“I’m not the same man you once knew. Also, I’m not in any shape to be giving my all to the good fight. I no longer even have an ‘all’ to give.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Morbid curiosity?”
Damn, how was it possible for the man’s stare to be yet more piercing and hypnotic when animated by a new face? “I don’t believe you. I think you are desperate to be given a purpose again. I think you long to immerse yourself in the ‘good fight,’ as you put it, if simply to distract yourself from your pain for a time. I’m willing to give you that purpose, Eren. Join me, and help me save our people from themselves.”
A chime preceded the door opening, and Casmir elasson-Machim poked his head inside. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had a guest. I’ve got an update on the Torval situation.”
“Thank you, Casmir. I’ll stop by in a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.” The door closed once again.
Torval. The Torval situation. Bereft of better options, Eren had disintegrated Torval, the bulk of the Savrakath military leadership and himself in an antimatter explosion on Savrak, freeing Torval to wake up in a shiny regenesis lab somewhere. But now there was a situation, because there always was where Torval elasson-Machim was concerned.
He’d tried to accept the meager vengeance he’d achieved in subjecting Cosime’s killer to weeks of inventive Savrakath torture. He’d tried to close the book on the rotting nest of vile hatred Torval had fermented in his battered soul.
Now, though? Now he saw a chance to score the full requital in final and appropriately dramatic fashion.
“Well, Eren? What do you say?”
He exhaled harshly, making a show of pacing energetically for a minute before pulling up to a stop in the middle of the room. He leveled what he hoped was his most engaging, fervent gaze upon The Big Man Himself.
“All right. I’ll help your cause however I can. Use me as you see fit. I’ll be your personal assassin. I’ll be your spymaster. Hells, I’ll be your entertainment at parties. I only have one condition.”
14
* * *
MACHIMIS
Machim Dynasty Homeworld
Milky Way Galaxy
Torval elasson-Machim woke to a flood of bright, antiseptic light, and he instinctively blinked against the glare. In between his blinks, the hazy outline of objects gained definition and recognizable features…a regenesis lab.
Not his first visit to one, but no matter how many times he underwent the process, the first minute or so after waking was always bewildering. The disorientation, the dizziness, the unshakeable sensation of being detached from one’s skin and bones.
But Anaden brains were designed to quickly adapt to such changed circumstances, and by the second minute he had command of his mind and body.
While the medical staff checked his readings over and confirmed his fitness for living, he accessed a variety of files and reports in order to get up to speed on what had happened to bring him here. The last memory he possessed was of being walked in shackles toward Otto and Ferdinand beneath the sweltering Savrak sun. Then nothing. Before that memory stretched an endless haze of agony and suffering at the hands of his Savrakath torturers…better to let those memories fade away.
The news feeds carried vague stories of an attack on Savrakath military leadership, but they were scant on details, and none mentioned the possibility of Anadens being present. Given the sorry state of official relations with the lizards, he shouldn’t be surprised the news was getting the story all wrong. Alternatively, someone was trying to keep whatever had happened on Savrak out of the public spotlight.
It didn’t matter. He was free of captivity, free of his torturers’ delights. He was well and whole and once again on his home turf. And now, those torturers would pay for the pain and indignities they’d inflicted on him. Their families and friends and neighbors and strangers would pay.
As soon as he was discharged from the regenesis lab, he reported directly to the orbital Annex above Machimis. Only once he arrived there did he begin to learn of a schism among the elassons, of how many of their number had rejected Concord at Ferdinand elasson-Kyvern’s insistence and were now conferring about their future at a secret location. Oh, and he had a summons waiting on him from Ferdinand.
Torval scowled at the summons then deleted it. Gods knew he hated Concord and wanted to see it burn to the ground more than anyone, but he also wasn’t inclined to jump when a slimy Kyvern bureaucrat deigned to bark an order at him. He had cultivated Ferdinand as an informant because the man was a useful source of intel due to his position in the Concord Senate, but now that Ferdinand had abandoned his post, the man’s usefulness had evaporated. Torval might get around to paying the Kyvern a visit in a few days, but not until after he’d completed the new mission he’d assigned himself.
The next surprise waiting on him at the Annex was the irritating discovery that his Imperium had gone missing. The duty log indicated Casmir took command of it after Torval’s arrest, then had promptly gotten it banged up in a scuffle with Savrakath warships. Casmir dropped it off at the MW Sector 9 Dry Dock for repairs and transferred his command to a shiny new Imperium fresh off the assembly line. Only now Torval’s Imperium was no longer located at the Dry Dock or any other station of record. The log hinted at the possibility that it had been stolen.
His still frayed nerves grated at the thought of some simpering alien having the gall to stand on the bridge of his ship, but…he inhaled through his nose. It was fine; he could adjust his plan with little difficulty.
Three Imperiums were currently docked at the Annex. Did they belong to elassons who were refusing to participate in Ferdinand’s summit? Years of Concord’s subversive entreaties had begun swaying the sympathies of many of his brothers and sisters, rendering them weak in Torval’s eyes. As he reviewed the names attached to the docked Imperiums, his suspicions were all but confirmed. Subservient, spineless cowards, all of them.
But because they had what he needed, he sent each of them polite messages, including nary a mention of their cowardice.
Two responded with colorful equivalents of ‘fuck no, you can’t borrow my ship.’ One simply ignored him.
He stalked through the upper-level halls of the Annex for upwards of twenty minutes, taking his frustrations out on passing ela officers and asi servants whenever he encountered them.
Very well. He’d take a battlecruiser, then. Without an Imperium’s double shielding, he’d be slightly more vulnerable to attack. But given the wrecked state of Savrak’s defenses, the firepower a battlecruiser could deliver was sufficient for him to make half the planet burn before anyone got their first shot off at him.
Satisfied with his plan, he set off for the high-ranking officers’ private quarters to find a lochagós to bully into handing over their ship.
SAVRAK
Savrakath Homeworld
Antlia Dwarf Galaxy
Six hours later, Torval’s newly acquired battlecruiser exited superluminal thirty megameters from Savrak.
No planetary defenses challenged him on his arrival, for Casmir had been kind enough to destroy those on a previous assault. No military security contacted him to demand his withdrawal or surrender, either.
His memories stirred. General Jhountar had been at his prisoner transfer, along with several other Savrakath officers displaying many shiny medals upon their ridiculous uniforms. Was it possible the entirety of the Savrakath military leadership was dead?
Such a reward was worth the price of a few minutes of post-regenesis disorientation and a few hours of scrambling, and it now made his chosen task all the easier to accomplish.
He half-expected a pleading communique to arrive from the planet’s president or premier or whatever they called their civilian political leader, but none ever did. He admitted to being a little disappointed. Was there anything left on the planet worth destroying?
The battlecruiser descended through the atmosphere without
opposition until the endless sickly green-and-jonquil swamps raced beneath it. Finally, the umber mid-rise buildings of downtown Savradin came into view on the horizon, and he cheered up. There were plenty left standing for a proper razing.
He straightened his posture and lifted his chin. “Open fire.”
The battlecruiser’s XO cleared his throat weakly, and his voice shook a little. The crew was visibly terrified of Torval and had been jumping at his shadow ever since he’d boarded. Which was acceptable. “Um, target, sir?”
Torval waved toward the viewport and the outlines of the buildings beyond it. “Everything.”
15
* * *
FICENTI
Andromeda Galaxy
The rancid smell of flash-cooked live meat assaulted Nyx elasson-Praesidis’ nostrils the instant she turned the corner and left behind the uncultured, crime-ridden Rico District for its entirely lawless big brother, the Mikro-Teln District. Along both sidewalks, street vendors hocked still-squirming food on skewers alongside giant jugs of potent hypnols and deadly weapons mods.
Her nose crinkled up in distaste; she dialed down her olfactory filters, and not just due to the rancid meat. The people here reeked, too. Sweat and overactive Barisan oil glands mixed with occasional whiffs of blood and bodily waste.
Nyx had seen many revolting places and people in her work as an Inquisitor, but a part of her must have somehow remained naive, for she was frankly shocked such a place was allowed to exist in the Anaden Emp—in Concord. And not only was it an Anaden-run world, it had existed in this wretched state for millennia, so she couldn’t blame the Humans for its decline. Her former Primor had excused it by saying there needed to be outlets and escape valves to lessen the pressures that built up in any society. Allowing places such as Ficenti to exist helped to prevent ineffectual uprisings by the populace.
Except it didn’t work out that way, did it? The anarch rebellion had taken hold in spite of the ‘flourishing’ of over a dozen worlds as vile as Ficenti, hadn’t it? Granted, in the end it was the arrival of the Humans that tipped the balance of revolution in the anarchs’ favor.
But once grabbing the reins of power, under the guise of taking a light touch when it came to governance, the Humans by and large allowed the Anadens to rule themselves, and the result was a degradation of already deplorable places like Ficenti. Without the Directorate to manage the boundaries, there was no empire here. No rule of law, and barely any civilization at all.
The Mikro-Teln District was ‘ruled’ by someone calling himself the Sultan of Ficenti. His thugs enforced his will on the streets, and his throng of Novoloume slaves seduced anyone who got close to him, neutralizing any threat. Rumors whispered of orgies involving dozens of Naraida and Idoni women playing out for the Sultan’s enjoyment, during which anyone not displaying sufficient enthusiasm for the performance had their throat slit on the spot.
Though his kingdom was tiny for now, the Sultan of Ficenti was as brutal and brutish a warlord as any who’d existed in history. For this reason, Nyx held out some small iota of hope that he wasn’t who she feared he was.
“Pretty jacket, pretty lady.”
She ignored the leer of the Theriz man on her left while veering to avoid a fistfight spontaneously breaking out between two Barisans in the middle of the crowded street.
“Give it to me.”
She glanced back in annoyance at the realization the Theriz man was following her. “I think I’ll keep it.”
“I think you won’t.”
Abruptly she spun around and surged forward. In less than two seconds, she had grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt and shoved him through the milling crowd and straight into a brick wall. She got up in his face, then stopped herself from recoiling, for no Anaden should ever smell so foul as he did. “Do you know what I am?”
His voice quavered, but he managed to keep the brash edge to it. “A pretty lady in my jacket.”
“I’m an Inquisitor, you disgusting moron.”
“Ha! An Inquisitor without their diati isn’t shit. What are you going to do, glower me to death?”
She kept her expression suitably threatening as frustration tightened her grip on the man. He clearly wasn’t inclined to leave her alone, and if his behavior escalated, he’d draw attention to her presence here—the last thing she wanted to happen. She hadn’t come this far just to have her mission derailed by a random street thug. So be it.
“No. I’m going to cause you several hours of agonizing pain before you finally die and wake up in a lab that will be far cleaner and more orderly than your squalid bones deserve.” She palmed her blade and sliced it across his gut. Not too deep, or he’d die too quickly to remember the experience and perhaps learn from it his next time around.
His eyes widened in panic, but no more words emerged from his lips. Nyx stepped back and let him slide down to the ground, his hands clutching blindly for his stomach. Then she turned away and rejoined the raucous throng. It wasn’t as if a bleeding man on the sidewalk was going to surprise or concern anyone here; she’d passed two of them since arriving in the district.
Killing gave her no pleasure. It never had, though once upon a time it had been such an integral part of her job that she’d simply performed it without thought—or hesitation. But this was the first time she’d taken a sapient life, even temporarily, in fourteen years, and doing so made her feel dirty. Dirtier than all the smells and grime and filth surrounding her. She’d need to assess and internalize these new emotions later, once she was gone from this dreadful place. But she’d also kill again if she needed to in order to complete her current mission.
Ahead of her, the street began to open up until it merged into a wide, circular…she was forced to call it an arena. Large, snarling animals, many from species she’d never seen before, stalked within force-field cages off to the left. People hung off scaffolding along the edges of the arena, the better to view the activity underway in a metal-rimmed pit at the center.
At the far end of the arena, an arc of more traditional bench seating rose up to a…was that a throne? Upon it, surrounded by half a dozen naked Idoni and Novoloume women, sat the self-styled sultan himself. She zoomed in her vision to maximum, for she needed to be certain.
Kolgo elasson-Praesidis.
She shrank back into the crowd, overcome by an irrational fear that he might spot her, even from several hundred meters away. But he was fully occupied with spirits and hypnols and nudity and blood sport.
Acid rose to burn her throat. How could an Inquisitor have fallen so far? They were supposed to be the best of the Praesidis and thus of all Anadens.
She knew all too well the struggles that came from losing one’s diati. The panic, the foreign feelings of insecurity, impotence and powerlessness. The fear of having become…lesser. But the diati had only ever been a tool. An Inquisitor’s true strength resided in his or her mind: blade-sharp intelligence, breadth of knowledge, skill at seeing the details most people missed, the ability to solve puzzles without possessing all the pieces, and an inherent belief in the rightness of one’s cause.
Did Kolgo believe in the ‘rightness’ of his cause from atop his vulgar throne? Had he somehow twisted the pathways of his mind until this all made sense to him? Or had the only thing to survive the loss of his diati and the fall of the Directorate been his congenital arrogance and sense of superiority?
She was self-aware enough to admit she’d suffered from the same arrogance at times. But she also chose to believe that if her life had taken a darker turn fourteen years ago, she would never have descended to so low an existence as this. The mere notion was anathema.
An uproar of disapproval rippled through the crowd in response to something happening in the pit, and Kolgo knocked the woman on his arm away to grab a gun and shoot one of the creatures participating in the brawl below. Then he settled back into his throne, downed a glass of shimmering mint-colored liquid, and pulled one of the other women onto his lap.
Nyx pivoted away in disgust and began picking her way through the crowd toward the fringes of the district. She’d kill Kolgo here and now if it would make any difference, but it would not. She’d confirmed the existence of two off-record regenesis labs here on Ficenti, as well as dozens on other Anaden worlds. People who wanted to remain off Concord and Vigil’s radar—people like Kolgo—were using the facilities to keep their immorality train steaming ahead without suffering any consequences for their actions.
But she could keep Kolgo away from her grandfather. Corradeo had sent her on this mission to find the Inquisitors who’d vanished in the hope of bringing them together as a family, but this monster had no place within a kiloparsec of the center of Anaden power.
Her clenched jaw relaxed a little as she crossed the unofficial district border, and her pace increased. The sooner she was able to rid herself of this planet, the better.
One missing elasson scratched off the list, four to go.
VOLIE
Milky Way Galaxy
Nyx breathed a sigh of relief as soon as she stepped out of the spaceport in Cobola. She’d showered three times after returning to the Periplanos then manufactured a set of brand-new clothes, but she swore Ficenti’s putridity was still stuck in her pores. This place, though? This place would wash it all away.
The beachfront community of Cobola on Volie represented the polar opposite of the Mikro-Teln District on Ficenti in every aspect imaginable. The sun shone a bright fuchsia amid clear skies. The streets were clean and well-manicured, the shops neat and airy, the food properly cooked and aromatic. The occasional pedestrians Nyx passed were dressed in casual but expensive attire, and they invariably nodded a greeting, welcoming her without question.
It was so nice here, in fact, that she stopped at a bistro for a sandwich and lemonade and enjoyed the meal out on a patio under the warm sun. On departing the bistro, she decided she could get used to the sun and sand and sea spray Cobola had to offer, and the walk to the strip of isolated beachfront homes on the outskirts of town was simply delightful.
Echo Rift Page 11