by Larkin, Matt
Countless hours on the edge of consciousness had allowed him too much time to replay memories of his life. But it always came back to those days with Rachel on New Rome. Life meant nothing without someone to share it with. You could walk through the universe alone, existing for a century or more, but it wasn’t living. Life meant connections.
Maybe he couldn’t rekindle his connection to the Sentinels. For so long they had given his life purpose—duty and honor. A mission to uphold civilization. A mission he took every bit as seriously as Rachel took her own self-appointed task.
But he was more than just a mission. He was a man, and those cold nights on Horesh had forced him to face that. Because, when he lay there, he wasn’t dreaming of all the glorious deeds he’d done as a Sentinel, but of cloudless days beneath the blue sky. Of days spent with her.
“I missed you, too,” she said.
Bugger. Her empathic abilities had stolen the words from his heart before he could even say them.
He heard Knight snort behind them and tried to tune the Gehennan out.
“I just …” Rachel said. “I mean, I was afraid for you down there. You never should have gone to the Tabernacle.”
David sighed. This again. “I had no choice, lass. And you shouldn’t have come for me here, either.”
The shuttle broke the atmosphere and headed for the Ark. Scanners did show numerous Sentinel ships blocking the way to the Conduit Gate. This was going to be bloody. Those were his people up there, and Rachel would try to blast her way through.
“What the void?” she said. “You think we should have left you to die in that place?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what he thought,” Knight said.
“Mac!”
He scratched his head, focusing on the controls. “Aye … Well, you should have. They’re only going be after you worse now.”
“Right,” she said. “Because stealing the most valuable ship in the universe wouldn’t be enough reason. David, don’t you understand what you mean to me?”
Was she saying what he thought she was? Perhaps now she’d been forced to realize it, too. “I’m not the empath, lass … I only know how I feel. And I know I love you, Rach. I wouldn’t want you risking your life for me.”
“I had to—because I love you.”
She loved him too. David’s pulse quickened. He tried not to grin like an idiot.
Knight sighed and cracked his neck behind them. David glanced at the Gehennan, who shrugged. Poor bloke was in a right awkward spot, but not really David’s problem.
He locked in docking procedures with the Ark and rose from his seat. Rachel did, too, and he embraced her. He held her close for a long moment, until Knight coughed. David released Rachel, and she reached up to stroke his face.
“God, you need a shave, Mac.”
“Aye, lass.” He glanced at the rapidly approaching Ark. “What’s this shite about Eden, now? You can’t be serious.”
Rachel laughed, shaking her head. “You know I am. And now that you’re here, maybe you can help us find the way. If there’s a better Conduit pilot, I haven’t met her yet.”
“Aye. Now we hear the real reason you came to my rescue.”
All the mirth slipped from her face, though he’d spoken in jest. “You know better than that, Mac.”
Of course he did.
Beyond the Ark, in addition to the Sentinels, there was a QI battleship. Maybe he was a fool to encourage Rachel. Half the universe was against them, and the other half would be soon if she kept true to form. And by helping her, maybe he was offering her a ride straight to hell.
But then, he could hardly turn his back on her, either. Not now. Not ever.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
The Ark has a mind, though not a human one. It does not think in words, and thus every attempt I’ve made to transcribe its thought patterns has failed. In a way, it is like a child, a being driven by passion, living in the moment. But then, aren’t we all?
A missile exploded just ahead of the shuttle, cut down by a plasma bolt from the Ark. Rachel had no way of knowing which ship had shot at them, but whoever it was clearly wasn’t playing anymore. David landed the shuttle in the Ark hangar and she leapt out of her seat, then took off for the bridge.
Phoebe was supposed to hold them off, not drive them to open fire on a shuttle. A moment later Knight and David were behind her. The Ark had a lift to the bridge—a circular platform without walls or even rails. For the first several days she’d taken the sloping pathways between decks, not even realizing the lift existed. Not until the Ark had shown her. It showed her everything. That’s how she knew it was meant for her. They were connected. It had chosen her.
The lift arrived outside the bridge and she rushed inside. Phoebe stood at a console, firing shots off the bow of the Sentinel ships. The Logos had arrived.
Incoming calls from both QI and the Sentinels flashed on the screen. Phoebe ignored them all, frantically flinging plasma bolts ahead of the incoming ships and shooting down drones.
Rachel sat in her chair and the hologram flared to life. Damage registered along the hull. They were injured. Those bastards had shot her. And Phoebe had fired on the QI ship—part of its hull had breached. The girl was going to start a damned war, and it would be on Rachel’s shoulders.
She just had to protect the people she loved. Like David, and Knight, and … of course, the Ark. It needed her. The ship had waited six hundred years for someone to come and join with it. She could never abandon it.
She waved Galizur’s call onto the screen, and his face filled one wall of the bridge. “Ms. Jordan, at last. You have overstepped yourself, this time. Five of my crew are dead, and I can assure you there will be severe consequences to your egregious error. Surrender now and I will show leniency—”
“Cut call.”
The Mazzaroth flashed off.
“Right,” she said. “It’s time for us to get out of here.”
“Yup, yup,” Phoebe said. “Fly in, start a war, fly away.”
“They’re between us and the Conduit,” David said.
They were not taking the Ark from her. No way. “Not for long. Power up all the ion cannons, Phoebe. Clear us a path. Don’t destroy them unless they refuse to move. We’re making a break for it.”
Her empathic sense felt David judging her. It was mixed with love and relief and fear, but she felt it there. He knew she was going to burn those ships down to save themselves. His brothers-in-arms. But she had no choice. He had to understand that. He’d have to.
She piloted the ship straight for the Gate. They’d know where she was going and they’d move, or they’d suffer the consequences.
The Sentinel ships squared off, not giving way.
“Fire on them.”
She glanced at Phoebe, who had done nothing.
“I …” the Cold-worlder stammered. She was a Sentinel, too. She could fire warning shots, but actually trying to harm her own people …
“I understand.” Rachel reached into the hologram and launched ion streams at the ships in the way. She didn’t track their movements, just fired the beams in a straight line ahead of them. Let it be their choice if they moved.
Of course, the beam traveled too fast for them to avoid the initial hit. It punched into a cruiser and began to tear right through its kinetic shields. No shield would last long against that kind of punishment. The cruiser banked out of the way, and Rachel steered right past it, then dove into the Conduit.
“They’re following,” Phoebe said. Her voice was hollow. In here, Rachel could feel the other woman’s hesitation, her doubt, her fear. It became her own. As if she had been the one firing on her own comrades. The sensation twisted up her gut and made her want to vomit.
Was she becoming a monster? She had threatened the lives of Sentinels to rescue David, to save herself. But he was the man she loved, and she had to protect the Ark. Hadn’t she acted as she must?
In a way, she supposed she was becoming like Kni
ght. Practical. Deadly practical, detached. Separated from the people she was trying to save.
“Mac … You can lose them in the Conduit. I can transfer control to the console …” He wouldn’t know how to fly from the chair, not yet.
“Aye.” David’s emotions were a jumble, too. He blamed himself, she could feel it. As if everything that happened, all the death, was on his shoulders. And she knew it would eat him up inside if she let it. She’d have to find a way to get through to him.
David approached the console and took over flight controls, steering them down one pathway and then the next. His choices were intuitive, confident. Fast. And getting faster as he acclimated to the controls. He was a better pilot than most could ever hope to be. She could only imagine the ways the pathways of the Conduit unfolded in his mind. How much clearer everything must look. Maybe that’s how the Conduit had looked to the Angels themselves—not a mystery, at all. Infinite pathways clearly mapped out, with a million routes to any possible destination.
But right now, there was only one destination she really wanted to find.
Eden.
There was still at least one route back. She knew there had to be. And David could find it.
But first, they needed to find somewhere to hide, to rest. They were all exhausted. She could feel it coming off her crew. They were nearing the breaking point, physically and emotionally.
“Mac, after you lose them, find an uninhabited system to drop us out of the Conduit.”
He grunted.
“Uninhabited?” Knight asked.
“So word won’t get back to QI or the Sentinels of where we are,” Rachel said.
They could buy themselves a few days, perhaps.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
November 29th
Quasar Industries actually existed during the Days of Glory, as a company primarily responsible for manufacturing ships. Following the Vanishing, the company grew into a megacorp and began to focus on research and development of new technology. They got ahead through exclusive contracts with both the Sentinels and several other companies, and by reverse engineering Angel technology.
Now he’d not only been thrown out of the service, he’d broken out of prison and helped Rachel fire on his own people. Aye, David was well and truly buggered. He’d borrowed Knight’s dojo, trying to work out some stress, but met with limited success.
He’d sparred with the Gehennan in the morning. A frustrating experience. Knight was just too bloody fast, and since David had coached him on technique, he was that much more daunting an opponent. Of course, David had gotten a good blow in. He’d never share all his secrets.
Eventually, though, Knight had left him alone.
Funny, the Gehennan seemed even more dour than David was. He knew why, of course. Knight wanted Rachel, and clearly she’d chosen David.
So, for himself, he’d lost all he stood for and finally gained the woman he wanted. The price was steep—so steep it was hard to revel in the chance they finally had together.
Last night they’d shared a quiet dinner. And the passion was there. It had been too long since they’d shared an intimate embrace, too long since they’d made love. And last night had certainly been what they both needed.
Except, afterward, he’d found no words to whisper in her ear. No imaginings of their future together, no dreams of their children filling a happy house. It was hard to imagine any future, now. With the Empire and the Conglomerate after them, where could they live? They’d followed Rachel’s dreams into a singularity—a hole from which there was no escape, no turning back. And it was only a matter of time before they were all crushed by the weight of it.
In choosing her, in letting her follow her fool crusade, he may have damned them all. Which, in a way, made even her fate his fault. For the life of him, he couldn’t see a way through from here. Even if she found Eden, how could that help them?
He kept his motions tight, his form perfect. Merkabah was about efficiency of motion. Every movement was calculated to inflict maximum damage with minimum effort. Every fight should be finished in the blink of an eye.
Once, when the Ark had no air, he had given Knight a Sentinel suit to explore this place. The suit was still here, and Knight had returned it. It meant David had a uniform he no longer deserved. He hadn’t been able to make himself put it back on. That honor had been stripped from him, and putting it on felt like one more crime on his record, one last line he couldn’t cross. Except, he knew he would have to. Eventually the suit, the armor, might be all that would keep them alive.
The door opened, and he turned to see Rachel enter the dojo.
“What is it with this place? Every time I turn around, you or Phoebe or Knight is in here.”
David tried to smile. He supposed it was what separated Rachel from the rest of them. Everyone here, except Rachel, was a warrior. Even Leah. Trained killers whose lives depended on their fighting skills day in and day out. Rachel had basic self-defense training and was a decent marksman, but she wasn’t a fighter. She was an academic. Maybe that meant she was better suited to lead the expedition. Or maybe worse—maybe this had become a war zone and he should have taken the ship from her. But she would never forgive him, and he could never do that to her. So instead he’d follow her into hell.
“What is it, lass?”
“An announcement just came over the Mazzaroth. Jericho Corp is claiming the Sentinels have taken the Ark and are refusing to share its technology with the rest of humanity.”
Bloody void. “They’re inciting the whole Conglomerate against us.”
“Not us, the Sentinels.”
Right. But David was a Sentinel. Even without the uniform, without the commission, his heart remained with them. How could it not? His dream from childhood had been to redeem his mum’s name. Now he had joined her in infamy.
“The Sentinels can deny they have the craft,” he said, “but no one will believe them.”
Rachel brushed her hair away from her face. The concern filling her eyes made him want to run to her and sweep her up in his arms. To tell her everything would be well. To kiss away her worries and her doubts. But he couldn’t. He walked closer, but couldn’t make himself hold her.
“Remember the man you said was running Gehenna, Caleb Gavet?” she asked. “Word is he’s the new Chairman of Jericho Corp. So what’s his game? Why stir up people against the Sentinels?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”
She quirked half a smile. “Didn’t expect you would.”
David scratched his head. “Aye, let me get cleaned up. Then I need to make a call.”
“Mac …”
He shook his head. “It’ll be all right, lass. I’m not going to give away our position.”
He returned to his quarters and showered off, his mind racing. Jericho Corp was obviously trying to get the Ark for themselves. Was it possible they really thought the Sentinels had taken the ship? Quasar Industries had to know better, they’d been there, but QI and Jericho were barely on speaking terms, last he heard. Maybe this Gavet was just confused. Of course, it could be selling the man short. Maybe it was some plot to weaken the public’s faith in the Sentinels.
Either way, he needed to know what was going on. He’d made mistakes—he couldn’t quite say where, but he must have, to wind up here. All he could do now was try to correct them. But he couldn’t help his people unless he knew what was going on.
There were few Sentinels who would even deign to speak to him, condemned as he was as a traitor. But he could try. He’d earned some loyalty on every ship he’d ever served on. He’d spent his time with the crew, never setting himself apart, and he knew they loved him for it—the officers and the enlisted alike.
“Mazzaroth secure channel to Mahlah Blaise. Private mode.”
Several minutes passed before he received an answer. Maybe she had to find private quarters, or maybe she’d debated not answering at all. Either way, when Mahlah’s face appeared on his screen h
e breathed a sigh of relief.
“McGregor.” She said it like an accusation.
So it was going to be bumpy flying, then. “Mahlah, just hear me out.”
“Give me one reason why I should.”
“The Phoenix Dwarf.” He’d saved her life there last year.
She lowered her head, shaking it, and for a moment he thought she would cut the line. “Speak,” she said, at last.
“Look here, I know you don’t understand everything I’ve done lately. Please know I never meant to betray my command. There were factors you don’t know about.”
“There are always factors, David. I know what Captain Waller was doing to that civilian, which is why I went along with you. And I know you took the fall for the rest of us. But they put Waller back in command of the ship and they sent you away. Your noble sacrifice means nothing since you broke out of prison. You killed Sentinels.”
Mahlah was a senior officer; it shouldn’t surprise him she knew. And Rachel had done the killing, but he supposed he was culpable enough in that.
“Mahlah, I never wanted that. And I didn’t ask them to rescue me, but it’s done. I need to know what’s going on. I have to do what I can to make this right.”
Mahlah snickered. “Make it right? How? You want to know what’s going on? Fine. The Conglomerate has filed a sanction against us. Which would be bad enough, but reports came in from the front that Asherah is mobilizing. Most likely the Confederacy plans to use the turmoil to press their claim to the outlying galaxies. Chances are good we’ll be at war in a few days. And, if I had to guess, I imagine they’ll be coming for the Ark, too, David. So, yeah, go ahead. Make this right.”
Well, shite.
“Mahlah, listen—”
“I have to go. Mazzaroth off.”
The screen went dead.
After forty years of relative peace, war was finally coming between Mizraim and Asherah. And instead of being where he belonged, on a Sentinel ship, he was caught in the middle.