom, feel free to piss yourself.”
A few of the Marine sergeants snickered at that, and Abaddon’s glowing blue eyes flared. He smiled thinly. “I encountered your daughter’s consciousness while I was erasing mine. She was alone in the dark, crying, and begging for help. She sounded delirious... I believe she must have been crying for help for a long time already. Unfortunately, no one could hear her.”
Lucien’s whole body shivered with rage. “You frekking kakard!” he roared, but Abaddon didn’t even glance at him. His gaze remained locked with Tyra’s.
She’d frozen, and her eyes had glazed over. The only sign of a reaction was the way her shoulders quickly rose and fell, and in the balled fists by her sides. For a long moment, she said nothing. When she finally she spoke, it was in a slow and deliberate tone, as if each word took a great effort: “I’ll be back in two hours. You’d better hope that by then I haven’t found an excuse to end your miserable life.”
“Empty threats,” Abaddon smiled. “You can’t kill me. I am but one of many.”
“No? Then why were the ones you erased begging to be spared?”
“They were only partial copies of me. Pathetic creatures, shadows of my true glory.”
“What you call glory, everyone else calls evil,” Tyra replied, and turned to leave.
Abaddon laughed resoundingly as she walked away. “Evil? I’m not evil. Evil doesn’t exist! Prove to me that you have the freedom to act otherwise than you do, and I will admit that I am evil. As it stands, I am but a cog in a vast and arbitrary machine of action and reaction, cause and effect—the inevitable result of billions of years of natural laws producing entirely predictable results! You can’t judge me for what I do any more than you can judge rain for falling or sunlight for shining!”
Tyra reached Lucien’s side and took his hand. “Let’s go,” she whispered.
Lucien frowned, tempted to argue with Abaddon, but words failed him. The existence of free will had been debated by philosophers, s
cientists, and religious leaders for eons. Quantum indeterminacy had disproved determinism to some extent, but others argued that even random or unmeasurable quantum factors did nothing to promote the existence of true freedom.
Regardless, it wasn’t particularly relevant. Actions still had consequences, and those consequences could still be judged as good or evil. Possessing a five-year-old girl fell into the evil category.
Lucien squeezed Tyra’s hand again. “Don’t worry. If he didn’t reverse what he did to Atara, I’ll kill him myself.”
“You’ll have to get in line behind me,” Tyra said, her voice quivering with fury.
He swallowed past a lump in his throat and nodded. “Fair enough. Mothers first.”
Chapter 5
Astralis
—TWO HOURS LATER—
Tyra was stuck on the bridge analyzing the scan data from the probes they’d sent out, rather than where she wanted to be, in the hospital with Lucien. She’d told him to call her with Atara’s test results, but it wasn’t the same as being there to greet Atara when she woke up.
Half an hour ago Lucien had called to let her know that Atara seemed to be back to her old self. She’d been distraught and crying, inconsolable after what she’d been through.
And I wasn’t there to hold her.
Tyra knew she’d never forgive herself for that absence, but she also needed to be here for this—to choose a destination for the fleet to run to after they gave the Faros what they wanted.
“What about SCT-45?” Admiral Wheeler asked as she summoned the scan data on the holo table for everyone to see.
“It has forty-five moons and planets,” Colonel Drask objected. “Just because we didn’t detect anything to indicate the system is inhabited doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. We haven’t had enough time.”
“We scanned it from four different angles to make sure we captured readings from all side of the system’s planetary and lunar surfaces,” Wheeler pointed out. “There was nothing to indicate a settlement of any kind.”
Drask shook his head. “There are still blind spots in the scans. He pointed to small, fuzzy patches on the surfaces of moons directly facing their parent planets. Without getting closer it was impossible to get a good look at those areas.
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