by Loren Rhoads
While she was occupied, something exploded not far away, a boom so loud that her head rang. The deck beneath her back flexed. The overhead lights flared twice, struggled, then went out. A fuse somewhere had been asked to carry too great a load.
Raena lay in the darkness listening to the basso profundo groan and grumble of the dome holding back the ocean overhead. Her reaction to the ominous sound was primal: take the hopper and get out now.
She lay still a moment, exploring the way her body felt as panic coursed through it. Then the dome held, the sounds calmed, and reason reasserted itself. She knew she’d stay. Perhaps she should have used less explosive on the escape pod. While breaching the castle’s dome would solve the problem of the Thallians’ continued existence, it wasn’t the way she personally wanted to go out: crushed by a wall of black water. She would keep the lesson in mind.
The emergency lighting finally kicked into gear. Dim red lights filled the room with ominous shadows. She heard voices shouting and feet running as the fire squad mobilized.
One pair of footsteps peeled off from the others and ran into the bay where she lay hidden. Something landed inside the hopper with a thud. All around the little ship, maintenance hatches were being hastily slapped shut as the unseen person prepared to leave.
Raena did her part by disconnecting the unnecessary hoses. When the boy pulled one lose, she came with it.
He jumped back, silver eyes full of pupil in the semi-darkness. He looked exactly like Jain, the same arch to his eyebrows, same smooth black hair, and the same strong chin. He was obviously an even younger clone of Jonan. “You’re Jimi, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yes.” He swallowed. “Your name’s not really Fiana, is it?”
“That was my mother’s name.”
He struggled to decide which question to ask her next. He settled on, “What are you going to do here?”
She smiled. “You’re leaving. What do you care?”
“I don’t want them coming after me,” he spat with startling vehemence.
“I’ll do what I can about that.”
He nodded once, a sharp jerk of his head that she recognized as one of his father’s gestures.
“I need to go now,” he said. “While they’re busy. I’ve been waiting for a distraction like this to cover my escape.”
Raena helped him finish the rest of the preflight prep. When he climbed up to get into the cockpit, she followed him up the ladder.
“I want you to understand something,” she said quietly. “Your father taught me never to leave an enemy alive. He made a mistake when he didn’t come into my tomb to finish me off. I want to know that I’m not making the same mistake in letting you go.”
“I want you to kill them. I want you to kill them all. I’ll be watching the news to hear that the ocean has swallowed the last of the Thallian murderers. I want to know this place has been washed away.”
Raena smiled at his loathing. “Don’t you want to stay to make sure the job is done right?”
“I’m too much of a coward,” he admitted. “My father, my brothers—they’ve never liked me. They’ve always known I’m not like them. I don’t see the family’s hand in the Templar genocide as anything glorious.”
“I don’t want you to change your mind someday, Jimi. I don’t want to find you on my tail, ready to avenge your family.”
“You won’t.”
“If you so much as think about coming after me, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
“I won’t. You’re doing the right thing here, Raena. Kill them all. Kill Father last.”
She nodded and slid back down the ladder. The hopper’s canopy whooshed closed. The boy watched until she’d gotten beyond the blast shielding to power up the engines.
Raena slipped out into the corridor outside, curious to watch the fire suppression activities. Would they work together as an integrated team, or was there yet more dissent among the family?
* * *
Merin dove into the flames with his fire extinguisher upraised, spewing foam indiscriminately over everything. The boys scrambled into the hangar behind him, protecting his back as much as mastering the fire.
Standard procedure for fire was to close off the affected area and drain its air. Looking around at the inferno, Merin suspected he should have done that here. None of the equipment was going to be salvageable. But his older brother had been in here, searching the Raptor’s escape pod. Merin had wanted to rescue him, if that were possible, although Aten might not necessarily thank him for it.
Merin managed to carve an oasis of calm out of the flames. A foam-draped shape hunched in front of him. He reached out to brush aside some of the foam to confirm it was Aten’s chair.
His brother slumped in it, clearly dead. The chair continued its wheezing, forcing air and now fire suppression foam in and out of Aten’s burned lungs. The chair had undoubtedly sucked the fire into Aten’s chest after the initial explosion, cooking the poor cripple from the inside.
Merin shoved the chair hard enough to face the obscenity away from him.
Around the pod bay, the boys were making headway at last. Merin stepped carefully through the slick foam to peer into the escape pod. The metal walls radiated heat that he could feel even through his gloves, so he didn’t touch them. After leaning inward, he could see two bodies, one curled on the floor and the other on the bench seat. Their crisped skin looked like burnt paper. Nothing remained to identify them.
Merin did a mental count, looking around at the boys behind him. The dead boys must be Jarl and Jin. Where was Jimi? Merin roared the boy’s name, but got no response.
Later, after the inferno was completely subdued, Jimi remained missing. Merin considered whether the boy might have had some connection to the blaze. Jimi was smart enough to rig a firebomb, but not ruthless enough to use it. If he had tried to kill anyone, it wouldn’t have been Aten, who’d treated the boy gently. Jonan’s harlot must have done it, but why hadn’t Jain, the last occupant of the pod, set her trap off? More was at work here than was immediately apparent. Normally Merin loved a good mystery, but this one had cost too dear.
It was time to demand answers from Jonan.
* * *
Thallian’s hands shook as he snapped the final cuff on Jain’s wrist. He winched the boy upward until his toes just brushed the floor. “We will discuss this again,” Jonan said with dangerous calm.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Jain protested. He sounded surprised and hurt, but not as angry as he should have been. The other boys might have collapsed immediately at the slightest discomfort, but not Jain. Jain, if he’d been innocent, should have been stronger than this. Disappointment tightened around Thallian’s throat.
“Let’s start again. Tell me about going to the ‘pleasure planet’ and capturing Raena.”
So Jain confessed the embarrassing truth: that Raena had destroyed their attack squad. She’d trapped Revan in a net taken from Jain and then killed the man with her foot. She’d chased Jain back to the Raptor and imprisoned him in the cell meant for her. She’d stolen the transport, strapped him into the escape pod, and sent him home. If the Raptor exploded after Jain left it, he couldn’t guess what had happened to it or to Raena. He hadn’t betrayed the family or given her the location of the homeworld. She told him one of his brothers had already done so.
Thallian watched the litany pour from the lips of his favorite son. Sick dread twisting in his stomach, he demanded, “What did she do to you on the ship?”
“Nothing,” the boy said. “Mostly she left me alone. She told me stories about what it was like to be your aide.”
There was more to that, Thallian was certain. “What did she tell you?”
“That you never had any sense when it came to her,” Jain snarled.
Thallian heard that Jain spoke the truth to the extent he knew it. Still, he didn’t realize his blow was in motion until he saw Jain’s head rocket backward away from his hand. Pulled off balance, the boy
lost his purchase on the ground. He swung crazily, suspended by his arms. He was smart enough not to fight the motion, to let his weight hang until it pulled his pendulum swinging to a stop. He would feel the suspension now.
“Did she fuck you?” Thallian asked.
Jain’s eyes jerked up to meet his father’s. He opened his mouth, but no response came out.
No, Thallian understood. And the boy was horrified that his father even considered the possibility.
Good.
“How did you smuggle her down to the planet?” Thallian asked.
“I didn’t know she was in the pod. The comm didn’t work. She must have been hidden inside the console,” Jain guessed. “The comm console wouldn’t have been big enough for a normal person, but . . .”
Thallian nodded. “So. You brought Raena to me, as you were charged. But you lied to me, Jain. If you’d told me you’d been her prisoner, I would have been disappointed in you. I thought I’d trained you better than that. To be honest, though, it doesn’t surprise me. Raena was the best pupil I’ve ever trained. Revan was a fool to underestimate her.”
Jain watched him working it out. He wriggled, trying to adjust the strain in his shoulders.
“You shouldn’t have lied to me, Jain.”
“I’m sorry, Father. I was afraid.”
“You have every right to be afraid. Because of your dishonesty, the lower city is empty. Some of the men are dead. The rest are struggling to survive on the planet’s surface. It will take a while to round them all up again, bring them back down here. The explosion of your escape pod weakened the dome in the hangar, putting all our remaining ships at risk of flood. Aten is dead, and Jin and Jarl. Jimi is missing. The new clones have all been mutilated and poisoned. And Raena is out there, up to who knows what kind of mischief now.”
Jain’s face composed itself as the boy prepared to take his punishment.
“I’m curious to see if Raena grew attached to you when she had you in her cage. So you will help me set a trap for her.”
Jain laughed. He lost control enough that he laughed hard and long, throwing his body into another swing. “She won’t come after me. She’s here to kill you, Father. She’s here to take away everything you have and then kill you.”
“You don’t know her as well as you think you do,” Jonan assured. “Maybe she sees a lot of herself in you. You’re about the same age as she was when I took her in. She’ll want to spare you some of whatever she thinks I put her through.”
“We’re nothing alike,” Jain argued. “She was a slave. I am your son. I am a prince.”
“Funny how a little betrayal can change that,” Jonan said. “Now you’re nothing to me, but bait.”
“One more thing,” Jain said quickly. “She gave me a recording that she made on the Raptor. It’s hidden under my desk.”
“I’ll get it,” Merin offered.
Jonan nodded sharply. To Jain, he said, “You can’t buy your way out of your punishment.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Father.” The boy’s voice was so cold, so haughty, that it made Jonan proud.
* * *
Eilif brought a cup of tea to Merin as he searched below Jain’s desk. They didn’t go through the tasting ritual as she did with Jonan. Merin was confident enough in his strength that he trusted no one would poison him. He believed that anyone who had a problem with him would face him with it.
Eilif respected that. Surreptitiously, she tasted his tea before she brought it to him. Part of her hoped—prayed almost, if it were possible there were deities to hear—that someone would attempt to poison one of her masters. She wished to die badly enough that she’d be grateful to go in their service.
As she set the teacup on the desktop, she asked, “Any sign of Jimi?” She asked softly enough that Merin could choose to ignore the question if he didn’t want the interruption.
“One of the hoppers left about the time of the explosion in the shipyard. I doubt our nemesis left with her job half done, so it must have been Jimi running away at last.”
Eilif closed her eyes and nodded. One of her sons escaped, at least. Two others were delivered from their misery. And Jain was being punished by his father. It was enough to drive a woman mad, she thought, if a woman had the luxury of going mad.
“Was there something else?” Merin asked.
To her surprise, Eilif asked bluntly, “Why is this happening to us?”
Merin crawled up off the floor and shoved a silver recording sphere into the player. On the computer screen, a tiny woman glowed in the darkness, luminous and scarred and shameless. Her voice was musical and soft.
Merin spoke so that Eilif could not make out the black-haired woman’s words. “She booby-trapped the escape pod that brought Jain back to us. She didn’t know who she’d catch in the explosion, but she must have known it wouldn’t be Jonan. It appears she helped Jimi escape. I don’t know yet what he gave her in return. Probably he was the one who betrayed our location. I do know that one of the boys tampered with the news viewers and kept us blind to what had happened to Revan and the Raptor crew, some of whom continue to survive in captivity on Kai. I’ll attend to that soon enough. For now, Jain has been compromised. Either he led her to us, or he’s a fool that she’s used. Either way, I’ll be very surprised if Jonan doesn’t kill him for his complicity . . .”
“Why is she doing this to us? Jonan loves her.”
Merin looked away from the half-naked woman on the monitor to Eilif, still kneeling beside him. He was too shocked to answer.
“Where is she now?” Eilif asked contritely, her eyes downcast.
“It’s my job to figure that out,” Merin reassured.
“But she’s here? Somewhere in the castle?”
“I’ll find her,” he promised. A smile bared his teeth like a skull’s. “It’s what I do.”
* * *
Raena sat on a rooftop, watching creatures swim past the other side of the castle’s dome. The leviathans were enormous, as big as spacecraft, with mouths full of teeth as long as swords. Apparently, all the excitement when the lifeboats fled the city had drawn the big predators’ attention. She wondered how they would react if they smelled blood in the water.
Jonan and several of his sons had been busy. They marched Jain out in shackles, then hoisted him up to dangle from the highest parapet. He had a tiny ledge to stand on. A noose ringed his neck. If he lost concentration—fell asleep, let his mind wander—or lost courage, death was but a step away.
Bait.
Jonan was crazy if he thought Raena would climb the tower to rescue the boy. All those stairs and no exit? Or maybe Jonan had been watching her video from Kai. Maybe he hoped to see her fly.
Whatever. The boy had chosen to come home. Whatever his issues were with his father, she wouldn’t get involved in sorting them out. Their relationship . . . their problems.
Still, she found it uncomfortable to see the boy up there on the precipice. She respected him, in some strange way. They were very similar. He just didn’t have a sister like Ariel, who could put his feet on the path to escape.
Once the lynch mob had retreated into the building, Raena reassembled the sharpshooter rifle from her rucksack. She braced it against her shoulder and sighted down the scope. If she were as good a shot as Ariel, she could probably shoot the rope above Jain’s head. If the surprise didn’t kill him—and his hands were free—Jain might be able to pull himself back onto the tower and save himself. But where could he go if he wouldn’t leave home? Back on the transport, she’d already done the math about saving him.
When she brought the sight down from the thread of rope, Jain’s face was very clear. His gaze fixed in her direction. She read her name on his lips. Then she realized he had an open communicator collar around his neck. He’d seen the flare off her scope and was reporting her location.
She smiled, grateful that he made the decision for her. Let them come, she thought. Time to get this over with.
* * *
Jaden watched his brothers put on their armor. Usually, when they prepared to spar with their father, there was teasing and wrestling and fun in the locker room. Now everyone was concentrating, making sure their straps were tightened down and their staves were charged up, playing out the attack in their heads. Suddenly, they were no longer facing a game where one of them might be injured. In the back of their minds, they’d always known that their father wouldn’t really kill any of them. He held them too dear. They were nearly irreplaceable.
But there was no guarantee with this madwoman. She had already killed Revan, the crew of the Raptor, the men in the avalanche on the Templar world, the new clones, Aten, and their two youngest brothers. Jarl and Jin had only been six years old. Their childhood hadn’t protected them.
Why, oh why hadn’t he told anyone about the news from Kai? If they’d had any warning, they might have been able to prepare . . .
Jaden broke that thought off. They had been preparing. Their whole lives, their father had been training them for just such a moment as this: when the sins of the fathers finally came home, fully armed and murderous.
No one had seen Jimi since the explosion in the hangar, but he wasn’t being listed among the dead. Jaden wondered if they just hadn’t found his body yet. Maybe the woman captured him somewhere in the castle. Maybe she’d tortured him. Jaden had never really liked the little whiner, but he was a brother. He had to be avenged.
Jamian worked his way down the line, checking all the boys’ staves and banging the butts against the floor to set off their charges. The boys were supposed to capture Zacari, bring her unharmed to their father. Merin, when he set them to the task, reminded them to work together. Jozz wondered aloud if they were expendable. Merin’s answer had been, “Don’t give her an opening.”
Their father bustled into the locker room, smiling like a sabershark, his silver eyes alight with strange fire. “You make me so proud,” he said by way of greeting. “Look at you! My fine young soldiers. Thallians, all. Remember, Raena is fast and she won’t stay her hand. It’s up to you to out-maneuver—out-think—her. You’ve been well-trained and constantly drilled. You can do this. And whoever strikes the blow that captures her will take Jain’s place as my prime son.”